Fruit Expresses

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

How many of the Class I’s (former or present-day) operated their own “Fruit Express”? The four that come to my mind are SP (Pacific Fruit Express (their representative cars were orange, were they not?)), UP (their first cars were the same Armour yellow pre-SP, but now they’ve done something different, how did UP and SP end up operating the same “fruit express” anyhow?), CSX (I think this is the one that runs or ran “Solid Cold”) and BNSF, which ran or runs, I think, something called “Western Fruit Express”. Are there other RRs that operate this service, or have in the past? Like the UP and SP (apparently) used to do, are there roads that co-operate on a joint system? Finally, what do the reporting letters “ARMN” mean if anything (they are the letters on the new UP refrigerator cars, I believe)?

Riprap

2

Pacific Fruit Express was a joint venture between SP and UP formed around 1907, the exact year escapes me, when Edward H. Harriman controlled both railroads. WP later joined in and left a couple of decades after that, joining Fruit Growers Express. In 1978 PFE was split between SP and UP. Technically Union Pacific Fruit Express was formed and PFE became a wholly own subsidiary of SP.

PFE had many minor modifications to its paint scheme. Fairly early on it changed from a yellow to orange with brown ends and roof. Then the roof went to silver. Then the ends went to black. Then the roof became white. At the end, the new cars and repaints were orange sides and ends with a white roof. Not too long after the split SP began painting its cars white. UP painted its cars yellow with white roof, then solid yellow.

MP was in a joint venture called American Refrigerated Transit (if I remember correctly). That is where MP got the ARMN and ARMH reporting marks. When UP started rebuilding its reefer fleet circa 2000, they chose ARMN for the reporting marks for its new and rebuilt reefers.

There is more information I do not have time to write right now (I must go to bed). Search this forum, there have been a few threads about reefers and the UP/CSXT Express Lane service. Try SPFE, UPFE, PFE, reefer, ARMN, and Express Lane as search terms (each in its own search). Also, “Pacific Fruit Express, 2nd Edition” (Signature Press) is good. I have heard that “The Great Yellow Fleet” is also good, although I have never read it.

To the best of my knowledge, none of these services exist anymore, with the possible exception of FGE. By the way the ARMN 900000 series cars are ex-FGE cars.

3

Let’s not forget Santa Fe’s “SFRD” (Santa Fe Refrigerator Despatch).

And I second the recommendation of the “Pacific Fruit Express” book by Thompson, Church and Jones. More information that you ever wanted to know about the PFE and its cars.

Regards

Ed

4

Western Fruit Express was originally affiliated with the Great Northern.

CB&Q had its own affiliate, the Burlington Refrigerator Express.

Fruit Growers Express had a lot of “owners” back in the day: SAL, ACL, C&O, B&O, L&N, MON, C&EI, CRR, A&WP, FEC, SOU, N&W, PRR, and WP are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Most of them are now components of CSX or NS. Eric, I think that FGE, if it exists at all any more, is now a subsidiary of CSX.

It should be pointed out that Burlington Refrigerator Express, Western Fruit Express, and Fruit Growers Express had some sort of relationship with each other, too–all three of them seemed to have the same corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C.

American Refrigerator Transit Company, as Eric mentioned, was jointly operated by Missouri Pacific and Wabash. I’m pretty sure Texas & Pacific came on board, possibly as an affiliate of MP.

The North Western Refrigerator Line was affiliated with guess who–and the Western Refrigerator Line was operated by the Green Bay & Western.

Merchants Despatch Transportation Company was owned primarily by the New York Central, but somehow wound up with cars lettered for IC, GM&O, and the Lackawanna as well.

I’m not sure what the relationship was between the Milwaukee Road and Union Refrigerator Transit Company, but there were a lot of URTX refrigerator cars with MILW markings. There were also series of URTX cars with M&STL and Soo Line markings.

Railroads that operated their own refrigerator cars in relatively recent times include NP, SLSF, BAR, MEC, EL, RDG, SOO, MILW, CNW. These are just the ones that had mechanical reefers–just about everyone had RBL-type cars. In earlier days, there were ice-bunker or brine-tank reefers with C&O and GTW reporting marks.

I’m sure that someone will be able to correct and/or comment on the actual ownership of some of these cars.

5

UPFEs still exist but a disappearing fast. I saw a long line of them at Inkom, ID, over the weekend - waiting to go into the car shops in Pocatello. I also saw several large blocks of ARMN in Blackfoot (with a few UPFEs through in) waiting to send you frozen french fries.

dd

6

I don’t hear much about trains of fruit these days, it might have been a bigger business in the past, but we do have the infamous Tropicana Juice Train that comes through this area.

7

Thanks for the answers so far…Eric, when I was able to railfan and notice some of the markings on the PFE cars, most of the orange cars were lettered for SP, but some were also lettered for UP. Does that make sense, since you said that UP made their own fruit express cars (and I did see those later on, but not around, say, 1982)? Also, (Eric), you said that these services don’t exist anymore. Why? Have they all merged together, or are fruit growers using other transportation modes? To anyone else: Were (are) fruit expresses something that the RR chooses to initiate, or do they start from the demand side with the “fruit growers”? The responses so far don’t make that abundantly clear. I’ll try the search engine option, but unfortunately am in a foreign country, so cannot check out book titles…

Riprap

8

Sometime during the mid-1960s / late-'60s I remember reading in the trade press that Bangor & Aroostok was prepared to purchase some mechanical refrigerator cars (A.A.R. mechanical designation “RPL”) to protect its seasonal fresh potato traffic. The purchase was contingent, however, upon Pacific Fruit Express leasing them for a certain interval each year. Apparently BAR and PFE each had some peak harvest demands that were complementary to each other.

BAR must have had a short harvest season that did not warrant a big purchase of expensive reefers, equipment that would have ended up sitting idle for too much of the year - hence the arrangement with PFE.

BAR did make the reefer purchases, but the equipment did not last too long under BAR ownership. Many, if not all, were eventually acquired by PFE and Union Pacific Fruit Express.

9

Many, but not all, of the BAR reefers went to PFE. There was one series that went to Illinois Central for a while (just before ICG); I forgot what happened to those. Another group went to GBW, and from there were scattered around a bunch of short lines before disappearing off my radar.

I’m pretty sure that BAR had some agreements with PFE before the mechanical reefers–I seem to remember some of their ice-bunker reefers, despite having the large reporting marks and numbers so typical of BAR, having some other markings that were otherwise unique to PFE.

10

While PFE went to SP, its assets were divided between SP (PFE) and UP (UPFE). So UPFE initially had only orange cars. I know UP experimented with painting a few reefers a bizarre shade of green, but I think that was after the breakup.

There are two reasons why these service no longer exist: trucks and regulations. Some people theorize had railroad deregulation came sooner, more of the perishable business may have stayed in the rails. I have not studied the issue enough to know.

I think the subsidiaries (fruit expresses) came about mainly for financial reasons related to payments for use of the cars.

Also, if you can get past issues of Trains, read “Got Carrots?” (November 2001) and “Lettuce” (December 2004).

SPFE Reefers

PFE Operations

New cross country perishable train

11

Just the other day I noticed a CSX box car sublettered with “Leased from FGE.”

Jeff

12

After WWII, the IC had a pretty sizable perishable operation. Northbound out of Mobile, Al and possibly NOLA. The haul was bananas on stems, at first. The cars were mechanical reefers, and were re-iced at a major ice dock facility operated by Railway’s Ice Co. at Fulton/South Fulton, Ky. The bananas were hauled all over the upper Midwest and many went to Chicago. Back hauls I think, I remember were beef carcasses[ swinging]. This business lasted into the early 1960’s when the major shippers in the Caribbean found they could ship in boxes, rather than on stalks, gaining more product payload. They then changed from bulk loaded ships[bananas on stalks] to containerized reefer’s and then the trucks took over the business.

13

I read the 2nd edition of Pacific Fruit Expess and was a very good detailed history of the company, learning many things I did not know. I hope that a book could be done on the ART and even FGE and perhaps MDT, which operated reefer fleet on the NYC. I can barely recall the tail end of the ice reefer era.

14

An interesting topic!! Eric, I viewed the PFE thread you sent me, thanks for that… Three questions arising from this (please forgive me if they’ve been posed before): (1. Was the white SP reefer with the orange PFE letters the last iteration of the service? When did SP begin to paint their reefers white? (2. I guess the Wallula, WA-based fruit train was launched earlier this year, so is there any feedback yet about how well it’s doing? (3. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Amtrak versions of these reefer cars, has anyone seen these on any Amtrak trains, and where?

Riprap

15

Jeff, I wouldn’t be surprised if the car you saw was built with yellow paint and black FGE lettering. CSX still has a few of these reefers in the 190000 series; as far as I know thay’re all blue now.

I saw one today, too!

16

Sam, I’m going to clean this up a little. Hope you don’t mind.

The IC didn’t go to Mobile until the GM&O merger. The Port of Entry for bananas was Gulfport, MS. IC went there. The IC had pretty much lost the business to truckers before the bananas were containerized. I don’t think the IC ever had a mechanical refrigerated car. They were ice bunkers to the end.

When I was at ICG intermodal Chiquita and Dole both brought in bananas through Gulfport, though only Chiquita was in containers at that time. Chiquita would drive two ships a week loaded with containers of tropical fruit into Gulfport and we didn’t get a load. It became basically an obsession with me. I was going to put bananas back on the railroad. After all, Chiquita already had the refrigerated containers and it was northbound revenue freight, which we always needed.

You know what, I was successful. I’m kinda proud of that one. We only got the Chicago business, but they eat a lot of bananas in Chicago. UPS used the equipment for southbound loading.

New business on the railroad taken away from a trucker, equipment moving both ways

17

Actually, Mr. Greyhounds, IC did have some mechanical reefers for a time. There was a series of 13 cars (IC 165000-165012) acquired in 1972 (pre-merger) from the Bangor & Aroostook (11100 and 11200 series). They were repainted solid orange, but never received any logos. They were returned to the BAR around 1979–I would have to dig through the ORERs to see how long the ice-bunker cars lasted.

Don’t blame you for being proud of that move! Unfortunately, I couldn’t help, as I suffer an adverse reaction from consuming fresh bananas.

18

Well, that’s no excuse, buy some anyway. Help the economy in the Honduras. Mash 'em up and put 'em in the dog’s food. Fresh fruit is good for a dog. (actually, a banana is not a fruit, it’s a giant herb)

I didn’t know about the 13 mechanical reefers. Now just what did we do with a 13 car fleet of refrigerated boxcars. Frozen chicken? 13 cars couldn’t have moved much. Who decided to acquire a 13 car fleet of mechanical reefers?

Jay, you got any ideas?

19

Yes, it was blue. It was heading your way. Maybe even the same one? Probably not.

Jeff

20

Ken and Carl- I’m drawing a total blank on this. I can’t believe that they would have been picked up as free runners, and there must have been some plan for there use. I’ll check and see if any of my contacts from back then remember anything.

Jay