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Post by bn7023 on Dec 22, 2023 14:06:12 GMT -8
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Post by wagnersteve on Dec 22, 2023 15:07:47 GMT -8
12/22/2023, finishing just after 6 p.m., EST
It reminds me of a 50' silver Swift's car with Swift's above Premium in silver on a vertically oriented bright red oval flanked by fancy curlicues in the same red to the right of the reefer door as seen head on, ordinary black Roman reporting marks left of the door, and a reefer unit recessed into one end, that used to be in bad condition next to the former D&H, originally Albany & Susquehanna, main line at or near Cooperstown Junction, NY. I have a carbody casting of an old plastic model like that, with boxcar red ends, that I think was made by Bachmann. But at present it is in a storage unit in the town next to mine and I'm without a working automobile of my own for the next few weeks.
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Post by cpr4200 on Dec 22, 2023 21:51:46 GMT -8
I thought of the Swift cars too, but this one doesn't look like the model:
Armour had some 40' meat reefers with the refrigeration unit in the end like that.
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Post by jeoffreythecat on Dec 23, 2023 3:56:36 GMT -8
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Post by cpr4200 on Dec 23, 2023 11:18:53 GMT -8
The Pemco cars were "almost" OK. The car you linked to looks like an FGE prototype. IIRC they had a double plug door car that reminded me of the big UP BX express cars.
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Post by GP40P-2 on Dec 23, 2023 11:32:32 GMT -8
The short doors are weird; the horizontal seam screams General American built, and their leasing unit URTX. Here is a Milwaukee example: Milw URTXOf course, no Thermo King unit, and the model's end corrugations appear to be a much older style. |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Dec 23, 2023 12:24:42 GMT -8
AHM did a bunch of cars that were based on cars that were unusual and "interesting": helium, calcium carbide, NP stock car..........
I expect this one, too, had a prototype. And AHM departed from prototype as necessary (see NP stock car).
The car reeks of a rebuild done in the fifties, or early sixties.
I'd sure be pleased of someone, say Tangent, decided to re-issue all these cars as proper current models. Starting with the helium car, of course. Then we have that NP stock car. And etc.........
Ed
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Post by GP40P-2 on Dec 23, 2023 13:25:17 GMT -8
The (crude) Hydra-Cushion cylinder and cushion underframe is interesting as well, but probably just an underframe reused from something else.
And the "ACF" builder logo on the side is likely as much a fantasy as the BN/WFEX paint scheme.
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Post by lvrr325 on Dec 23, 2023 15:35:28 GMT -8
I'm not sure where this tooling originates. Roco was behind some of the previous cars, but these were new tooling in the late 70s or early 80s. This, the "fat boy" tank car and a couple of others. The snap tab on the end is the giveaway on the box cars.
If you could pinpoint the first year of release I'd then scan through the previous two-three years of RMC and MR for any drawings that match up to it. A lot of AHM stuff started there.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Dec 23, 2023 16:46:50 GMT -8
I know their C-424:  was based on drawings in RMC, as that super-neat EMD fan on the roof just behind the cab was mistakenly added on the RMC drawings. It's my impression that a lot of the early '70's AHM "interesting" freight cars were based on drawings and/or photos from the Car Builders' Cyclopedia. Of course, AHM adjusted various dimensions, as necessary. And also made the cars VERY sturdy, so little hands could enjoy them. Ed |
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Post by lvrr325 on Dec 24, 2023 10:18:13 GMT -8
The C424 is interesting because Roco made it. But it shares almost nothing with any other Roco diesel - the weird snap in coupler covers are about it. My guess is it's made to AHM's specs to be cheap, where the other later diesels were intended to be higher quality.
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Post by bn7023 on Dec 25, 2023 2:58:05 GMT -8
Edwardsutorik, Cyclopedia? there was!! This is the 1974 edition of Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia. Click here to enlarge |
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Post by lvrr325 on Dec 25, 2023 7:22:22 GMT -8
That clearly is the car, but looks like they fitted to an existing car.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Dec 25, 2023 8:06:37 GMT -8
Edwardsutorik, Cyclopedia? there was!! This is the 1974 edition of Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia. Good work! And thank you! Ed |
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Post by GP40P-2 on Dec 25, 2023 8:12:59 GMT -8
Amazing! 1974 and they thought that they would market this with the obsolete small swing doors? Or was this just a test car? AHM put roof walks on which appear to have been removed already. Did TK actually sell this to anyone? Was it out of the URTX fleet as a sample conversion?
Good find!
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Post by simulatortrain on Dec 25, 2023 8:17:11 GMT -8
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Post by hudsonyard on Dec 25, 2023 8:43:32 GMT -8
This is a car i'd love to see Fishbelly get his hands on, although I don't know if even Brian could take on those ends into something presentable..
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Post by GP40P-2 on Dec 25, 2023 13:32:42 GMT -8
Actually less like Dial, and more like "Mrs Suds" or something from the dollar store! |
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Post by Mr. Trainiac on Dec 25, 2023 16:24:59 GMT -8
Amazing! 1974 and they thought that they would market this with the obsolete small swing doors? Or was this just a test car? AHM put roof walks on which appear to have been removed already. Did TK actually sell this to anyone? Was it out of the URTX fleet as a sample conversion? Good find! The car in the advertisement has no road number or reporting mark. I suspect Thermo-King took an older General American reefer and converted it simply to demonstrate the technology, not operate it in revenue service. Maybe they were hoping to start a conversion program to refit older cars with these one-piece bolt-on units. 60 foot mechanical reefers like the Intermountain, Athearn Blue Box, and Red Caboose models had been in use since the 60s, and that style of refrigeration equipment is shown in the cutaway diagram at the bottom of the ad to compare against. |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Dec 25, 2023 17:33:37 GMT -8
The car in the advertisement has no road number or reporting mark. I suspect Thermo-King took an older General American reefer and converted it simply to demonstrate the technology, not operate it in revenue service. The lack of reporting marks and road numbers is often explained by the advertiser removing them so as not to "offend" potential customers. Note all the other data sprinkled around the car side--not something to do if you planned on keeping it on the property. And once it's "off the property", it will HAVE to have reporting marks. I think it's shown at the bottom of the ad because they are also offering to build that version, too. They have two model designations: RCD and RCE. Ed |
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Post by bn7023 on Dec 27, 2023 18:14:57 GMT -8
I looked at each magazine page found using the Railroad Magazine Index. A photo was found. Page 29 of the Jan. 1991 issue, Model Railroading Magazine. The fuel tank and crossover platform are unclear. Please more information. Click here to enlarge.  |
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Post by bn7023 on Feb 8, 2024 19:57:27 GMT -8
I acquired "The Great Yellow Fleet -A History for American Railroad Refrigerator Cars" by John H. White, published in 1986. On page 116 there was a photo of a reefer that looked exactly like the model. There is a roofwalk, and the reporting mark is "MART." This MART is said to be "American Refrigerator Transit Co.: added 4/1960; 4/1961-10/1966; eliminated 10/1969" ( Research by Ian Cranstone), so it matches the era. The next advertisement for Model Power was published in the July 1982 issue of MR magazine. The predecessor model is said to have been imported by AHM from Mehano in Yugoslavia in the 1970s, so there must have been some information on it. 1554 |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Feb 8, 2024 20:45:17 GMT -8
Good work!
I'm looking at the photo, and it sorta does look the same. Except where it's not--end corrugations, door height...
And it looks like a nominal 40' car. Not 50'.
I believe the car in the photo is supposed to be an ice reefer converted to a mechanical. Thus not 50' long, nor as tall as a boxcar, which the model appears to be.
The car does not appear in my April 1961, January 1965 nor April 1968 ORER's.
All of the entries are for nominal 40' cars, except for the single entry in April 1968: MART 62436 was 55' - 6" overall length, with a 4' door.
So MART 61528 (the car in the photo in the book) was one short-lived assignment. I note that there are no reporting marks nor data on the car side, which kinda looks suspect.
The good folks at AHM were known to adjust various dimensions so as to make the model easier to produce.
Ed
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