When Richard Hendrickson passed away, I inherited several projects that were partly completed on his workbench. Among them was a steel refrigerator car. Even a cursory examination showed that it was an SFRD car, with its five-foot doors and reverse ice hatches. Richard had completed the body, including ice hatches and running board, and had added supports for ladders (small white styrene pieces).
(For those who don’t remember or never knew who Richard Hendrickson was, you might like to read my eulogy for him, which is at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/07/in-memoriam-richard-hendrickson.html .)
In the photo above, you can see the narrow inset or notch at the joint between the side and end of the car. This is a signature of Santa Fe’s first all-steel reefer class, RR-21. This is well documented in the authoritative book of which Richard was a co-author: Refrigerator Cars, “Ice Bunker Cars, 1884–1979,” Santa Fe Railway Rolling Stock Reference Series, Volume 2, C. Keith Jordan, Richard H. Hendrickson, John B. Moore, and A. Dean Hale, Santa Fe Modelers Organization, Norman, OK, 1994.
Below is a prototype photo from the book (Loren Martens collection), showing the right side of an RR-21 car in service at Los Angeles in the late 1930s. This was before maps and slogans were applied to SFRD cars, which began in January 1940. Note the air reservoir, mounted longitudinally in contrast to most Santa Fe freight cars, which typically had them mounted transversely.
When these cars were built by General American in 1937, 500 cars numbered SFRD 34000—34499, they were distinctive in receiving Duryea underframes (the most visible aspect of which is an extended coupler box). They also had the “recessed” Dreadnaught ends that are visible in the photo above. Richard had already added the underbody brake gear and a representation of the Duryea underframe (the white members). He had also chosen the truck frames he wanted to use.
I decided to go ahead with this project and complete it. Because the underframe had complete brake rigging (though not piping, which I would likely omit anyway), I really only needed to complete modeling of the upper body. But before doing so, thought needed to be given to painting strategy.
These cars, as is visible in the prototype photo above, were painted with black ends, roof, and underframe, along with black side hardware. They had a yellow-orange color for the sides. This kind of two-color scheme, then, will require masking whichever color is painted first, for painting the second color. One doesn’t want to paint black first, then have to achieve coverage with the yellow-orange.
But if detail parts were added before painting the yellow-orange sides, there would arise the challenge of having to mask car sides with ladders in place, in order to paint the black. I felt it would be easier to paint the sides before adding the side detail. Then detail parts on the roof and ends can be added, the sides masked, and the ends, underbody and roof then painted black. Finally, side detail, all of which will be black anyway, can be added.
A color recommended by Richard Hendrickson for Santa Fe reefer sides is Maine Central “Harvest Yellow.” Tru-Color Paint makes such a color, their number TCP-103. Following the strategy outlined above, I airbrushed the car sides “Harvest Yellow,” in preparation for adding roof and end detail parts.
I will return to this interesting project in a future post.
Tony Thompson
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