Mechanical Reefer Rescue

 Greetings All,

Mechanical Reefer Rescue

This story dates back to 2015 when I began to paint my rolling stock for the New York Central and Penn Central. At that time I paid little to no attention to prototype rosters, road numbers or anything else. Rattle can Jade Green and Microscale Decals were used with reckless abandon. 

The three mechanical reefers in this post painted in the carefree days of no prototype information looked good but the NYC and PC didn't have these types of cars on their rosters. This later relegated the three to the purgatory box as more prototypical reefers joined the roster. 

Not wanting to attempt a total strip or repaint of these cars because one the jade green went on very thick and I didn't think it would come off. Number two spraying over the thick coat of paint wouldn't look good either.

I think the PC reefers are Model Power products, the NYC reefer above is a Bachmann product. All cars were upgraded with body mounted Kadee #5 couplers, Proto 2000 metal wheelsets and additional weight.

Reefer Rescue Phase 1

The freelanced Empire Belt to the rescue. I have a group of EBRR boxcars with both the NYC and PC heralds like this EBRR 50'er.

After months if not years of contemplation on what to do with these freight cars which included patching the reporting marks and road numbers out or just stripping them for parts I finally made the move.

Phase 1 of the project has former PC 167358 now EBRR 5809. I used the jade green parts of Accurail decals set that I purchased many years ago to renumber some of their NYC boxcars. 

Former NYC 36830 is now EBRR 5803.

Former Penn Central 229007  is now EBRR 5894.

Phase II

The roofs have been painted white to give the cars a more reefer like appearance. Those wheels and trucks will need to be addressed.

The masking tape pulled off some of the EBRR decal which was something that I was afraid would happen. 

A good enough repair with a thin brush and white paint.

The NYC Herald also suffered some decal removal damage. The large white letter N and part of the black stripe came off. Once again a thin brush and some paint did a good enough repair. I also brush painted the vents black. 

The 5809 wheel faces have been brush painted flat black and the trucks were rattle can painted flat black.

It's December now and the EBRR 5894 and 5809 are getting loaded at the Schaefer Brewery and will offer protective heater service to the one beer to have when having more than one.

The trio of EBRR reefers were lensed this day at one of their usual haunts, Empire Produce in Empire City, NY. 1:87 Emery is Emery on the spot to record the refrigerator cars movements.

Final Thoughts and Comments!!!

Adding the EBRR reporting marks and renumbering the cars into the EBRR refrigerator roster while not great has given them a new lease on life. We'll see how long this lasts. The project did allow me to practice patching out lettering and road numbers which is a plus.

The story I'm going with is that these were always EBRR cars but were renumbered into the 5800 series with new clean reporting marks for better book keeping. And that's the story.

Thanks for reading!!!

See you soon!!!