Kitbashing Santa Fe mechanical refrigerator cars
The Rr-87 and Rr-90 cars had the air reservoir mounted closer to one end of the car and set perpendicular to its length. The Rr-90
the truck centers for the Rr-90 were the same. As far as the floors, I left the floor of the Athearn 57-foot car alone for the Rr-91 but shortened it for the other two cars. Equal amounts were trimmed off the ends of two Athearn floors to give a total length of 55′-0″ for the Rr-90 and 53′-3″ for the Rr-87. Next, I sliced off the truck mounting
bosses from each floor and moved them inward. They were attached at the cor- rect locations using Tenax 7R, then the molded-on cross bracing at the new bolster locations was removed. Moore points out that all of Santa
Fe’s Super Shock Control cars were equipped with Keystone cushioned un- derframes. The center sills on the At- hearn model are the correct type, but have 46-foot long truck centers and we need 41′-3″ centers. I made a cut 3′-6″ inboard from the inner side of each body bolster, then made cuts 1′-0″ outside of the outer edge of the bolsters, thus freeing the coupler pockets from the bolsters. The bolster-center sill pieces were turned 180 degrees and set onto the mounting bosses on the floor, then the middle sec- tion of the center sills were trimmed to fit. After gluing the center sills back to- gether, I cut pieces of HO 2″×6″ strip styrene 2′-0″ scale feet long for splice plates; these were glued inside the out- er members of the center sills. Now the underframe was test-fitted to the extended draft gear-coupler pockets. The outer faces of the coupler pockets should extend about two scale feet past the end walls of the cars. I was able to re-use the Athearn parts for the Rr-91 and Rr-90 but chose a set of Walthers ex- tended draft gear for the Rr-87. After it
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underframe uses Athearn parts cut up and turned around. The Rr-87 (above) incorporates Walthers cushion underframe parts.
was glued in place, I installed Kadee couplers and the Athearn trucks. Page 108 of Moore’s book has a photo of an under-construction Rr-91 under- frame. It shows that the Athearn fuel tanks need to be widened and have piping added. I split a spare tank in half (all those leftover parts, you know) and added one half to each of the two tanks. I filled the joints with putty, sanded them smooth, installed
the
tanks, then added the cross-connected feed pipe and fill pipes to the tanks. The pipes were made out of .035″ styrene rod. The Rr-90 and Rr-87 have fuel tanks with curved sides. I cut a piece of Plas- truct ³/₁₆″ tubing slightly longer than the fuel tanks and split it in half lengthwise, then glued one half to the outer side of each Athearn fuel tank. The tank ends were sanded flush and end caps of .005″ styrene were glued to them. I finished up by trimming them to shape. Each of these tanks has a center band, which I cut from a strip of .005″ styrene .010″ wide; they were glued centered from side to side. For added detail, I liberated gauges from some spare R70-20 shells and mounted them on the horizontal centerline of the tanks about a scale foot toward the A-end of the car. The fuel filler pipes were cut from .035″-diameter rod and glued in place between the tank ends and the car side.
The last major work on the under- frame is installing the brake gear. The Cal Scale No. 283 AB air brake set would have been appropriate for these cars, but I raided my spare parts box. (Note that if you have not added such details before, buying one of the Cal
Scale sets is worth it to get the direc- tions and diagrams.) I reclaimed some Athearn air reser-
voirs and sliced off the two nubs on the side. Using the tip of a No. 11 blade, two starter holes were created in the center of the flats that were left; No. 77 holes were drilled in these locations. Four more No. 77 holes were drilled in a square pattern on the inside face of the AB valve, and one No. 77 hole was drilled into the center of the rear of the brake cylinder.
Installing these parts came next. (See the photos, keeping in mind that the brake cylinder and rod point to the B-end of the car.) Looking down on the underframe, the fuel tanks were glued in place to the right of the car center. On the Rr-91 the brake parts were mounted in a typical manner, as shown on the Cal Scale brake diagram and model photo. The reservoir was ce- mented parallel to the center sill close to the edge of the bottom. On the Rr-90 and Rr-87 the air reser-
voir was oriented perpendicular to the center sill and close to the truck; again, refer to the photos. For these cars I trimmed off the molded-on air reser- voir mounting post and mounting brackets on both ends, then glued the reservoir against the outside of the middle left cross member and against the center sill. The side of the AB valve with the two holes was placed to face the end of the car. Next, the AB valve was mounted on the opposite side of the center sill us- ing the existing mounting hole in the floor. I removed the mounting post from the brake cylinder and made a “bracket,” or mounting pad, from two
JUNE 2012
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