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| Photos of early SUF are not common and most are unidentifiable. The second car behind engine 66 is an SUF reefer. The photo was probably taken in the late fall of 1910. This was cropped from a larger photo of brand new boxcar 8324, which rolled off the end of a spur track near Blackhawk. |
Modeling pre-1919 Colorado & Southern Refrigerator Cars
Part 2
Derrell Poole - Most of the Narrow Gauge cars were either scrapped or
modified in the late teens to comply with the United States Safety Appliances
act of 1911. We are very use to how the cars looked after about 1919 and
Reefers in particular from the 1930s onward. Part of my theory that reefers are
not “seen” much prior to about 1933 is that they may have been painted ordinary
Freight Car Red – with black lettering - in the interim between 1919 and about
that time. I’m not sold on this but it is a possibility and there seems to be
some suggestion from a few photos. At any rate when one goes to build cars from
kits the SUF reefers require a lot of “adjusting”. The Floor issue should apply
across the board so that even if you build a stock kit you should plug up the
frames. But if you are backdating your model everything else is a dated
feature.
The photos show what I did. The changes included non-framed
side ladders (no ladders on the ends) with only 4 irons per “ladder” – not 5.
These are 21” irons btw – most untypical for post 1919 cars. In all there were
just 14 grab irons per house car not counting the sill steps. In contrast there
were something like 32 grab irons on post 1919 house cars.
Another important and perhaps miss represented detail were
the brake staff and pertinent hardware. The Reefer staffs were 10’ 8” in length
on the original cars but they were enhanced with some interesting details gone
after 1919. But they show up in original drawings and they show up on similar
cars (boxcars). I model these with the addition of brass tubing to the
0.020" brass wire I use (the staffs were 1 1/4" in diameter and the
.020" wire is within a few .001" of that size in S scale). I also had
to modify the bracket parts to fit the mounting of the staffs. You will notice
both the grab iron and coupler lift bar are located between the staff and the
car. The irons stood 2.75” off the siding so the lower bracket had to be “built
up" to capture the end of the staff.
Under the frame I built one car using the Delrin brake lever
assembly as it came out of the box. That was a pain in the ass so on the
remaining cars I trimmed off the hangers and used brass wire instead. I also
modified the chain rod so that it didn't splay out to the side of the car where
the non-existent chain roller would have been located on a post 1919 car.
I also used the kit Brake Cylinder but decided I didn't like
it either. One nice thing about the OMI kit is that the airline to the brake
cylinder is cast in Delrin. I get pretty aggravated with the styrene versions
of this part because they are so delicate. Well in neither case did the stock
cylinder or Berlyn castings I used
really fit the airline well and the union on the cylinder disappeared under the
No. 76 drill needed for the pipe to fit into. Grrrr…
Another thing about this cylinder is that there isn't an
actual feature for the valve that was used to open the tank in the air
reservoir (at least not what seems to be present on the early versions - and it
appears this valve may have been moved to the top of the tank on later
versions. I’ll admit I’m kinda guessing at this “valve” but at least there is
something there for those levers to "open". Someone with a Master
Mechanics book might be able to research this. To me it’s a small thing and
I've addressed it well enough for this scale.
A bigger issue is the modern style side doors, which I
decided were not worth the trouble I went to on Car 500 (built several years
ago from a PBL kit - see photos A & B of part 1 of this series). You can
see I’m not worried about that either. (I know what is wrong with these cars
and it is my choice to live with that as opposed to just being dumb!)
I really went back and forth on the ice hatches. The
drawings show no tails on the hatches. But I could not find clear photos to
convince me that was how they were built. Well, I finally did find one that
strongly suggested they were built like the drawings showed and then looking at
less definitive photos I came to the conclusion that, as built, the hatches had
no tails. Also I reluctantly came to accept that one cannot use the nice 3
board roof walks included in the kit so I made up my own walks with (4) 5.25”
boards (Evergreen part no. 114). Another kinda bugger in the mix is that roof
grab iron. Not a lot of room to shoehorn it into place between the hatch and
the edge of the roof – at an angle! Push the hatches toward the roof walk as
much as the little placement nibs will allow!)
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The car on top was started first and I used the stock
Cylinder and brake rigging castings. But I didn’t like the stock cylinder and I
hate those Delrin brake hangers so I changed what I did on the 4 remaining
cars. This is how a pre 1919 frame should look (as detail and scale permit).
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This is what you see on all SUF kit built cars. In this case
I got the car already built and in fact it was lettered RGS. I corrected the
paint but did nothing to fix the frame details. This happens to be a boxcar so
it would not have the sub flooring. Still you can get an idea of how the reefer
frames differed.
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Item 1; I replaced the crappy Delrin hangers with Brass.
Item 2; I also pinned this lever to its pad for more security. Item 3; I added
a casting to represent the Drain Valve in the air resv. This seems to show up
if you look at earlier photos. Item 4; this is a Berlyn casting. I thought it
would work with the delrin air pipe casting better than the stock casting but
not so.
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Item 1; Like the airline casting to the brake Cyl. I get
really bent when my glad hands break off. This is a PCS brass casting soldered
to a tube and then ACC’d to the main airline. Item 2; Modified chain rod and
bottom staff bracket. Look close and you will see I built up the bracket to
accommodate the brake staff. Photos suggest this was sort what the prototype
looked like.
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Item 1; a different angle on the lower Bracket. Item 2; the
upper bracket was modified too. Note the tubing on the staff – top and bottom –
to reflect the 1909 version.
Item 3; backdated Coupler lift bars – note the grab iron and
bar are behind the brake staff. Also note where the Retainer valve is in
relationship to the staff.
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Item 1; sill step replaced modern casting (used the upper
parts of the casting). Item 2; No 5 rung ladders. (4) 21” Grab Irons. Item 3;
No Chain roller either. Item 4; the doors on the modern kits are probably not
correct but the hassle of changing them isn’t worth the trouble – to me at
least.
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Item 1; no tails on the hatches. I doubt if the hinges are
correct but I will accept these. Item 2; (4) 5.25” x 1” walk boards. Item 3;
that confounded angled grab iron one must shoehorn between the roof edge and
hatch!
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These were fun cars to build and building them in mass seems to have an advantage. I still have 5 more to build – and I need to paint these cars. That will be covered in part three.
Keep the Faith – Model Sn3!
Derrell Poole
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