Description

Based on the “ideal livery” for a refrigerator car depicted in the 1887 Sherwin-Williams Railroad Colors catalog, this decal set offers several options for lettering an HO scale 34-foot refrigerator car.

This started out as a custom project requested by the owner of an original copy of the 1887 catalog who wanted to build a model based on Sherwin-Williams’ illustration. Since it is an eye-catching paint scheme, it is now available with the option to letter either exactly as depicted in the catalog, or as a White & Sons Hicks Patent dual gauge car, which was described in newspapers but no photographs or illustrations survive to indicate how it looked in real life.

White & Sons ordered a small fleet of Hicks Patent refrigerator cars with dual gauge adjustable axles to ship beef from Idaho and Utah to Chicago by way of Kansas City. Because White & Sons preferred to ship via the narrow gauge Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway and Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, their cars were designed with adjustable axles so that they could be widened to standard gauge in Denver to continue their journey east without having to transfer the meat into other cars.

This decal set letters one car in either paint scheme and includes a few options for refrigerator patents.