Were the old 50’ Express Refeers classified as Passenger or Freight cars ?
I lost my psgr car registers in a house fire 3 years ago (sob sob) so I can’t be definitive, but going the inference route I’d say that Exp reefers and expr box cars were carried as psgr equipment because in looking through my 1953 frt car register under SP 5700 series I find no listing and that was the series their 40’ express box cars were in.
If the express reefers have air and steamlines fittings for passenger support and head end service with high speed trucks and such… more than likely it is passenger.
Not all cars in express service are so equippeted.
I have a set of three new RTR Walthers REA express reefers and consider them passenger train equiptment.
Express Reefers were AAR class BR and express boxcars were class BX. Both are considered passenger equipment based on such things as high-speed trucks, steam and signal lines, etc.
A variation on the same theme would be the express flatcar, class BLF. They were used by MILW, IC, NYC and maybe others for carrying flexi-vans in mail and express service.
The R50b’s on the PRR had steam lines and were classified in the passenger cars. As an aside anyone modeling the 50’s should have at least one R50b and at least one PRR B60b baggage car. The PRR owned over half the cars in service in this time frame and those cars traveled the country. Since they travelled so much they rarley got home and there are no known pictures of either being cleaned that I have come across so they should be weathered very extensively.
Just to add to that, the AT&SF had several express flats that were made from heavyweight diners. I believe they carried 4 20’ containers?
Every spring up until the mid-1950’s the ICRR used to run wooden REA express cars full of strawberries from Louisiana to Chicago’s South Water Street produce terminal. At the start and end of the strawberry season one to three such carloads were carried daily in either the Louisiane’s or Creole’s consist. At the peak of the strawberry harvest the IC would load maybe 8 carloads a day at Hammond, LA and dispatch them as a unit train headed by one of the IC’s 4-6-2 passenger locomotives. These strawberry extras stopped only for crew and engine changes and ran on a faster schedule than all but the City of New Orleans and Panama Limited.
Mark
I failed to mention in my last post that the strawberry cars carried by the IC were REA express REEFERS.
Mark
The Erie ran expedited perishables in REX Express reefers in its Chicago - Jersey City passenger tains in the ‘50’s. I can recall seeing “Cherry Specials” streak through my home town of Allendale, N.J. like greased lightening on late summer evenings rushing to make the next morning’s market in New York when there were too many for the passenger trains to handle in their regular consists. One GP-7 and a dozen reefers was most common. The operators’ and dispatchers’ voices were quite animated if not raised warning everyone to get out of the way of the “Cherry Special.” Talk about “HOT” this was the ultimate. It made for some real excitement around the dispatcher’s office in Jersey City. A typical run from Chicago to New York was between 20 and 24 hours, Not bad for friction bearings, seven crew changes and nearly 1,000 miles. The Erie and the Nickel Plate were the East’s fast freight champions in the years before and after WW II.
Bill McDonald
(Erie Lackawanna Hist. Society)
In addition, the Nickel Plate, Wabash, P&WV, Western Maryland, Reading as well as CNJ all participated in a similar ‘Alphabet Route - Fast Freight’ program running between Chicago & Jersey City that made for some incredible railroading in the years after WW II thru the early 60’s all involving expess reefers as well as similar consists.
Regards,
Mark
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