Eggs a la Ed Lee

Oh, this car has been on the bench way too long.  That delay has nothing to do with the car itself, rather the good things happening in the rest of my life that keep getting in the way of model railroading.  Still, I'm glad to see it finished and rolling down the track.  Here's the story.

This freezer, NADX 6002, in service of the Pacific Egg Producers of Seattle, is built from 'An "Ed Lee" Kit', from E. Suydam & Co of Duarte, California.  What brings this kit to my bench is its presence on John Allen's Gorre & Daphetid.  Yep, another "Heritage Fleet"car.

NADX 6002 seen on the G&D in May, 1963

I began this car in July - almost exactly four months ago.  I did not deviate far from the kit instructions, only adding weight, backdating the air brakes, and changing a few minor details.  I've got a great prototype image of this car in Hendrickson & Kaminski's Billboard Reefer book.  Suydam got most of the details correct but I took the opportunity to add missing corner straps and reduce the number of grab irons on the sides and ends.

What's funny is that while Suydam did well in this regard, they missed one "colorful" detail, that is, the PEP Eggs banner should be royal blue.  An eBay search turned up some original blueprints for the car with painting instructions and the blue color is noted.  I very carefully added some blue paint to mine and it looks good from 3 feet away.  Red Ball got the color right but has too many hinges and grabs on their NADX 6001.  Likewise Train Miniature's plastic version, NADX 6003 (though in their defense, all of their reefers used the same body).  I mention the hinges because that was a key ingredient to identifying the maker of John's car.  

Sometimes I wonder where the manufacturers get their information and why they make some design choices that don't match the car itself.  It may be clear they're working from an image of the car or even drawings as some claim, and yet, they choose to include the wrong number of hinges on the door.  Go figure.  I can come up with some plausible reasons, but they'd only be guesses.  One is that Suydam was using a black and white photo as reference.  Who knows.

Finally I decided to change the brake detail in order to run this car on my late 20s era railroad.  I took my weathering cues from John's car but toned it down slightly.  The Ed Lee/Suydam kit was fun to build and follows the classic construction methods of kits from this era involving drilling, cutting, shaping, painting, etc.  There's a sublime satisfaction I get from taking a box of parts and turning it into a rolling freight car.  I'm happy with how it turned out and can now run another car "from the G&D" on my railroad.