You are cordially invited to join a new hobby group devoted to the history and modeling the citrus industry. The group is the Citrus Industry Modeling Group and is located at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/citrusmodeling/ on Yahoo. Membership is free.
The first purpose of this group is to collect, preserve and share information about the citrus industry in Southern California as it pertains to the operations of the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. This includes growing, picking, packing and shipping activities and the equipment, procedures, practices, economic and social aspects related to these activities.
The second purpose of this group is to use this information to create accurate and realistic representations of the citrus industry and related railroad equipment and operations on model railroads.
This group is open to all persons with an interest in the above. Contributions are encouraged but not required.
Already posted on this site are a number of useful links, photos and files of interest to modelers, rail fans and historians. These offerings will grow with member participation. The group also is a forum to exchange modeling ideas and resources through message postings.
Stop in and checkout this new group.
Bob Chaparro
Group Owner & Moderator
Mission Viejo, CA
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As of today the group has:
235 members
19 Internet Links
78 Photographs
24 Information and reference files
While we are mainly interested in theOrange County to Ventura area, we do have some discussions on areas to the North, especially when we discuss PFE operations. In addition, one of our main supporting links on packing houses (Historic Packing Houses and Other Industrial Structures in Southern California at http://ljames1.home.netcom.com/scph.html) recently has expanded coverage up to the San Joaquin Valley.
And many of our resource files and operations discussions apply to refrigerator car and perishable operations anywhere in the country.
What happen to Florida citrus? I’m sure you heard of Tropicana Orange Juice? In Fort Myers there is a rail point to ship them on FEC. Then there are those CSX Tropicana trains [;)][;)]
Nothing happened to Florida citrus. Someone should start a group for that, also.
The scope of our group is on one region and three railroads (four if you count the Pacific Electric). Most of my resources plus my physical ability to personally visit existing packing houses, railroad facilities, libraries, city museums, etc. is centered in Southern California. My two major collaborators have this same focus.
That said, some of the material and resources we are identifying (e.g.: National Perishable Freight Commission, icing stations, East Coast produce terminal operations, citrus grove equipment) would apply to citrus/railroad operations in Arizona, Texas and Florida as well.
O.K. to us people living in Siberia South, you may as well be talking about trains on Venus, what would we see on a “citrus” train? Gondolas filled with oranges? tank cars loaded with orange juice? boxcars filled with grapefruit and oranges? this is something a lot of people in North America probably cannot comprehend, let’s have some more info and possibly some photos of this seemingly “bizarre” form of railroading, sounds interesting.
A “citrus train” would be a string of refrigerator cars loaded with crates of oranges. Our group is focus on everything from the growing of the oranges and lemons to packing them for shipment to transporting themby rail to delivery at produce terminals. In between we focus on preparing the refrigerator cars and reicing them in transit, plus how these car were used when returned to Southern California.
We examine modeling all of this, the history of the business and the social impacts.
Its great to see a new specialized group that is focusing in on a very important California industry that has been overlooked for years within railfanning and modeling circles. And it is your group, but it was the inclusion of the San Joaquin Valley area into the co-op, that created the “California Fruit Growers Exchange,” what all of us now know as Sunkist, and the majority of modelers or historian are looking at the industry post March 27, 1905.
Does this group also support discussion of the Exchange’s buying arm; the Fruit Growers Supply? A small plug here:
This is a subjective statement, but I think in the last 100 years, the California citrus industry, which was the California Fruit Growers Exchange was about eating citrus and not about juicing citrus.