For many years now I have seen mainly Railbox, CNW, MP, SRN, and EEC single door, XM boxcars hauling products from tomato processing plants and creameries. All this time I would see SP and SSW single door and double door boxcars hauling in stuff but never haul anything out. On Thursday I drove by a creamery and saw a SP double door boxcar and a SSW double door boxcar there.
Also, it seems like the creameries only shipped dry products, probably whey and/or powdered milk, by rail. Now I am finally seeing reefers there.
Most of the year the beer that comes from Mexico to our neck of the woods is shipped in standard box cars (these are exciting to me because of the number of reletterings many of them have gone through). But in the winter, they switch to RBLs, just to keep the product from freezing.
Could you be more specific with customer and station names.
In the Fall of 1987 I saw where the U.P. (Tidewater & Southern) was pulling upwards of 45 mostly insulated boxcars (RBLs) per day from the Modesto & Empire Traction Co. Dump truck after dump truck loaded to the brim with ripe tomatoes were pouring their cargos into the area canning plants, many of whom were running at full bore with whiffs of steam shooting out of every orifice. The canning plants seemed to be sending a lot of their T.O.F.C. shipments to the Santa Fe connection located at the east end of the M.& E.T. while the T.& S. side handled the carload shipments. Beyond canned tomato shipments, I suppose these cars were loaded with canned vegetables, tomato juice, and tomato paste.
From northern California to eastern markets, I bet it was all good business for the Union Pacific!
Anytime when I type or say reefer I am refering to mechanical reefers, unless otherwise specificed or it is obvious from the context. I know that RBLs are considered reefers, but I consider them insulated boxcars. To me, a reefer must have a means of cooling the load.
[quote user=“Bob-Fryml”]
Eric:-
Could you be more specific with customer and station names.
In the Fall of 1987 I saw where the U.P. (Tidewater & Southern) was pulling upwards of 45 mostly insulated boxcars (RBLs) per day from the Modesto & Empire Traction Co. Dump truck after dump truck loaded to the brim with ripe tomatoes were pouring their cargos into the area canning plants, many of whom were running at full bore with whiffs of steam shooting out of every orifice. The canning plants seemed to be sending a lot of their T.O.F.C. shipments to the Santa Fe connection located at the east end of the M.& E.T. whi