No I’m not looking for a blind date–at least I’m holding out until my wife finds the credit card statement.
It seems that unlike other models, reefers don’t have built dates. So I’m looking to figure out what reefers would have been around in 1950.
Might be clearer if you called them reefers.
That even looks better.
I believe it was mandatory for all cars in interchange service to be lettered with a “Built” date. A quick check of some cars on the layout showed 4 of 18 that had no BLT. date: an SFRD and an MDT car, both from Intermountain, and a couple of recently decaled Athearn cars, both lettered for FGEX (Champ Decals). The prototype photo for one of the FGEX cars does show a BLT. date on the end of the car, which somebody missed when doing the lettering. [swg]
Your cars appear to be 36’-ers, which would have been in service in the ‘50s, as most packing houses had their doors spaced for 36’ cars. I’m not sure about the paint schemes, though as “billboard-style” lettering was banned at some time. I’m unclear as to how this ban was applied, though: it may have been for newly built cars only, or for all such cars. Perhaps someone with more knowledge on this subject can enlighten us both. [;)]
Wayne
Shame on me!
Chip, have I not turned you on to this site yet?
Shame on me!
Cruise around that web site and check out the prototype gallery. Many of the pics have dates!
Refrigerator cars often had very long lives and they were well cared for. They were special built cars and they were expensive to build, so the RR’s took good care of them. Some were even privately owned. Some 40ft cars even made it to the 60’s and 70’s, let alone the 50ft cars.
Those that you have pictured would most likely still be around, though they would likely have been rebuilt and repainted (and most of them would have lost the bilboard paint probably).
I can recall seeing a very very few ice bunker reefers in the 1970s. There was of course no guarantee that they were in actual refrigeration service when I saw them, but I also recall seeing active ice loading facilities in the very early 1970s. I have to think the last ice bunker cars must have been retired around then even if they were nowhere near 40 years of service. But wood reefers lasted well into the 1960s and beyond; it was generally felt wood insulated better than steel.
So did short 36 to 38’ cars, and I have also heard that this was due to spacing at loading docks. There were still 36 ft cars into the 60s and maybe into the 70s. My Jan 1967 Equipment Register shows that Armour Car Lines had 35, 37 and 42 ft cars. All show capacity for ice tanks and are marked to be not suitable for chunk ice.
Dave Nelson
I can’t see the photo real well, but I would say none of those cars would be around in 1950. It looks like all their brake wheels are poking up above the top of the cars. As someone else said, billboard reefers were banned from interchange sometime in the 1930s. I never figured what constitutes a “billboard” vs any other car with a lot of lettering on it.
On the other hand I know that wooden ice reefers were painted with modern GN goat schemes and even BN. They were used up until 1972.
Out of 10 HO scale reefers I have, at least 5 of them have “new” or “rebuilt” dates on them. Some of the very earliest “Billboard reefers” from Athearn, MDC, or Mantua such as one for Baby Ruth Candy or Hershey’s Chocolate don’t have dates, but from about 1944 onward they do.
Maybe there was a law change during WWII that required they be marked. In some cases, you might need a magnifier to see them because they are the last entry under the weight data.
Lots of reefer car paint shcemes and date information, including PRR:
Having vertical or “stemwinder” hand brakes would not prevent these cars from being in service in 1950. That style of handbrake was still common until much later. The billboard paint schemes would.
Cheers,
Mark.
The question still begs to be asked?
Would this be considered a Frigid Date…
Sorry I’ll leave now[:-^]
Hi Chip.
All of the wooden PFE reefers I have are BLT dated for the 1930s, but I do have others that aren’t dated at all. I haven’t read all of the replies, but I’m sure someone has brought up the fact that both wood and steal models were still being built and in use even in the mid 50s. I personally only pull the steal ones with either my SP F-7 Black Widow A,B,B set or SF F-7 A&B set.
Tracklayer
The popular (at least among us model railroaders) “billboard” reefers were banned from Interchange service in 1937. This was partially because of the usual silliness by people that get upset when a car marked “Schlitz” is actually carrying Budweiser, or maybe it’s carrying pickled eggs or pigs’ feet instead. The owners of these beer cars found that they were frequently singled out for theft, so they weren’t too unhappy to remove the attention-getting paint jobs.
Personally, I find this government ruling in 1937 to be one of the easiest things to “freelance” out of existence.
This is a Wikipedia article with more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator_car#The_.22Ice_Age.22
Billboard referred to the huge colorful lettering on the cars - 5’-6’ high lettering like you would use on an outdoor billboard. Shippers complained because they didn’t like the idea of sometimes having to pay to ship their product in what was basically a rolling billboard advertising their competitor, and would often refuse to use the car the railroad provided if it was lettered for a competitor. The ICC limited the size of the lettering to something like 16".
The pic is pretty small so it’s hard to make it all out, but I would guess most of the paintschemes shown on those 36’ reefers would go back to 1890-1910. Back then, the rules weren’t as strict about built dates and such, which might explain why they don’t have them.
BTW if they’re regular MDC cars they have trussrods and archbar trucks, which were also banned from interchange service in the 30’s, so you wouldn’t see these cars in 1950 era trains.
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh? The ICC banned advertising because they deemed it to be an illegal rebate. A surprising number of modellers seem to be unaware that the primary function of the ICC as it originated was to set and maintain rates. Equally surprising is the number of modellers who seem to think that compliance with ICC directives was optional…
This brings up a minor pet peeve of mine: why can’t rolling stock manufacturers include such basic information as what time frame a given car is appropriate for? And not just the Built date, but the Livery date as well.
Branchline is the only manufacturer I can think of that puts this type of info on the box. Intermountain has a bit of it on their web site as well.
I end up spending a lot of time trying to figure when I should run my cars rather than just runniung them! [banghead]
Rant over.
c
Trussrods weren’t banned in the thirties, all-wood underframes were. Composite underframes, with steel centre sills and trussrods, weren’t banned from interchange until 1952.
Lemme get this straight.
No billboards.
Top brakes okay.
Trussrods okay on metal underframes, but probably old hat.
What about the newer cars that have stuff like Swift, Armour, and Midwest Dairy? What consitutes a billboard and what a company car?
And Archbars were banned in like 1928 or 29 I think.
A lot of cars went through a rebuild or two, even into the 50’s. This would have included replacing the K brakes, changing out the vertical handbrake for a newer horizontal one, and replacing the archbars with something that not only rides better, but also complies to regulations. Some wooden cars would have received steel ends and in the 50’s cooling fans were coming into vogue big time. These would often be run from a small generator that operated off of the car wheel.
A good book to learn more about this (it’s a great book for all kinds of frieght cars actually) is this book.
Phillip,
That book is on my desk and I have been refering to it as this conversation goes along. But by itself, while containing the basic facts, left me feeling unsatisfied. I think that is because I knew so little, the facts went in one ear and out the other. When it came to acutally buying something, I found I couldn’t look at a picture and tell if it was the right one or not.
Now I’m pretty clear on the lower end of the scale, but I’m not sure what would be too new for 1950.