Express Reefer


	I’m working on building a 1:20 scale passenger train. One of the first cars is an express refrigerator. Phil Dippel has numerous wood kits, and I purchased a 40 foot refrigerator kit. In order to be a tad more modern, Phil gave it a “steel” underframe instead of truss rods.

The frame is made of wood and comes assembled.

Assembly of the kit is straight forward and basically consists of building up the “box” of the reefer and adding the details later.

The castings are very nicely detailed and require minimal cleanup.

One of the things I liked was that most of the parts are attached with small pins or nails.

The refrigerator needs big trucks! Express refrigerators would often use passenger trucks, so I decided to do the same.

These are LGB passenger trucks. I have added Sierra Valley 26” wheels. Since the wheels are a bit large, I had to trim the brakeshoes a bit to get them to roll freely.


	Here the car is nearly finished. The roofwalk was left unpainted but was weathered with A-West Weather-It.

Since this is such a long car, I was concerned how well it would handle my 12 1/2 foot diameter curves.

To the right you can see that there is no problem going around the curve. Here it is coupled to an AMS boxcar.