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The outer(of four) loop has a passenger train and a freight train, an MTH Texas provides the power.  The freight train was Santa Fe boxcars from several manufacturers.  A member of this forum has purchased at least five PRB 50' double door boxcars which will be replaced by express and reefer cars.  This weekend two K-Line meat reefers arrived.  These cars were offered shortly before K-Line ceased operations and have a lot of detail.  The bunker hatches open and may be positioned with the bars/straps, the roof is removable and has meat rails on the underside(hooks and sides of meat are provided), the couplers have air hoses, and Kadee compatible couplers with shims are in a separate packet.DSCN1816

Lionel reefer, MTH weathered reefer and a Weaver express boxcar with LCL freight.

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Atlas Grand Union and two K-Line ice bunker reefers with meat rails and bunker hatch doors that open. The K-Line reefers will get a dusting of yellow and tan chalk powder above the trucks and brown chalk powder on the sides below the ice hatches.

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Weaver car with wood walls, Weaver car converted to bulk grain service and an MTH 40' general service boxcar.

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Repainted MTH caboose, K-Line boxcar and a PRB double door 50' boxcar with end doors.

Texas engineTexas tender

MTH 2-10-4 pulls the trains on the outer loop(Track 1)  and a Pecos River 4-6-4 pulls the trains on Track 2.

John in Lansing, ILL

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Last edited by rattler21
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Matt, The meat cars left the factory with a white envelope inside the car containng the meat hooks and sides of beef.  The meat rails are molded into the underside of the roof.  The Kadee couplers and shims are in a clear plastic packet in a pocket in the Styrofoam. 742-80xx series of cars. Other cars had card stock sheets to be cut, shaped and glued to form crates/boxes.  John

Last edited by rattler21
rattler21 posted:

Matt, The meat cars left the factory with a white envelope inside the car containng the meat hooks and sides of beef.  The meat rails are molded into the underside of the roof.  The Kadee couplers and shims are in a clear plastic packet in a pocket in the Styrofoam. 742-80xx series of cars. Other cars had card stock sheets to be cut, shaped and glued to form crates/boxes.  John

John - I hit the jackpot on 2 of 3 meat cars that I had on display. Packets inside were still sealed. (Not sealed now). The Libby car did not have the envelope, only the ice chests & meat racks. 
E3363AFF-10E2-4242-A8F0-C11734718B376FFED357-B553-4C55-BC5E-494E1FE5DB07EE6551DA-1F51-420F-B059-0E4134FD07EAThanks for your help once again. 

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G3750 posted:

How about a PRR cabin car lettered for REA Express Service?

George

All of the cars in this thread are cars used in freight service, not express.  Express was handled by the Railway Express agency, later REA, and handled in passenger trains.  Express cars were equipped with passenger brake systems, not a good mix with freight service.

John -  I really like all the details on K-Line cars. These reefers are nicely painted with sprung trucks. Thanks to you, I found the details inside. Opening the sealed bags was like Christmas 65 years ago.  Now I’ll be on the lookout at our local shows. 
I opened the roof on the Fairway Pullman that I got from a friend because 3 or 4 people were rattling around. I had to patch the red wire after adding more passengers. The black wire had a functioning little plug. I have to pluck up my courage to open the other Pullmans. 

I have a video of the Pullmans running on the OGR thread, “what did you do on your layout today?” Page 863.


Thanks for your help & advice. 
Happy New Year!

I have 12 of the KL 742-XXXX Billboard reefers, most new, and except for a couple have never been taken out of their boxes.  Really nice cars.  I am going to open one up and see if the sides of beef figures are there. The KL have the same body as the Atlas Billboard reefers, but with slightly less detailed trucks (I have 17 Atlas reefers).  Since I've opened very few, I don't have any photos of them.

My original goal was to have a long train of these Billboard reefers, but I'm now leaning towards PRR specific express and mail trains of the late 40s.  The Billboard paint scheme on the KL and Atlas reefers, as well as a couple of Lionel ones I have, became illegal and was pretty much gone by my layout's era.  So, I'm not sure what to do with them; display them or sell them.  Since they are all in storage I'll decide later.

UPDATED

Last edited by CAPPilot

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