Size of Lionel o-27 Reefers

[alton6]

Does anyone here know, or wi***o speculate, as to why Lionel's traditional o-27 size reefers were/are made longer than the box cars? Were prototypical reefers longer than forty feet? Maybe with the models it allowed more room for lettering creativity...?

Full O scale reefer cars are usually the same length as boxcars. How come the 0-27 cars were not?

Thanks,

Carl

[Anonymous]

Maybe they were just recycling scale O gauge reefers to 027 like Lionel did with stuff years ago?

[wrmcclellan]

alton,

The short answer is that Lionel made toys. There is a lot of variation on their various cars. None of their traditional 0-27 stuff is true 1/48 scale or true to any modeling scale or even true to itself across their line. Only their Std O line is reasonably true to scale (note the term "reasonably").

Regards,
Roy

[alton6]

Thanks for the input. I know the reefers were made from a different and newer mold. A different plastic too, maybe. I've just been kind of curious as to why Lionel might have decided to make the car longer, and not having one in front of me at the moment, I think a bit taller as well. A larger product takes more plastic pellets after all...

Carl