Been around this hobby a long time and companys have tried many things to cut costs so with no hobby shop close by, I was thinking of buying a bunch but that nagging question came up. I remember them trying to put out reefers once that were not painted if I remember right, they did not look good to me.
So Email them and ask, as a first step.*
*If we were good friends there would be a Duh! at the end. I will wait until you know me better before trying that. 
Mine all came painted AND lettered…
http://www.intermountain-railway.com/ho/horeefers.htm
Happy Modeling, Ed
MOST Intermountain HO rolling stock being sold for the past 15 years is painted, lettered and for the past 10 years equipped with KD’s too. IMR does sell undecorated kits - they are listed on their website if you check under the various types of rolling stock.
IMR offers reefers in the 1960’s thu 1990’s paint of R-70-20 type, and IMR also offers RTR Red Caboose R-70-15 with and without roof-walks. If you are a modeling steam and 1st generation diesel era, both IMR and Red Caboose offer ice 40’ reefers too. Both mechancial and ice reefer popular types are largly sold out so you may have to treasure hunt them or wait until IMR re-runs new numbers to obtain some.
What I am considering is 1937 boxcars in Southern Pacific. Recoop part of their cost by getting rid of some cars I was going to paint and reletter, RTR in the right name and close enough date, is much prefered (I model 1939, these are 1940, not much of a stretch).
The ARMN rebuild program was about 10-12 years ago, so that paint scheme is actually post 1990s.
The paint scheme is correct for the time with the round SP logo in the right uperhand corner of the boxcar. In fact the only detail that is different from the 1937 built car was the door latch which was longer on the the pictures I have, a little shorter on the model.
Do you mean just colored plastic like the KD cars? If so,I’m sure IM paints their models instead of using colored plastics.
Thats the question I was asking!!! Like I said, at one time I beleive (could have been Red Caboose) they put out some unpainted ones, but that was long ago. Anyway I bit the bullit and bought the 6 pack of them, pricey but I have other cars I can sell now and when you add up the cost of wheels and Kadee couplers, paint and decals (not to mention work of the type I don’t like), fiqure I will only lose a little money, now I wish they had more numbers. I am leaning that the better cars go fast at the venders, got the last one of a couple of numbers, they had plenty a few days before.
You will NEVER see a P&L statement produced for my railroad. [:$]
Hey, seen rags to riches, always remember where I came from so everything has a P&L statement. My hobby when everything is built for the currant layout will be about break even and most stuff is higher end, e-bay is your freind!
Some people dismiss Intermountain after Tangent and ExactRail came along, but Intermountain does offer a lot of rolling stock not done by anyone else or in some cases offer the best version with the most detail. They’ve been cranking out nice RTR freight cars now with metal wheels and KD’s for about 8 or so years and IMO they are still nice quality.
Intermountain has held a sort of middle ground in good quality, reasonably well detailed freight cars along with Atlas and Athearn (depending on the item) for the past 5 years. Street prices are generally in the $26-28 range for most of the freight cars while Tangent and ExactRail are mostly now in the mid-40’s for most of the new offerings. That said, I buy from all those vendors as they all offer items appropriate for my 1970’s and 1980’s focus.
I do not turn my nose up entirely at Accurail or other low cost items, but I am finding that I’d rather have fewer nice quality freight cars then more low quality ones, I just can’t afford very many is all of the Tangent or ExactRail, but I have a pretty large fleet now so I buy to fill in holes in the roster and it’s all good!
Jim,The truth be known there’s not much of a street price difference between so/so RTR cars and brands like IM,Red Caboose,Atlas,Tangent and Fox Valley. ER does have sales on their cars so,we best include them.
I have built quite a few cars that were cast in colored plastic. Most hideous were the Accurail GMO box cars and P2K CBQ box and gondola cars. Some of the little yellow reefers were pretty phony looking too.
I found them much improved if I painted the inside of the car body with cheap, black accrylic paint and then used a thin wash over the outside of the car. The paint inside the body helps get rid of that “see through” effect and the weathering wash has the obvious advantages.
Charlie
I just bought some Tangent 3 dome. Alwaus wanted these exact cars and have some MDC tanks I was going to kitbash so alot of these will go to e-bay. Think I paid around $42 for the Tangent, and they are nice. They only offered 3 roadnumbers so that is what I bought of the one I wanted, again, just in a nick of time.
Yes, depending on taking advantage of sales or deals on Ebay or train shows you can find some very nice quality cars for decent prices. I took advantage of a sale at ER last summer to get four 60’ PC&F beer box cars for $28.95 each and an additional 10% and free shipping. With patience and some effort, you can get some good deals and save.
Tangent makes some very nice models - I picked up 5 of their PS3 3-bay Utah coal hoppers and 2 of the 50’ box cars (PRR & PC) in the past few months.
BTW, I also need some 40’ PFE ice reefers to run with an Intermountain Cab Forward and managed to find a few of the R-40-23 double herald cars myself to run with it. Hopefully Intermountain will run more of them in the coming year.
Cheers, Jim
I got around 8 Intermountain reefers in PFE SP logo, paid around $12 each in a deal.
Thats a great deal on the IMR 40’ PFE reefers - were they kits or RTR? The RTR cars go for street price of around $26 or 27, some of them more depending on which model - they range from $32.95 to $39.95 MRSP.
Intermountain has done some pretty neat cars. The new hopper cars are fantastic. And the B&O bulkhead flats, likewise. And there’s some others.
BUT.
Once they make a mistake, it seems they just won’t fix it. For a long time, for example, they’ve have errors in the lettering on their UP 4750 covered hoppers. They’ve known about it, because I wrote years ago illustrating the problem. Of course, now I buy the Tangent ones, so that particular problem is solved.
Slightly differently, the stiles on their boxcar ladders are way too fat. Just clunky.
So. They have their moments. And their non-moments.
Ed
RTR, that used to be the price I was willing to pay for those type cars. Settled on some Atlas old time reefers, not as to scale as I would like but OK.