N scale US Gypsum diamond-grill roofwalk?

[leighant]

Does anyone make US Gypsum (proto mftr) expanded metal running boards (roofwalks) in N scale?
I recently acquired secondhand a 20-30 year old Atlas #2393 40’ steel refrigerator car decorated beautifully for Railway Express Agency. But apparently REX didn’t have any 40’ steel reefers in the 1950 period I model according to the April 1954 Official Railway Equipment Register.
That’s okay, I really need a lot more Santa Fe reefers in order to model solid trains of bananas running north from Galveston when the banana ship comes in once a week. I have always assumed those old Atlas reefers could be used to model Santa Fe steel bunker reefers with hinger doors.
I took a close look through the Santa Fe Modelers Organization (now Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society) book Refrigerator Cars: Ice Bunker Cars 1884-1979, vol.2 of the Santa Fe Railway Rolling Stock Reference Series. The Atlas models have gussets on the bottom of the side sills-- trapezoidal shapes pieces where the sides are welded to underframe cross pieces. On nearly all the classes of Santa Fe 40’ steel reefers with hinged doors, the gussets line up with the side panel seams (ie rivet row on the model). But on the Atlas model, the gussets don’t line up.
The only class of similar Santa Fe reefers found with the side sill gussets in that configuration was the RR-38, a class of only two cars built in 1945. The Atlas model matches those two cars pretty well. The ends are close to a 4/4 standard Dreadnaught, the roof is steel rectangular panel, doors seem to match. The model has poling pockets which the prototype doesn’t. Shouldn’t be hard to file off.
Now for the roofwalk. Refrigerator Cars: Ice Bunker indicates that the RR-38 had US Gypsum expanded metal running boards. I found a diagram of that design of running board in a portfolio of “Equipment Detail Drawings” included as a supplement to Santa Fe Modeler 4th quarter 1988. It shows a diamond-pattern metal grill that looks like a kind of material I occasionally see on barbecue grills. Atlas model came with a roofwalk that was a pretty good approximation, for mass produced plastic, of a Trilok-Apex steel running board, a grill shaped like lots of small elongated rectangles. There are some etched brass parts for similar running board, nice and “see-through”--- but still the rectangular pattern, not the diamond-pattern grill. Anyone know of anyone who makes these for N scale. (Would have to be pretty fine.)

Or I am I getting too picky over finishing a 20-30 year old “ready-to-run” car?

[tjsmrinfo]

leighant
try this website out www.planomodelproducts.com he has roofwalks and other stuff in both
ho and n he is also in plano,tx just north of dallas

tom