#10154
David Boeschen
Participant

The sides on the Athearn car aren’t right, because of the lack of the horizontal rivet seam. The Athearn reefer (I decaled a couple of them for ART many years ago) is actually based on the PFE R-40-23, a car built in very large numbers both for PFE and for a couple of other reefer owners like NP.

The 36000-36024 and the 35000-35049 had 4-4 round-corner ends. These can be made to fit by filing the ends of the sides down flush with the core end. I had a couple of sets of resin ends which are correct. or they can be modified by careful slicing from an Intermountain end. The later 26000-26299 and the 27000 and 28000 cars have ends that are very similar to the Athearn model, with the same shape of the ribs except for having one more in the lower half of the end.

Hope this helps.

RG7