Accurail Lehigh Valley RBL Car

I saw this Accurail white Lehigh Valley bunkerless refrigerator RBL car kit in a train store many years ago and picked it up by reflex, even though I wasn't sure if it had a prototype -- Accurail can get pretty creative. But Lehigh Valley is one of the roads I grew up around in New Jersey, and I'll pretty much go for anything LV. But I looked in equipment registers when I got it home, and I've been a member of the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society from the early days and never found any info.

So it sat in a box for a long time unfinished. As a teenager, I'd seen the LV white outside-ribbed X58 style cars that were made by Athearn and others, but this wasn't those.

Finally I ran into a Facebook post with a prototype photo and some info.

It said the flag in the photo wan't completely painted. The car was one of five numbered 7050-7054 and leased from North American Car. For whatever reason, leased cars didn't always show up in the equipment register. Around the same time, I found the photo below with the ladders shortened as in the kit. The cars were apparently built by Pullman-Standard and had P-S features, but for Accurail, this is close enough.

I don't know the photographer of either photo. I don't know what service they were in. If I were to venture a guess, it might be beer. But I finished the car, and I'm delighted finally to know it has a prototype.