Category Archives: Freight Car Kits

Stretching a Southern box car kit

Fenton Wells kitbashed a cool Southern Railway box car and sent details and photos. Here’s his latest model building story.

As most modelers of the transition era know, the Southern had thousands of 36-foot double-sheathed box cars with steel underframes and truss rods. Small as they were the railroad didn’t fill their cars, so they served the railroad through the early 1950’s.

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Building a Western Pacific PFE R-30-9 reefer

Photo from Bob’s Photo collection

George Toman shares his work updating a couple HO scale reefer kits. George has some cool techniques in this post.

In 1923, the Western Pacific joined Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) and added a number of cars to the PFE fleet. The cars were built to current PFE standards and designs. They featured a WP herald on the right side. Although owned by the WP, were part of the general PFE fleet.

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Swift 40-foot reefer – Sunshine Models Kit 46.17

Chuck Cover added a new reefer to his HO scale freight car fleet. He sent the following notes and photos on his SRLX 14950 build, seen above in Chuck’s Northumberland yard.

I purchased a Sunshine Models 40-foot Swift reefer kit about a month ago. There wasn’t a kit box or instructions, only the kit parts. I have built three of the Sunshine 36-foot Swift reefer kits and really like the red cars with the large white Swift herald. On my PRR Shamokin Branch layout the Swift cars service the Chef Boy Ar Dee plant in Milton, PA. I thought that this 40-foot car would complement the three 36-foot cars.

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