In my collection of "old things", I have a very neatly proportioned, neatly detailed, and neatly built yellow/oxide wood-model, wood-prototype house car from the 1950's, North American Despatch NADX 6002- assigned to Pacific Egg Producers. The sides are so-so monotone silk screened, and insofar as I can actually read the building date, it looks like 2/27 or -9. The flush doors have two hinges only, and the roof is radial, with definite eaves all around. Although it otherwise looks like a reefer, there are in fact no ice hatches. There are instead neatly modeled lateral running boards with single longitudinal (vs. angled) grabs. The hand brake is horizontal, and there is an AB brake system.
As a model, it has many characteristics typical of Silver Streak. However, the radial roof and the fabricated wood underframe gives it away. The original early Kadee couplers belie the model's '50s origins. The trucks are early sprung MDC (not bad).
I have been guessing that this model is a Suydam product, but do not know for sure.
What might anyone know of the prototype? Mather? Were eggs shipped in ventilated, insulated, but not refrigerated cars?
NADX series 6000-6399 (only a small number of cars in the series would have been assigned to PEP, of course). Built in 1927 at the Hegewisch, IL, plant of the Pressed Steel Car Co. PSC built many reefers for North American in the 1920s, most of them with four large door hinges on each side rather than the more common arrangement of six hinges. I have a photo of NADX 6039 built in 7-27 and painted and lettered for PEP service and will send you a scan off-list. The prototype cars had outside wood roofs (definitely NOT radial), ice bunkers with wood hatch covers, and fishbelly steel center sills. Air brakes were KC and would not have been converted to AB before the 1938 deadline that outlawed leased reefers with billboard paint and lettering. In short, the model strays rather far from being an accurate replica of the prototype.
