I built several at the time, tried one recently - still is basically a buzz sound, but not that bad in the background…
That company was Athearn (there might have been another company, not sure)
I built several at the time, tried one recently - still is basically a buzz sound, but not that bad in the background…
That company was Athearn (there might have been another company, not sure)
I made my own reefer sounds using a Digitrax Soundbug. Although I’m not sure if the sound I used is very accurate.
Here is a video clip of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSu85WSQk5E
(I still can’t figure out how to place a YouTube clip on this forum)
I also used Ring Engineering power pick up trucks.
The cars are old Athearn Mechanical reefers. Not exactly the right model the Santa Fe used for their early mech reefers, but close enough for me…until a prototype model is produced.
All those who are interested. In General Discussion MR. page 28, under thread title, Tuning the Sound from an Athearn Genesis Modern Sound Reefer, posted Sept 27 2013 By Chadlryan. Has pic’s and what he did to vastly improve the sound.
Frank
Charlie,Those reefers was PFE,FGX and some Santa Fe mechanicals.I truely doubt if the PFE and the FGX mechanical reefer was use to haul freight.
I dunno, Larry. I’m not sure about mechanical reefers, but PFE (and perhaps others) leased their ice reefers during the off-season to eastern roads, especially those hauling potatoes. An empty car sitting idle on home rails earns nothing, and I’d guess there are many clean loads which could be suitable, even though the heating or cooling capability might not be needed.
Wayne
The PFE mechanical cars saw extensive use hauling fresh produce from California and elsewhere in the west. UP used them for the potato harvest too.
Wayne,That PRR reefer train ran every day as does the modern reefer train on CSX…I don’t think there’s seasonal shipping from California or that top priority UP/CSX reefer train wouldn’t operate 365 days a year.
PFE and FGE made billions hauling fresh produce from California to the East on a daily bases.
I’m in process of working on an article about adding sound to mechanical reefers. Doing a lot of audio editing to provide several downloadable files to use. The idea is to avoid phase cancelation by using slightly different sounds. This means the reefer sound can be turned down quite a bit and still be audible within the plastic shell. The biggest challenge is adjusting for the hollow body which is a resonating chamber [{(-_-)}] it amplifies the lower frequencies quite a bit.
Looking forward to doing a noisy 30 car reefer block!
Chris Palomarez
That’s good information too. My freelanced railroad is a secondary eastern railroad that receives a block of PFE reerfers on a daily basis. In the pre-merger days, which railroad handled the eastern end of the cross country reefer train?
It’s been at least 20 years, but I think I remember seeing something about that train on PBS. It was nicknamed the Salad Bowl Express. Is that the train you are referring to?