My thanx to Wayne, Mr. Beasley & Trainnut (aren't we all?) for the replies and photos. They are great. WHat I was hoping for was to find drawings showing (at least) the dimensions of the supporting lumber (e.g 6"x6" posts or whatever, and he size of other structural members). Any chance one of you could scan a section of the kit instructions that (hopefully) shows the various dimensions? Or even just post here what the dimensions are of the lumber used to support the platform? Thanx again for the help.
The Church/Thompson book on the PFE has a good drawing that shows the dimensions and basic measurements of the PFE platforms. It also has the drawings for a cooling shed as well.
Here is a shot of my yet to be completed cooling shed with an Icing platform on the front built from the drawings in this book.
Have fun,
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
I picked-up three of these old-time refrigerator cars from the "used-table" at a now long-gone hobbyshop, for a buck-or-so each, and removed some of the cast-on grabirons and ladders, replacing them with free-standing ones...
...but it wasn't too much later that I decided that the ice hatches on the roofs were a bit on the clunky-side, so decided to again re-work all three of the cars.The first step was to remove the rooves, then replaced them with scratchbuilt ones...
...and running boards in lieu of the old-time ice bunker hatches...
...as I wanted them to be used solely as ice carrying cars to supply block-ice for reefers carrying perishable food-stuff, and also block-ice for a number of small ice-storage sites run by the various coal dealers scattered about my layout, like this one...
Here's three of the re-worked cars...
I also re-worked four of these Tyco 40' reefers...
...into 36'-ers...
While it's not like making a silk purse from a sow's ear, it can draw you further into re-working a variety of rolling stock to give your layout something that is not only suitable for your chosen time-frame, but also unique...rather than a bunch of slap-together almost r-t-r rolling stock. To each their own, I suppose.
Wayne
I have the same Walter's ice house kit as the good doctor, and I've added one extended platform kit to it. Modeling the Transition Era, I think an icing station is a great layout addition. I think J.L. Innovative also makes an ice house kit, which might look a little nicer.
I was shocked one day to find an ice cooled refrigerator car for the Milwaukee Road, my line, marked for Ice Service meaning it was one of those cars that filled the large ice houses to keep the cars cool as they traveled. It was a trainshow find, just a BB car, but I rushed home to equip it with metal wheels and Kadees before welcoming it to my layout.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
If I'm not mistaken, Walthers has an add-on kit to extend the icing platforms that come with their ice-house kit.
Here's my version with the original Walther's kit and the platform extension...
(Click on the photos for a larger image.)
...and when fruit-growing season is in full swing, there are usually a lot of refrigerator cars at the platform.
Here's another ice-house, this one a scratchbuild representing an ice house which makes and stores ice, which is usually shipped out to places like those in the photos above, along with a number of small ice houses scattered around my layout...
Hellp All,
I am building an old JUNECO CNR Ice house and want do scratch build a longer icing dock than comes with the kit. The kit includes a short platform mounted to the side of the ice house structure. I need plans for a stand alone dock. I can probably draw something up that will work, but would much rather work from plans. The only plans I have includ 6" x 8" posts for the supporting "trestle-style" dock. I would like to know if this is appropriate. If anyone can email me plans (or a link to plans) I would be grateful. Thanx!