SLVS Troop Ice Reefer Cars
During WW2, the US Army had a fleet of cars built by Pullman for the transport of troops across the country. These Pullman Troop Sleepers were built more like a box car than any passenger car and rode on special Allied Cushioned trucks. Post war many of these cars were sold off to railroads for various different uses. Some become Cabooses, some became MoW lodging to replace bunk cars that were built before 1900, and even still others became various express and baggage cars. One example of such was the Railway Express Agency conversions. All side windows were blanked over and the ends were blanked. The side doors were replaced with a standard 40ft reefer door assembly and ladders on the ends of the car. Up top, they added four ice hatches and a roof walk. The trucks were changed out from the troublesome Allied trucks to a more standard ASF freight truck design. The SLVS aquired a small fleet of thse cars in the early 70s as part of a joint purchase with the San Luis Central, who bought standard REA express reefers. These cars were used first in lettuce shipping and later in potato service before being retired from an active role in 1997. Most of the cars were scrapped, sold, or used as storage sheds by 2000. A few of the cars have survived on the rails, usually running with MoW trains as tool cars. With the aquisition of the San Luis Rio Grande these cars lives has been extended in this tool car service to serve the now expanded railroad.
As a project this once again started with a Skytop Models cast resin shell. This was purchased at the same time as the SLVS D504 Crandall shell. The shell fits on the existing Micro-Trains troop sleeper chassis with no modification. As these cars are based on the REA cars, I painted it close to a pullman green with a silver roof to match the REA fleet. Decals are off the shelf and each letter was hand placed. At the time I had no real idea where I was going to take the SLVS history and these were meant to stear it towards a life simmilar the SLC. As such I would need a small fleet, around 10 or so cars, to complete this vision. However, with the closure of Skytop Models I no longer had an easy source of these pre-modified cars. Having bought a troop sleeper to steal the chassis I had a shell lying around with which I could experiment. Eventually building a second reefer car. This I painted in silver to match the MoW design elements of the DRGW which had close ties to the SLVS since the beginning. Ladders, doors and ice hatches for this car came from a intermountain 40ft reefer kit that I dissasembled for parts. The windows were blanked out with styrene and the end doors sanded off to match the protoype car ends. Decals came from a MoW decal set. Currently it still needs custom SLVS decals but as far as the railroad needs its ready to roll on the main.
