Questions, Answers & Tips - 2
Once the rocks dry, consider applying weathering powders
to enhance the dirty, gritty rock colors. You can find more on
weathering powders in the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of MRH:
– Joe Fugate
Q.
Way back in the 1990s,
Model Railroader
published a DIY
circuit for a reefer sound generator with a 555 timer, a pseudo-
transducer, plus a myriad of parts and a 9 volt battery. As crude
as it was, if you got two or more of these things together, it
started sounding like a refrigeration unit.
Fast forward to now, Athearn releases the 57' FGE reefer (2)
with vastly superior sound. Here's when things get fuzzy . . . I
don't recall hearing a 1960s-1990s era reefer generator "cycling
off" as the Athearn model does. I'm not claiming Athearn is
wrong. I asked a modeler/real life BNSF engineer, and he
recalled the same. He remembers them being always running.
With Ring Engineering's pickup freight car truck, and ITTC's
sound unit, the timing seemed right to add
sound to my existing PFE Cold Block. I have a few recordings of
running reefers and am going to vary the sound among the cars
to avoid phase cancellation and to make things sound more
realistic. Does anyone else have any memory to the reefer gen-
erator "cycle off"?
– Chris Palomarez
A.
Having spent some time around a large Pacific Fruit Express
facility in the 1970s, our recollection was the same as that of
Chris and his friend. Just a buzz. No automatic periodic starting
and stopping. But we didn't work for the railroad or PFE, so we
sent the question out to the experts. Here's what they said:
The compressor may cycle, but the engine might not. I can
remember having to check the fuel level in mechanical reef-
ers every time we humped one, and the engine was always
running on a loaded car. I don't think they were designed to
shut down and restart automatically, the way modern refrig-
eration units are.
– Ken Rickman
The older reefers used to run all the time and the compres-
sor cycled on and off as needed. When diesel fuel hit $4 a gal-
lon everyone wanted to save some money. Better insulation,
2
2: Athearn Genesis sound-equipped 57' FGE mechani-
cal refrigerator cars produce start-up, operating and
shut-down sounds. The SoundTraxx output is different for
'60s-'90s cars with diesel genset systems, and for modern-
ized cars with tractor-trailer style refrigeration units. The
system works on both DC and DCC layouts and the vol-
ume is adjustable.
MRH-Nov 2013
