Erie Lackawanna
Railfan.net 'erielack' E-Mail List Photo Archive

EL5030a.jpg   Original: 972 by 255 pixels - Current: 972 by 255 - 100%
                          Try your mouse wheel too!


From: Hhaines AT aol DOT com
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 18:15:16 EDT
Subject: EL 5030 by Athearn
"EL5030a.jpg" - image/jpeg, 15053 bytes, 972x255 (24bit)

Dear List:

I may have been sleeping and someone else may have posted this, but this EL
Cool Whip car showed up at my local hobby shop, and some things I can't
resist. Did anyone with ELHS help Athearn with this car? It looks good.

Attached is a picture of Athearn's new #7104 Erie Lackawanna 57' Mechanical
Reefer. It is a great improvement over the previous Athearn EL Mechanical
reefer, at about twice the price from when I last purchased an Athearn EL
reefer ($4.55 then, $10.18 now).
The ready-to-run car is numbered EL #5030, from the second series of EL 57'
mechanical reefers for #5020 to 5039 purchased in 1968.

The Athearn model is a close match to the EL 57' reefer cars used to haul
Cool Whip (among other things) shown on the bottom of page 101 of Larry
DeYoung's EL COLOR GUIDE TO FREIGHT AND PASSENGER EQUIPMENT.

The model's lettering is close to that in the book, but the book has an ACI
label. The model lists a build date of December 1967, which may be a bit
early for delivery on some nit picking pike, but not mine. The car steps and
most of the underframe on the model car are orange, and the book seems to
show them black (easily fixed with some grimy black paint). In my opinion,
the big improvement over the previous Athearn offering is the white roof and
crisp black and white lettering, including end lettering. (Paul, however, is
the better judge of lettering, and I defer to someone who is not legally
blind to make this determination).

The model's knuckle couplers are plastic, and matched the Kadee coupler
height gauge as the model came from the box. The model is about the correct
NMRA weight.
Plastic wheel sets match the NMRA gauge.
The model will probably be a bit over NMRA weight when I change out the wheel
sets to metal. I like the sound of metal wheels on the track better than
plastic. The model's trucks are roller bearing, and look like 100-ton
trucks. The prototype appears to have a different trucks.

The Athearn model deviates from the EL prototype in the roof and mechanical
vents. ELHS used the ConCor reefer with correct roof, vents, and closer to
the prototype trucks.

So I will buy a couple of these Athearn units because they look good. If they
are moving in a train, no one here can tell the difference. The list archives
reveal only a discussion of the cars, what they carried, and whether the ELHS
would do another run, so this may be the first report. I would buy more from
ELHS if they ran another batch of reefers because theirs was a bit more
"right-on."

Besides, the first prototype batch had roof walks and a billboard over the
ribs for the EL logo. These cars could run on late-era EL and Conrail
layouts in small groups on out going loads, and return individually or in
small groups, as in the prototyp. That being the case, I still have room for
another ELHS reefer run on my roster.

Howard Haines
ELHS #1447





EL5030a.jpg

Click Here or on the corner X to close this window.


    All photos are the property of the original photographer unless otherwise noted and are to be used for personal viewing purposes only.

    The use of these photos on any website or other distribution media is strictly forbidden without the express consent of the image copyright holder.

    Linking directly to this page is permitted as long as "Railfan.net Erie Lackawanna Email List Photo Archive" is creditted on the linking page.