Did the fleet of Swift reefers operate on Southern Pacific tracks?
Not sure about how many cars would make up a fleet, but the short answer would appear to be yes.
On this link under the Meat Reefers heading, and I quote, “There are one or two photos of red Swift wood meat reefers in Coast line freights with some photos which showed a small number of foreign cars mixed in with PFE reefers (MDT and URTX, IIRC).”
http://www.modelingthesp.com/Rolling_Stock/Reefers_I.html
I only have a passing interest in the SP but from what I’ve seen during previous research, Mr. Tony Thompson certainly appears to do his homework…
http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/05/modeling-meat-reefers-part-5.html
Cheers, the Bear*.[:)]*
This fellow has some good tips on modeling the SP:
http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/search?q=swift
You may have to dig for the exact information you seek but the photos and modeling tips are very well done. (I like the coverage on Helium cars).
Good Luck, Ed
Swift was a large and dominating meat packer and had a string of branch houses all over the country, quite apart from its many actual slaughter houses, and all in all so far flung and widepread that I would think most Class 1 railroads did see Swift reefers.
Here is an article about South San Francisco that has references to the SP
Microsoft Word - Swift & Co newsletter article (ssf.net)
Swift had operations in Texas also that were likely served by SP/SSW.
Dave Nelson