Modeling the PFE R-40-26 from the Accurail Plug Door Reefer Kit

Back in 2023 I was absorbed in a lot of projects and never published the story of my build of the PFE R-40-26 from the Accurail Plug Door Reefer Kit.

This is the writeup accompanying the finished kit at the June 2023 Bay Area Prototype Modelers meet. 

2000 PFE R-40-26 Ice Bunker Refrigerator Car were built in 1951-52 mostly at the PFE Los Angeles car shop. These were the first plug door mass production cars for PFE. They lasted into the 1970's. See Tony Thompson's massive Pacific Fruit Express volume pages 182-186 for more detailed information on the use and service life of these cars.

This model represents a brand new PFE R-40-26 in 1951-52 the first months of it's service life. The model is a bash of the Accurail plug door refrigerator car which has reasonably accurate roof and ends. The ends and sides are separate moldings that attach to a box structure. I did not attach the sides and ends until I was done with modifications, painting and decaling. Note that I consider this model to be a “2 foot” viewing distance model rather than an exact replica.

Modifications

Side Modifications:

• Removed placard boards from sides and created new boards from sheet plastic and attached in correct locations.

• Cutout side sills to match prototype and added shaft housing for precooling fans and control box. The model has the cutouts for this version indicated in the full length sill.

• Added Preco Electric Fan Medallions

• Removed and replaced grab irons but not ladder which was too difficult for me.

• Bent new sill steps to approximate PFE R-40-26 prototype from flat brass shapes. The sill step is unusual on this car and is inset a bit.

• Left Hand door stops added to both sides (bits of U shape plastic channel)

End and Roof Modifications

• A and B end replaced cast on grab upper irons.

• B end added retainer valve and pipe.

• B end replaced brake valve with Kadee Miner wheel

• B end replaced brake platform with Plano refrigerator car set platform

• Roof added corner hand rails using Tichy parts

• Roof replaced roof running board casting with etched Plano Morton running board

• A and B end added running board end supports from bent DA 2524 flat brass

Floor Underframe

• The Accurail underframe was retained but thecoupler boxes were cut off and replaced with Kadee 158's in narrow boxes with uncoupler trip pins removed.

• Air hoses were added from Accurail and Moloco parts

• The reservoir and AB valve are Tichy parts with .010 plastic rod used as pipes

• The Accurail brake cylinder and rodding slightly modified to approximate PFE rigging.

Paint

The original Accurail kit I started with were lettered for RATH meat packing. The lettering and paint were stripped as the orange was not close to the PFE color using Testors ELO. The separate sides made this easier than if the car was a single casting.

I do not use an air brush if I can avoid it any more (long story) so I rely on brush painting with Vallejo Model Color acrylics which level very well eliminating visible brush strokes. I have tried many different formulas to emulate the wavelength of PB Star Brand Daylight Orange. My current formula for brushing

• 3 drops 70.910 Orange Red

• 2 drops 70.911 Light Orange

• 1 drop 70.824 Orange Ocher

• 1-2 drops 71.261 Airbrush Thinner

PFE orange appears different depending on the strength and angle of daylight and the way individuals perceive the color. What you see is my interpretation.  

The Accurail roof color was fairly close to the SP FCR used by PFE. The running board and roof and were however covered over with Vallejo 7.814 Burnt Red.

The underframe and floor were painted with Vallejo 70.995 German Grey. Nothing on a railroad in true life is really that black a month after it is out of the paint shop.

Trucks

This past year (2023) Moloco released a series of new freight car trucks including plain bearing types that are usable for steam era modelers. After closely looking at photos from Ted Culotta's website and articles on PFE cars I was able to determine that the new Moloco Moloco TRK3 50T Ride Control truck that I fortunately had on hand were a match. Serendipity, as I hadn't planned for this use when I bought the Moloco trucks. Semi scale wheels have been used. These TRK3 trucks match the trucks in the photo of PFE R-40-26 9426 Ted Culotta's published in one of his PFE presentations and the specifications for the R-40-26 appliances published by Dick Harley.

Decals

These were a real problem. After a lot of messages on the espee.groups.io forum, it was determined that the Microscale set 87-501 1950's PFE Ice Cars, that Microscale itself was selling and I purchased on their website was an older version rather than the Dick Harley 2013 revised set, I was given a partially used set of the revised version with enough PFE R-40-26 specific decals to finish this project. I understand Microscale is in the process of fixing this problem.

The initial problem with whitening of the decal after decal setting was resolved by a tip from Dick Harley to use a drop of Windex to eliminate the problem.

Thanks to Dick Harley for help with the decal problems. Ted Culotta is planning to release a PFE R-40-26 side ladder etch kit at some time this year (2023) through his Speedwitch Media and new decals for the PFE R-40-26 through National Scale Car (NSC). This model was built between February and June 2023. Tony Thompson's PFE book is the major source of information on the design and building of the prototype R-40-26.

I am not including prototype photos due to copywrite considerations. 

This is the end result

Left side with Preco fan mount and control box.

Right Side

I have another Accurail plug door reefer kit that I have not built and may try the scratch built method for modeling the plug door in full relief along with standoff ladders at the ends and car ends as Fenton Wells has documented in his blog http://blog.resincarworks.com/upgrading-accurail-plug-door-reefers/

Just will take a long time to get to that with many other layout and equipment projects ahead of visiting the PFE R-40-26 again.

Modeling Track in Dirt Up to Tie Top Level

Modeling track in dirt up to tie top level has been a goal of mine for the SP yard tracks at Port Costa. 

I rebuilt the east yard end towards the end of 2023 but never recorded it here.  At some point in 2024 I became interested in making my Peco turnouts resemble mid 20th century SP track practice. I was able to get a PDF of the SP common standards for turnouts. There are 70 pages each covering various components of the turnouts and how they are installed. 

The first phase was an experiment to model track in dirt up to tie top level

The turnouts and track were glued to .030 plastic sheet with cockpit cement. Rail and turnouts were then painted and weathered as needed.

 

I used 2 mm thick craft foam material available a craft stores such as Michaels as the fill between ties.  First material is cut to fit the outline of the turnout (in this case multiple turnouts and track) and glued around the turnout and track outline. I paint the the foam with titanium oxide to get the color of dried adobe clay dirt common in my area. This will of course vary by the area of the country you model. I lighten colors as much as possible as we are not usually viewing layouts in full strength natural light.

Strips of the foam material are cut about 3 mm wide and then into 15 mm long pieces to fit into space between ties between rails and 5 mm long pieces to go between ties outside the rails. The Code 70 Micro Engineering track ties are about 4 mm apart. Spaces between between the frog and switch ties in the turnouts varied along with lengths. The turnouts shown are the Peco #5 (4.5?) small turnouts I am using for yard trackage.

 

I glued the pieces or 3 mm strip between the ties with cockpit cement. While the clue is still wet, use a very small square blade tool (I use a spudger) to be sure the material is fully fitting between the ties.

 

After the glue dry another thick coat of your ground color paint (mine is the titanium oxide) is used to cover any gaps between the outline foam material and outer tie foam inserts.

There will be further blogs on this subject when I can spare the time from modeling.

It's Finally Here

The Oxford Diecast Miniatures HO scale 1950 Studebaker Champion Starlight Coupe is finally here. To me a definitive car to start the 1950s with its radical streamlined design. 

The color (colour for the UK and former British colonies/international English speaking/reading audience) is named Tulip Cream. Additional colors are promised by Oxford. The license plate is black with yellow letters and numbers. Appropriate for early 1950's California vehicle registration. No year tag is visible.

Granted this would be a luxury car unlikely to be seen in the Port Costa employees parking lot. Nobody else would be parking there in the early 1950's. Oxford loves to produce exotic US vehicles such as the 1942 Packard Woodie (station wagon) of which only 1000 were made before WW 2 production ceased. Vehicles for the Hollywood and New York elites not humble railroad employees of the Southern Pacific. 

Unfortunately the prices have tripled for Oxford Diecast HO cars from 3 years ago when I used to get them from now disappeared Hattons of Liverpool, once the largest international internet seller of model railways products. It's the US importer and dealers now getting their bigger cut (200%). This one came through Walthers and my local hobby store. $15.95 plus 9.75% sales tax versus 4.50 GBP, roughly US $5.00. Still worth it to me. 

With the price increase it has made it more likely I will source more US layout vehicles as 3D prints.  I have a pretty big collection of British OO 1930's and 40's Oxford scale vehicles, a few of which I can use as background passenger cars on the US HO Port Costa layout. Port Costa was also an out of the way place that was off any main roads. (It still is.) so only people who lived or worked on the railroad or in the Sugar docks at Crockett and refineries or factories there or nearby would be seen in Port Costa.  

On a personal note, in 1950 at age 6 I was living in the LA area and actually visited Hollywood studios with my well connected soon to be step mother. She wangled a visit to meet William S. Boyd, Hopalong Cassidy my 6 year old idol of the silver screen. No pictures have survived of me in a black jeans and fancy cowboy had with silver pistols but I remember the visit well.  

I don't remember seeing the Studebaker in this color while living in LA but as a newly minted US American boy having just emigrated from still recovering south of England new US cars were an exciting thing to see. 

In the fall of 1950, my parents moved to Billings, Montana and I got to see real American cowboys....two very big culture  shocks in a year...plus a total change in the language I had first learned. In Billings, I would get beat up in the 2nd grade speaking funny (English accent and using big words.) In 1952 I had a partial cultural reprieve when my parents moved back to California and San Francisco. But only partial as we lived way out in the cold, damp, foggy Sunset district. 

 

Just a Quick Update

This is a project I have been slowly working on.  Replacing the MDC Palace combine I have been using as the wash up room grounded coach behind the Port Costa roundhouse.   About 8 months ago I bought a LaBelle wood kit for an 1890's wood coach with vestibules. 

It has been a long story of the construction including a couple of periods of disability that put me off any model railroad activities beyond surfing, reading publications and maintaining https://plasticfreightcarbuiilders.groups.io/ which I own.

Anyway, I have also started a couple of projects including building a few Shasta Daylight cars to go with the Rapido SP Shasta Daylight dome car I have on order and am expecting sometime this year. Shasta Daylight cars were smooth instead of ribbed sided daylight cars with larger windows.  They were built in 1949 by Pullman Standard.  

In order to clear my workbench I needed to get the grounded coach finished and onto the layout.  I have finally done enough that the partially completed and of course unpainted coach can be placed on the layout for a "first view". 

Area behind roundhouse which is to the left.

From one of the 1956 Port Costa photos (copyright prevents including  here) it appears that then vestibule doors and windows had been removed. The colorized(?) photo appears to show the car had been recently painted SP engine facilities barn red as opposed to the very weathered round house building behind it. It also appears from cars parked nearby that the grounding was quite low to the ground. Perhaps tie height wood supports with several used to support the car body after the truss roads and queen posts were removed.

In building the kit, I had no inclination to carve the wood clerestory roof from the LaBelle kit so I found a couple of clerestory roofs from old MDC shorty "Overton" coaches. I measured and spliced them using tons of plastic filler to cover the joint. I have sanded that joint smooth. Unfortunately the roof is about 3 mm too long. As the grounded coach is staying in one place on the layout and the back end of it will not be visible to normal viewing, I have adjusted it  so the visible end meets the coach body. 

Closeup of the unfinished grounded coach. 

This is the information I have on a similar coach from an SP record card I was given that was used until 1957. I do not have the actual record card for this coach grounded at Port Costa.  The Port Costa coach is also one of the 1886 Barney & Smith coaches I believe for the Central Pacific. 

1097 SP RR Boarding (Pass) (Bunk) Built 10/27/1886 Barney & Smith Retired Coach 1638 7/15/1929 Oakland

Work order 5/31/1956 Ex-SP 118 circa 1891.  Laid aside 5/1929.  Converted from Laid Aside List.  First assigned Oakland.  Assigned use of Western Union Telegraph Co. unknown date.  Last assigned Compton.  Dismantled LAGS 6/14/1957.

I can't seem to type right now with out multiple keystroke errors.  So that's all folks...