Side Shot Saturday - starting 20 April

Harborbelt70, that tinplate cab forward is a great example of train items from the world of kitbashed tinplate. Over the years I’ve seen a variety of such efforts either exhibited or offered for sale at various train meets or on various trains-for-sale lists.  As one might expect, the quality goes from the very good, such as the one you have illustrated, to things that look like they should have never been attempted in the first place.


  About 15 years ago I saw a listing on a trains-for-sale list for a kitbashed American Flyer boxcar. The seller described it as a 6 ½ “car which was hand painted for the Freeport Milk Company. The price was very reasonable and I decided to buy it sight unseen. I figured, at worst, I could use it for spare parts.


When it arrived, it was filthy so I took some automotive cleaning wax and very carefully worked over the entire car. When I was finished, I had the car illustrated below






A careful examination of the car indicated it was an American Flyer NYC Merchant Despatch car. The owner painted the car yellow with tuscan red ends and then carefully scribed guide lines into the yellow paint to guide the extensive hand lettering of the car for the Freeport Milk Products Company.






This lettering is for a real car. The Freeport Milk Products Company was out of Freeport, Illinois and they did have a series of billboard reefers. I wasn’t able to find a photograph of the actual car but Lionel did issue one of these cars several years ago.





The color of the graphics of the Lionel car does not match the colors of the kitbashed car. Given the attention to detail of the kitbashed car I suspect it, and not the Lionel car, is the actual color of the prototype.


Besides the color scheme the only other difference between the Lionel and the kitbash is the placement of the "Elyria Equipment " notation on the car door. The Lionel car has this notation on the lower right-hand side of the car in small lettering next to the doors. A search of the book "Billboard Refrigerator Cars" by Hendrickson and Kaminski does have pictures of billboard express reefers with the "Elyria Equipment" emblem on the side.





  Considering the size of the kitbashed American Flyer car and the amount of lettering on the car sides the decision to put "Elyria Equipment" on the car door is an obvious one. According to Hendrickson and Kaminski Elyria glass lined tanks for milk shipment first appeared in the early 1920's. Most were installed in express refrigerator cars and most of the cars were operated by large car leasing companies however there were, for a brief period of time, some that were privately owned. As for the tanks themselves, they were manufactured in Elyria, Ohio by the Elyria Enameled Products Company.

AF3020, thanks for the detailed post with background / historical info. Alfred

Late to the party...no real side shots this week from me. Been working on a church for the Christmas display...slow progress:




Picked up the repairs from Don Carver. My daughter's Lionel 1684 is back in form having had its pick-up shoes replaced and a general tune-up. The Flyer 1096, however, still languishes. It runs using DC, but just grinds on AC...very strange.