The interest to build a reefer container was actually fueled by railfanning over in Livingston back in 1992. After rolling in to the depot parking lot at around 7 PM on a summer Saturday evening for a club work night, I watched as an eastbound intermodal came rolling down the long lead toward the yard. Lots of double stacks behind the lead units, then some flats, then came a 5-unit well set with some rather unique boxes in the upper possition. What made them unique was the fact that they all had some sort of ventilation device mounted to the front. I learned later that these were refrigeration units, and realized that they would have to be modeled sometime during my lifetime.
Fast forward to today - the dream is realized (or at least partially built, anyway). After seeing the Walthers rendition, I figured that I could do better. The last photo in Brian K's (about 20' container chassis prototypes) article in the November 2001 RMJ really got me hooked - a nice looking Transamerica 20' reefer built by Hyundai sporting a Carrier Thinline reefer, all riding on a red Hyundai chassis. The fire was lit.
What follows are some work-in-progress photos.
Just kidding - I got a kick out of the brownish hue of the photo - the flash was definitely off.
I plan on building at least two more Carrier Thinline reefers soon. With the multiple phases and changes seen on these reefers over the years, they are definitely fun and interesting models to build. Now if I can only get all the notes organized so I can figure out what, when and why I did what I did. It will be helpful for an upcoming article.
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