I can't afford Atlas anymore !!!!!!
As I looked at the mechanical reefers, I was thinking that I probably bought enough 25 years ago, for $8 each, and picked up another slightly used on eBay for $5. I suppose nowadays they come with accumate couplers, but they otherwise look like the same tooling. In any case, wrong paint schemes for my mid-50s layout plans, and I already have a pre-order in for the Rapido model which I anticipate will be much more accurate and in the paint scheme I need. But having Rapido cars on order also means my reefer budget is pretty much spoken for.
For the grammarians out there, "pretty much" is a common midwestern-ism, more than "very nearly" and slightly less than "sorry, honey, I spent some of the grocery money on trains."
I would have bought a couple more flat cars (I have 2), but they lettered and numbered this ATSF batch as "Ft-T". They are a respectable model of an FT-7, as the first batch was lettered 10 years ago. The Ft-T is definitely a product of an earlier age. Same length, but deeper fishbelly sides and rivets...lots of rivets. So, a stand in at best. And too expensive for a stand in, at least until I get the home improvements done.
