The last installment in that series covers an old Bachmann ribbed 50ft mechanical reefer. Of the lot, this was both the most promising and the most deceptive. Not surprising given this car tooling dates back to 1972. Around the same era, Athearn issued its own version of this car which was nominally better. Both were based on a series of PFE 50ft mechanical reefers with ribbed sides . My knowledge of this subject being limited, the series are R-70-11 to R-70-12. Many would later be repainted in Union Pacific Armour Yellow when PFE was dissolved later in the 1970s.
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| A little bit crude, but not too bad for a 1972 tooling |
The Bachmann tooling is promising because the car sides, for a toy, are rather nice and match the prototype pictures. The tooling is crisp and most details are well-rendered, particularly when you strip the thick factory paint. Unfortunately, the praise stop there as we look at the roof and ends. At that moment, we discover the old trick that manufacturers loved to use until the 2000s: modular tooling.
It was common, to reduce the cost of tooling, to recycle similar parts from existing cars in the manufacturer lineup. The easiest things to reuse were the underframe, trucks, roofs and ends. Sides would be replaced by newer ones to match the prototype. Most of the time, it was a decent solution. Athearn and Roundhouse pulled that off quite a bit with their 40ft covered cars. Trains Miniatures was quite infamous for pushing the gimmick to the extreme. Sometimes, it worked, but only for a limited number of prototype such as Athearn recycling their ends/roof steel ice tooling on their wooden reefer cars.
As long as the car length and height was about the same, the trick was somewhat acceptable given the era's limitations. But things started to look weird when a car side had to be stretched or compressed to fit the tooling size. This was particularly apparent with Roundhouse single-sheathed boxcar which has nice car sides with hat-section steel members but was made taller by adding filler to fit the 40ft steel boxcar ends. That's why if you want to make that car prototypical, you have to remove almost everything except the modified sides. Even the width is wrong!
That brings us back to our Bachmann car. The roof was your typical Bachmann 51ft plug door diagonal panel roof with molded roofwalk. Using this part set the car length to be shorter than the prototype. Then, add to that the car ends that were also recycled from the same plug door cars. They are, by any standards, not looking great with their shallow flat ribs. The big issue with the roof is the prototype one merged with the car sides with a sheet gently curving, giving it a monolithic appearance. The Bachmann roof has that step on top of the eaves which doesn't fit the real car. As for the car ends, let's just say they are a goofy approximation and worst, the brake end was molded on the from end! Someone inverted it when preparing the tooling.
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| Painting the molded details black and adding a Tichy running board |
I was at the crossroad and needed to decided how far I was going to go with this one. The molded roofwalk had to go. I tried to keep it by adding a shadow line on its side to create the illusion of a separate part and adding a Tichy one on top of it but it was a fool's errand. So I took upon myself to carve out the running board and scribe the diagonal roof pattern by hand. It took about two evening to get a satisfying results and it was less frustrating that I thought. I won't lie, I was about to remove completely the roof and replace it with a Branchline ones, but it was too long for the car due to the discrepancies I mentioned earlier.
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| Carving out the running board, one panel at a time... |
If I didn't change the roof, changing the car ends was less attractive. I had to replacement parts that would be a decent match for a PFE R-70-12. So I made the trade off to accept the brake wheel was at the wrong end. At that point, I new this car was just a big compromise. If my goal was prototype accuracy, I would have simply binned the car without a second thought. At the end of the day, you are better off using an old Athearn Blue Box car is you want to model that car using old tooling. At least, they got a few things better than Bachmann half-baked effort.
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| The "wrong" car end with improve brake platform |
After making these decisions, a new modified Tichy steel running board was glued in place and I filed down the stirrups to make them appear thinner. All grab irons were replaced with wire ones and some extra details were added to the brake platform. A lot of filing work was required to bring the underframe to the correct height. Bolsters were filed down and coupler boxes replaced altogether. New fuel tanks were scratchbuilt and the brake apparatus was minimally improved with parts from the spare bin. I think the moment I discovered replacing the roof and ends would basically mean a full reconstruction, I lost my appetite to improve that car.
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| This time, decalling went perfectly! |
As I said in Part 1, getting the silhouette and the colors right is the least we can do and sure, I made my best effort to capture the right vibe about a PFE welded mechanical reefer. This time, I didn't need to fudge with decals because the Microscale set was perfect for ribbed cars.
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| In hindsight, I should have replaced the stirrups... |
At the end of the day, I have mixed thoughts about this car. I know its limitations, which are many. I wouldn't go as far as saying they are crippling or distracting in the middle of a fleet, but this is indeed just an approximation. I wish Bachmann didn't swap the car ends by mistake. For many of these reasons, I would recommend doing that project with an Athearn car. Sure, it won't be state of the art, but at least, things will be in the right place. A fellow modeller has already given some clues how to improve one.
With these 3 cars completed, I think we can move on and go back to regular modelling with higher standards!
