Good news for Tropicana Juice Train fans !!

I guess I can always use a few more! 

Peter

Peter,

At the June club meeting, make sure we mention doing a consolidated Juice train at the Fair. I think we have three others in the club with Tropicanna cars too. It can run opposite from the "Train of Sin" (I'm up to 21 beer and 9 tobacco cars). I hope the Graves Mortuary Supply car makes it here soon.

Gilly

Man, I was hoping for another run of PFE reefers.  

One thing I'll have to say, I like Weaver's version of the 57' mechanical reefer cars much better than Lionel's standard O version in terms of overall accuracy. Lionel misses some significant details like the prominent hydraulic cushion underframe detail and a simulated diesel exhaust stack on the roof top which Weaver included on theirs. (Just where did Lionel think the diesel exhaust was supposed to go, I don't see an exhaust pipe going out the end or sides, LOL).  Lionel's outside braced ribbing on the car sides as well as the door sills that the doors slide open in are too oversized giving it a bit of a clunky look.  Of course since Weaver's sills are more scale in size that means the doors are permanently closed like on Atlas O's Berwick high cubes but that's fine with me.

I hope that the next bit of good news I hear is that the MTH RailKing Juice Train has arrived......with a Penn Central electric....shipping schedule says May....

Peter

John,

I really like the Weaver 57 foot reefer as well and have some in several road names. This one is my favorite, a custom repaint with scale shock control couplers. These FGMR cars were common on the ATSF in the early 90s. I have the decals to do one more when I get around to it. I had urged Weaver to make this roadname, and it even appeared in a catalog (I ordered all three numbers), but recently disappeared from the product locator. I suspect there wasn't enough interest, which is too bad. The Santa Fe also acquired some cars in this paint scheme, re-lettered for SFLC. Those and a number of other schemes remain for Weaver to do, as well as re-runs of past road names.

The Tropicana reefers run north on CSX in a unit train to New Jersey. Long cuts then return south on the end of an intermodal train. Were I modeling CSX. The actual cars used by the prototype are different from the Weaver car, but the Weaver model still is a much better option for modeling this operation than any other reefer car available in three rail O.

RM

Can anyone recommend a good Weaver dealer to order these from?

Thanks

Matt

Years back, I picked up a BNSF green Weaver mechanical car in 2 rail that I weathered up.  Yes, it is a very nice car.   I among others had hoped for an Atlas car, but you know how well that went....

I had a really nice Atlas O custom weathered juice car on ebay 3 times as 2r & 3r and couldn't even give it away at $35.00.

Any one interested in it , email me, otherwise I'll cut up the shell and use the Plug doors to make combination door cars.

I could get more for the weathered 2r trucks than the entire car, go figure.

Email ontraktwo@yahoo.com

Steve

Very nice Rich.  Did you use Weaver's cushion couplers on your cars?

I've noticed that Berkshire Valley does custom-paint jobs on Weaver's 57' reefer cars in 2- or 3-rail; and they are doing the ones that I'm looking for (PFE with all 3 colored logos, UPFE, SOO Line, and a couple of others.  So I might be placing an order with them soon. 

John,

Thanks. Yes, I use the Weaver cushion coupler on these. Eliminating the three rail coupler also hunkers the body down over the trucks very nicely.

Thanks for the heads up on the Berkshire Valley car. I'm interested in the UPFE scheme.

RM

does anyone know if sound will be in these cars? you know, the one that turned on and off the diesel generator?

Rich,

That's what I thought; I never did order the Weaver cushion couplers, I never saw any of them in person and the picture they show on their online parts list looks like a mock-up so I just cheated for now by using standard Kadee 805s and just mounted them by putting the screws into the furthest back hole on the draft box and the closest hole on the car's underframe to get similar results.  Not the most ideal way but did it as a stopgap until I could find better pictures of the Weaver cushion couplers, or make them work with Atlas O's version.  You're definitely right about the difference in looks when you can lower the Weaver car down to a more prototypical height by removing the 3-rail couplers.   I actually went all the way and completely 2-railed mine by putting in NWSL 33" wheels.   Oddly enough, I found that I actually needed to shim the cars up slightly when doing this as the car rode a bit too low.

BTW, the link to BV's custom-painted Weaver 57' reefer cars is here:

http://www.bcn.net/~bvinc/newitem.html