I'm pretty much a member of the "Reefer Madness" 
club and as such have been disheartened by the lack of new product from MTH of the SHS billboard reefer model. Years back MTH released quite a few cars of this type and I purchased at least a half dozen or so. Since then it's been the sound of crickets so to speak. I'm pretty full up on the variations of the old SHS models. I avoid cars lettered for specific Railroads but rather concentrate on cars advertising a specific product.
AF has cataloged their new version of this type of car but it lacks the fine detail I've been accustomed to from SHS and MTH. That might make me a reefer "elitist" but it is what it is.
For some time now I've considered trying out one of the releases from Bachmann in their Spectrum On30 line of cars from some time ago. I haven't been able to find a comprehensive list of all the cars they made in the billboard reefer line so far but it appears it's at least between 6 and 12 cars. The On30 line from Bachmann looks pretty good when mounted on S scale trucks. The cars generally are just a tad too high and wide to be perfect for S but they are pretty close. Here's a chart that shows the differences:
So I recently acquired 4 specimens to see how good they are. In short...I LIKE 'EM!!
These cars are highly detailed and contain many add-on details including wire handholds, brake wheels and under floor truss rods. The cars are shorter than the SHS/MTH cars and are good stand-ins for 34' cars found in the early days of reefer ice car service.
Early Ice Service cars were generally in the 34' and 36' length eventually ending up at a more or less universal 40'. The size of the cars was sometimes determined by the length of the docks of the shippers who consigned the cars.
So for my purposes these cars will now represent an early 34' ice car on my layout. The cars as sold are equipped with HO scale trucks. I have a good supply of unused S scale trucks to make the change over so that wasn't a problem. These cars are sold ready to run but have lots of fragile parts. The roof ice hatch handle/locks are especially finicky and require caution to latch them, The brakewheel rod appeared too tall for my taste so I shortened the rod by about 3/16". The wheel and rod are user installed but it's the only thing to attach. The HO trucks were removed easily and S scale trucks attached to the same mounting post with a 2-56 screw. I thought about shortening the mounting post a little to further lower the car height but it looked like the wheelsets might then impact the truss rods so I left well enough alone.
So if you too have "Reefer Madness" and want to get some nice cars to run try out the Bachmann On30 cars. They offer lots of other car types including older boxcars, tank cars, passenger cars and cabeese.
I compared the ice hatches among the cars I had and found that SHS produced at least 3 different Ice hatches for their various models.
So I can now resume my quest for all things billboard reefer.
Mark
