Does anyone know what work UP is having done on its reefers when they are switched over to ARMN? Also, does anyone know where this is taking place at?
The most obvious work is replacement of the mechanical units–they remove the old enclosed compartment (except for the car end) and have a much more efficient refrigeration unit installed, as well as GPS monitoring devices. I think it’s possible to remotely regulate the temperature on the rebuilt cars.
If I’m not mistaken, the work is being done at DeSoto, Missouri.
Does that upgrade expand the available cubic footage?
dd
The PFE Heavy Rebuild Shop is/was (slated to be closed) located in the old Pocatello Steel Car Shop (Pocatello, ID) and many of them were produced there as well. As for square footage, (not being a car toad, i’m only venturing a guess 
) it doesn’t appear that it has changed. It always looked to me like the major change was the removal of the old Detroit Diesel cooling units and the 20-30 years worth of soot and sludge around them and the addition of the fancy Carrier refrig units. Oh yeah, and a new paint job.
what does the ARMN stand for[8D]
ARMN is a reporting mark that UP resurrected. It had inherited the mark from the Missouri Pacific. MP used these initials on mechanical refrigerator cars of the American Refrigerator Transit Company that had originally been lettered RMDX (they were relettered to put them on per diem rates instead of the private-company mileage rates).
A=American
R=Refrigerator
M=Mechanical?
N=No idea!
I have noticed that the new engines are much quiter than the old ones. It used to be as the Express Lane train crept by, one could hear the sound of the reefers’ engines get louder then quiet and kept repeating. It is not the same now. I also noticed they removed the roof above the mechanical compartment.
Here are the shops that the book Pacific Fruit Express, 2nd Edition lists.
Nampa, ID - heavy repair, transfered to UPFE in 1978, closed in 1982.
Pocatello, ID. - light repair (initally), backup for Nampa heavy repair, more functions moved from Nampa to there for support of mechanical reefers, active.
Roseville, CA - heavy repair and car building, sold to SP in 1980.
Los Angeles, CA - heavy repair and car building, closed 1962.
City of Industry, CA - light repair, replacement for LA shops, transfered to SP 1980.
Colton, CA - heavy repair and car building, closed 1959.
Tucson, AZ - heavy repair, remained SP’s shop for SPFE cars into the 1990s (1996?).
There were several classes of cars built by Southern Pacific Equipment Company at Roseville, Los Angeles, and Colton. However, I have not found anything in the book about cars being built at Pocatello.
In the book, the authors mention light repair shops at Watsonville Junction, CA and Fresno, CA, however they are not listed in the shop chapter.
I wonder if eventually half of the reefers will have HAMR reporting marks. Hint, try to pronounce the two reporting marks together.
I’ll need summa that for the bad case of indigestion I got from that post!
American Refrigerator Transit was a joint MP/WAB subsidiary and is comparable to Pacific Fruit Express, Fruit Growers Express and the other refrigerator car operators. I have read that separate refrigerator car companies were established since the cars were in a pool service of sorts and were relatively high maintenance equipment (re-icing or refueling enroute, load devices, etc.)
I was referring to the ARMN rebuilds rather than the initial construction of the reefers. When I was sent to Pocatello Locomotive on company business in February of 2003, there were several freshly painted ARMNs in the storage tracks on the east end of the old Steel Car Shop/PFE Heavy Rebuild; next to the Montana Sub ‘Back Door’. To add to what you got out of your PFE Book, the PFE Heavy Rebuild was located in the south end of the old Boiler Shop (shared with the MOW System Shop) in Poky. After the Steel Car Shop abandoned ship and everyone left for DeSoto and Palestine in 1997, the PFE moved out of the Boiler Shop and into the (former) Steel Car Shop.
CSSHegewisch is right about the ownership of American Refrigerator Transit–prior to the early 70s. It was in about 1971 that the assets were split (wasn’t that about the same time that “SPFE” and “UPFE” began to show up, instead of “PFE”?–something must have been going on!). N&W (successor to Wabash) got some of the cars, but most of the reefers–all of the mechanical reefers–were transferred to MP ownership (Texas & Pacific, initially, for some reason). It was then that the ARMN reporting marks (and a bunch of other strange ones, now long gone) began to surface.
As of the 1979 date of my Moody’s manual, ART was still in existence, owned 100 percent by MP.
According to the aforementioned book PFE started putting the UPFE and SPFE reporting marks on the reefers in 1971. PFE’s assets were split up in 1978. Appearently UP formed a new subsidiary, Union Pacific Fruit Express. PFE became a wholly owned subsidiary of SP. There never was a Southern added to Pacific Fruit Express although there was an S added to the PFE reporting marks.
Here is something of interest.
http://www.trainweb.org/midrail/Photos/UPSHOPSPhotos/UPSHOPSPhotos.html
Cars with reporting marks UPFE and SPFE were actually owned by the railroads involved (SP and UP), and leased to PFE. Between 1971 and 1978, there were plenty of reefers still around that retained PFE lettering (in fact, only the 450000-460000-series mechanical reefers were lettered/relettered UPFE or SPFE). When the split occurred, the cars of the Union Pacific Fruit Express Company were relettered UPRX for a time (while those on the SP side remained PFE). The series or two of UPRX cars in the 450000s were later relettered UPFE; most of the other UPRX cars were gone by that time.
I was surprised to find out that the R-70-19 was actually bought by PFE, not SP or UP. I guess since PFE survived as a subsidiary of SP, the cars PFE actually owned kept the PFE reporting marks.
I saw ARMN 725116 today. I was on the freeway, so I got off and went around again so I could get a look at the class stencil. It is a R-70-24, freshly painted, amazingly there was no graffiti, yet. I wonder why it was not numbered 759xxx or 760xxx.
By coincidence, I also saw one of these today (except it’s now yesterday)–ARMN 725018, also an R-70-24.
I don’t think I have to check these out too closely–I’ll bet they’re ex-VCY 25000-series cars!
That makes sense. Its nice to see shiny, graffiti free cars. I have been photographing quite a bit of ARMN reefers recently so I can photograph graffiti free cars.
Does the QNPSKP come through Proviso?