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| ca. 1936, San Francisco, courtesy Bill Welch |
Armour had a sizable fleet of refrigerator cars for the transportation of meat (in different stages of processing.) There were many cars like the one shown above, with steel center sill underframes with truss rods or pressed steel crossmembers. Armour also leased cars from Mather to augment the fleet and in the late 1940s, Armour added 2,000 all steel cars from AC&F to begin the shift to more contemporary design standards.
However, the purpose of this post is to highlight an unusual detail of these 11000-series cars. All of the other Armour wood reefers were equipped with typical sill steps that were attached to the bottom of the side and extended straight down from there although the right step usually had two rungs, like that shown here.) The rather interesting detail on the cars in the 11000 series is that they had two sharp 90 degree bends to nest around the bottom of the lower corner strap angle and side sheathing, as well as the common half twist, as can be seen. Crops of both sill steps are shown below to illustrate this feature. Yet another nuance to add to your Sunshine Models kit when you build it...
