While at a train show back in the early 1990s I bought an Athearn Burlington Northern Double Door Boxcar which a local electronics geek install a FRED which he designed and built. I liked the car. It is still one of my favorites but the FRED was almost never used because not only did I have to shuffle the car around so it would be the last car on the train, it also had to be facing the right direction for the FRED to be on the end. A couple of years later I had an idea and installed the FRED in a Walthers Amtrak Express Boxcar. It turned out to be brilliant because it is now always the last car on my passenger train. It never leaves the train because loading and unload of the car takes place beyond the basement.
Does anyone else use FREDs and how do you make sure they end up on the last car?
I’m installing my EOT FRED’s on a unit loaded intermodal, and one on a unit refrigerated food. Both will only travel one direction, one consist each. (Both are scheduled run-through’s, may add scheduled empties/returns later on.) Easy to keep correct there!
If I like them, I may get ones for the unit coal trains as well. (One loads, one empties.) Again, one consist each, one direction each. (Again, scheduled run-through’s.)
I don’t think I will have any others, simply because of the “now that has to go here, and face that way” issue you found.
When I saw the Ring Engineering “FREDS” I knew I just had to have one… OK, two!
I did the same thing you did and installed one on an Amtrak MHC and the other went on a Bowser Road-Railer “coupler mate” adapter.
They are pretty neat to watch and add a nice touch. Even though I primarily model the 1950s, I still like to jump into the present, or nearly present, day. Even the sight of those Road-Railers and express box cars are a thing of the past!
I know they’re the last car because… well—they have a blinking red light on them.
This is another plus for having DCC since the FRED can stay lit indefinitely.
I have a Ring Engineering job stealer (EOTD) mounted on a CSX boxcar…I might take my modern train to the club instead of running my usual IPD boxcar train with caboose during open house display running…
Ditto that. At the risk of being labeled achronistic, one of several reasons I have chosen to back date from the 1990’s to the 70’s and 80’s is by golly, Fred can still ride in the cupola of the caboose. When Athearn genesis and Intermountain came out with their lovely bay window cabooses, that sealed the deal for me.
Trains just look wrong to me without a caboose on the end!
Just treat the boxcar as if it were a caboose. Not prototypical but will work.
Actually there may be a prototype. On the Southern Pacific east valley line through Maryville CA there were trains of mixed freight that also hauled Roadrailers on their rear. Behind the Roadrailers was always a box car with Fred. I am preaty sure it was a car dedicated to that service.