This is the fourth and final of the four article series about the history of Kohrs Meat Packing Company, Red Ball Ltd HO scale model railroad kits, Bachmann Trains and a replica of a Kohrs Meat Packing Company reefer inspired from a Red Ball kit.
This article is about two HO scale model railroad refrigerator railcars, or reefers and how one is the inspiration to create a near identical replica out of the other.
End of October 2020: The author of this blog and model railroad hobbyist decided he needs railcars that are Iowa based and influenced. He was born, raised and currenlty resides in the state of Iowa.
Early November of 2020: Because his model railroad is advertising based the blog author looks on eBay for railcars that are Iowa based and influenced. He filters by the "Buy it Now" option and starts adding the railcars to his eBay "Watchlist".
Mid-November 2020: After adding a few HO scale railcars to his "Watchlist" on eBay he comes across a Kohrs Meat Packing Company reefer kit, made by Red Ball Ltd. Kohrs Meat Packing Company was in operaton in Davenport, Iowa. He adds the kit to his list. The kit is missing the trucks which would have come with it originally.
He makes an offer to the eBay seller for a reduced price. The seller agrees to the offer and the transaciton is completed.
November 19, 2020: The Red Ball Kohrs Meat Packing Company model railcar kit arrives. The blog author opens the package and to his pleasent surprise discovers the railcar is a vintage wood body model.
He had heard of wood body kits before, but had never seen one, now he owns one. He goes through the contents of the kit and further discovers the Red Ball kit has very details parts and components. The doors, latches, hinges, roof hatches are made of a type of metal similar to pewter called type setters metal. The brake cylinder is metal along with other very detailed parts included in this kit. Th emost interesting thing is the side panels are printed on laminated card stock type material.
End of November, 2020: The blog author conducts further research into this kit and Red Ball Ltd the company that produced it. The kit was produced between 1945 and 1975.
Even though he is a skilled hobbyist and model builder, the more he researched it the more he came to the conclusion he was not going to build the Red Ball reefer kit. But he still needed a railcar that represented or mimiced one from Davenport, Iowa, whether past or present. He looked on eBay and none were available for purchase.
The blog author decided to replicate the HO scale Red Ball Ltd Kohrs Meat Packing Company 40's reefer. He did this with a plastic body HO scale model of a Bachmann 40' reefer.
The instructions for the Red Ball kit states to paint the wood body, the bottom frame, the grab irons and the ladders flat box car red. He found out what box car red looks like and looked on eBay for a plastic body HO scale 40' ice bunker reefer that is the flat box car red or very close to it. He found one. It is a HO scale Bachmann 40' reefer that is a replica of the blue Gerber Baby Food reefer. The roof and end panels are box car red. The side panels were blue and white and the bottom frame is black.
He purchased the Gerber Baby Food reefer from the eBay seller. He also purchased a bottle of flat box car red model paint from his local hobby shop.
While he waited for the arrival of the Gerber Baby Food reefer he needed to figure out a way to replicate the side panels from th Red Ball kit. He took the original panels to a local print shop and they were able to print them on adhesive media.
December 2, 2020: The HO scale Gerber Baby Food 40' ice bunker reefer arrived.
December 3 - 5, 2020: The blog author worked on modifying and kit bashing the Bachmann Gerber Baby Food reefer into a HO scale Kohrs Meat Packing Company reefer.
One of the thigns he had to do is decide which Gerber Baby Food reefer to use. He already had purchased one which is being used as part of his fleet of reefers on his Advertising Express Railroad layout. The railcar he had for a while and was using is similar in color to the other Bachmann reefer he just purchased. He wanted the best color match possible for flat the box car red. Once he settled on the newer purchase he got to work covering the existing sides with flat white primer.
He also had to modify and re-adhere the metal weight plate to the plastic frame so Kadee couplers could be installed.
While the primer dried and the JB Weld cured the blog author started modifying the adhesive side panels to be used on the reefer.
The moulded grab irons and ladders on each die had to be painted flat box car red.
Once the paint had dried the adhesive side panels were added to each side of the reefer.
The now, "new" replica of the HO scale Kohrs Meat Packing Copmany 40' ice bunker reefer was reassembled, the coupler height was checked with the heigh gauges and it was added to the fleet of rolling stock on the Advertising Express Railroad layout.
The Red Ball Ltd reefer kit will likely be kept in the blog author's private collection.
Bibliography:
Blog author's personal eBay account, purchase history, Novemberand December 2020
Author unknown, "Burlington Billboard Reefers", Burlington Bulletin, No. 28, November 1993, pp 52 - 53
