The Hudson Bay Railway in HO Scale

For years one of the projects that has lurked in the back of my mind was the CN 222600 series mechanical reefers that were rebuilt from CN's fleet of 8 hatch ice reefers. These mechanical reefers were staples on the Hudson Bay passenger train from the 1960's through 1983. CN rebuilt a significant portion of their 8 hatch ice reefer fleet into mechanical reefers in the 1960's as these were relatively new cars (the last cars were built in the late 1950's) that were obsolete due to the advent of mechanical refrigeration.   The rebuilding process included plating over the roof hatches, adding full height plug doors, underslung genset, fuel tank, battery box and other equipment along with an A/C unit on one of the doors. The 222600 series cars also had steam lines for use in passenger service. CN also converted other cars with a 5' tall plug door. Other similar cars were in the 220xxx, 224xxx and 225xxx series, and likely others as well. CN's freight car renumbering ...

CN 235116 in Winnipeg MB  in the early 1990's - it has seen better days Hot on the heels of the Hawker Siddeley 231xxx and 233xxx series mechanical refrigerators, Kaslo Shops brought out the 235000-235299 series reefers.  These were a more common car on CN, with 300 cars delivered in 1966.  Some of these cars were in use until the mid 2000's with most being retired in the 1990's.  Their silver body with blue doors were distinctive, and when they were clean they were nice looking cars.  Unfortunately they didn't seem to stay clean very long. These cars were common on the Hudson Bay Railway, with service to most communities in the north that CN served.  There was at least one car in semi-captive service hauling groceries from the freight house in The Pas to Lynn Lake.  These were also frequent visitors to Churchill, Thompson and Gillam, at least until improved roads to Thompson and Gillam arrived in the mid 1980's.  These cars have long been on my w...

CN operated a sizable fleet of mechanical refrigerator cars from the mid 1960's through to the mid 1990's with some cars operating into the mid 2000's. Most of these cars have since been replaced by mechanical reefer containers.  Hawker Siddeley constructed 75 mechanical refrigerator cars in 1966, initially in the 231100-231174 series.  Later in 1967/68 50 cars were renumbered into the 233000-233049 series.  I am unsure of why this was done, but CN had a major freight car renumbering program in the late 1960s that can make your head spin trying to figure out.   The cars were delivered in the noodle paint scheme with a silver body and blue door to denote the cars use in meat service.  Later on some cars had silver painted doors, likely allowing their use in general refrigerator service.   Kaslo Shops has brought out this car type both with and without roof walks.  I built these two cars for their box art, 231152 for the roof walk version with ...