Improving that Athearn steel reefer

In a previous post, I showed some restoration work on one of the old (pre-1960) Athearn refrigerator cars, built from a metal kit. I provided some background on these models, and showed an MDT example which I own. That post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-athearn-metal-reefers.html .

Among the shortcomings of this generally well-done model is its running board. Much like the ones Athearn would later produce in styrene, it is intended to look like a metal grid running board, but has, if anything, even less three-dimensionality than the later plastic ones. You can see the relative flatness of it in this overall view. You may also notice that there are no corner grab irons on the roof.

Among the things I wanted to improve was this roof, because we see our models, at least in HO scale, very predominantly from above, so that an underframe blunder of some magnitude is invisible, while minor errors or omission on the roof are quite evident. 

I began by removing the Athearn white metal running board, which you see below in the foreground, leaving behind sizeable holes in the roof. This running board is about six scale inches thick, well oversize, but at least it’s thinner than the plastic ones Athearn would go on to produce for years. 

The holes are readily closed with small circles of thin styrene (made with a hole punch), and secured with canopy glue. I chose to use a Plano etched stainless steel running board for this mode, and attached it too with canopy glue. Now the grid is far closer to a correct thickness, and is open, not solid. Corner grab irons have been added. This photo also shows the “original” Kadee couplers, with a mechanical trip pin.

Next came painting the roof (it may be evident above that the ice hatches are not quite the color of the rest of the roof). I don’t have a paint that is an exact match to the Athearn boxcar red, but since it will get weathered, I am not concerned about the roof looking different.

One might wonder why an MDT reefer would be part of a fleet on a California layout. There are two reasons: when cars were in short supply (essentially June to October), reefers of any other owner were pressed into service. Even PFE’s huge fleet, approaching 40,000 cars, could only supply two-thirds of the cars needed in peak harvest season. And we know (see the PFE book, sidebar on page 25) that MDT cars were among the “foreign” reefers used in that season.

But there is an additional reason. SP documents of the 1950s direct that empty MDT equipment be sent to San Jose to carry canned goods (being used as insulated box cars). So when you see this MDT reefer being spotted at my wholesale grocery warehouse, Peerless Foods, it may well not be carrying produce, but cartons of canned foods. 

Here is an example waybill. Note that this is a freight waybill, not a perishable bill (which would be pink), and carries the notation, “do not ice.”

This reefer model joins two other MDT cars in my layout’s fleet of reefers, and as you saw above, is active not only at peak harvest season, but at other seasons for canned goods shipment.

Ton Thompson