“I am a steadfast believer in the increased quality of life that comes from creating something by hand. While buying ‘stuff’ may give a short term high, much like a candy bar buzz, it quickly wears off leaving you where you started. The satisfaction that comes from creating something, however, is long lasting and therapeutic.” [...]
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Pacific Fruit Express class R-40-23 steel refrigerator cars were ordered in 1946; deliveries began in January, 1947, and until that October. See Anthony W. Thompson, Robert J. Church, and Bruce H. Jones, Pacific Fruit Express, 2nd edition, page 173. The cars were numbered 46703 to 48702 (2,000 cars) and 5001 to 8000 (3,000 cars). Production was as follows: 46703 – [...]
In this installment, I’ll discuss modifications to the sides of the Accurail 8500 Series 40′ Steel Plug Door Refrigerator Car to model a PFE R-40-26. The next installment will deal with the ends and roof, followed by the underframe, and finally painting, decaling, and weathering. Like many modelers, destructive work is done before constructive work. That [...]
Part III was supposed to have more on the construction of my PFE R-40-26, but since part II, Tony Thompson has written an unprecedented three consecutive blog entries about this car. You can find them here: Kitbashing a PFE R-40-26 Kitbashing a PFE R-40-26: Update Kitbashing a PFE R-40-26: Update 2 Tony’s raised a few [...]
I was asked how easy was it to cut the sill to make the bottom sill notched like the R-40-26, so I thought I’d answer that question in this post. E-A-S-Y! Let’s take a look at the back of one of the sides: I’ve already cut away the portion that’s not needed, but you can [...]
On a lark, I bought an Accurail #8504 Plug Door refrigerator car (reefer). It was an impulse buy – on sale for $12 at M. B. Klein. I don’t remember reading about this car, especially in discussions of PFE Reefer models. When the model came, I found a kit that was very darkly painted, but had [...]
In part 0, I discuss the inspiration and background for this model. Sunshine Models had produced a resin kit of the Pennsylvania X31F, but the owner has retired, and the kits are no longer in production. Fortunately, Bowser produces a model in styrene – a medium more modelers are comfortable working with. Breaking news: David [...]
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Thursday, February 16, 2012
What’s an SP modeler doing modeling a Pennsylvania freight car? And an oddball car at that? Rest assured, I’ve not turned into a Slobbering Pennsy Freak (SPF for short). However, freight car rosters should reflect the time and place you want to depict, and the sheer number of Pennsylvania freight cars that were around, even [...]
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I started work on some Southern Pacific C-30-1 cabooses a couple weeks ago. The Southern Pacific (and it’s subsidiaries) had more cabooses of this class than any other class. It’s a mandatory model for anyone modeling the Steam or Steam-Diesel transition era, and I didn’t have any. For more information, please see Tony Thompson’s blog, or better [...]
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A friend of mine asked – Have you used your mill yet? The answer is Yes! I built a fixture to hold N-scale locomotive shells so that I can drill accurate holes for various wire detail parts, like grab irons (sometimes called Hand Holds), and lift rings (much like an eye bolt). This fixture [...]