Were there still wood refrigerator cars on the railoads as late as the mid 1950s to early 60s?
The short answer is yes. Most wood sided reefers by the mid 50’s were the shorter(36’) meat reefers, but they were being replaced with 40’ steel cars. The produce business(like the PFE cars) were already using 40’ cars. The ‘meat’ business used brine tanks to get sub-zero cold for meat and eating up everything metal - it took a while to go to metal cars. By that time, mechanical reefers were starting to replace stage iced reefers. The meat business started shipping by truck in force around 1960, and rail business just dwindled.
That said, I have pictures of C&NW(NWX) wood side reefers in the 60’s still in revenue business. Of course, most ‘billboard’ scheme reefers were gone by that time. My layout is set in 1959, but I have Milw and CNW wood reefers(I just love the ‘texture’ of a wood side car). I also have quite a few red 36’ Swift meat reefers for my packing plant!
Jim
I saw my last wood reefers in service in the very early 1970s. A friend took shots of NWX 15080 (a CNW wood reefer) in Milwukee in the winter of 1974-75. And it looked in good shape at that.
I suspect a few wood reefers lasted about as long as ice bunker service did.
Dave Nelson
Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) had wooden (with steel underframe) reefers well into the 1960s. Wood had its advantages: insulative qualities, corrosion resistance, and readily repairable. PFE had its own car building/repairing facilities and continued to repair and rebuild its thousands of reefers.
Mark
“The ‘meat’ business used brine tanks to get sub-zero cold for meat”
how low a termperature could be achieved with the addition of salt to the ice? i got in the game late but i don’t remember any frozen meat shipments. hanging beef out of Royal Packing in E St Louis was not frozen and we handled a lot of reefer trailers of Kosher beef in tofc service, but, it was fresh meat and not frozen. the only shipments of frozen food i ever saw requiring a temperature of 0 or below were always in mechanical reefers. could you enlighten me further?
grizlump
Swinging beef shipments from the Swift Plant in SSP used brine tanks(all of the cars were RSM’s). The temp was below 20 degrees. Flash frozen items like TV dinners also needed very cold shipping. Mechanical reefers were much better at providing sub-zero and constant temps. I am not sure what temp can be achieved with a brine solution, but 20 degrees is possible.
Swift was getting into 50’ mechanical reefers by the 60’s for large shipments, but started trucking product out as well. I remember ‘Wolf Wagons’; German built trucks that could be coupled together(MU) and a single driver could drive the pair to an outlying area and a 2nd driver would take the trailing unit.
By the mid 60’s, the large integrated packing plants were in decline. The Swift plant closed in 1960/1970. The nearby Armour plant closed up about 10 years later(in stages).
Jim
In an article in the December 1995 issue of RMC, discussing CNR’s and CPR’s overhead ice bunker reefers, mention is made of a 1937 trial shipping frozen fish from B.C. to Montreal (eight days) and thence on to England (another eight days), using an ice/salt mixture for cooling. During the summer, these cars could maintain an interior temperature of from 0 to minus12 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the ice/salt ratio. For example, it was found that a mixture of 30lbs. of salt per 100lbs. of ice yielded a temperature of -5 degrees F in the brine tanks.
I built a model of one of the first CN cars, starting with an Athearn steel reefer:
Wayne
Several of the remaining PFE wooden reefers were to be restricted to dry ice only captive service in New Mexico by the late 50’s, early sixties, yet they survived until 1973. For this duty, most, but not all, had bunkers, hatches and load dividers removed as part of the conversion process.
Dave
I believe Fruit Growers Express ran wood-sided reefers into the sixties here in the northeast.mh
SInce the topic is moving about a bit, I will post my question here. If this is the wrong place, let me know.
I am looking for some N gauge reefers appropriate for California service during the 1920s. Also prototype pictures would be great. I guess it would be for PFE or their competitors. I have Googled for this but can’t find a lot so I thought I would ask here. Any links to prototype pics would be appreciated. I checked the PFE site but nothing definitively 20s shows there.
I assume they were still iced then, rather than mechanical reefers, but any info would be welcome, thanks.
For the record, I am modelling a fictional Sierra Mountain route that according to my warped fake history drags reefer strings over the summit from the San Joaquin Valley to Laws/Bishop via Frenchman’s Flats (such a route was contemplated but never built) where they join with Eastern Slope farm traffic (Mullholland hadn’t yet stolen Owens lake and all the Eastern Slope water yet for LA).
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Dan S.
Hi Dan, and [#welcome] to the Forum.
Tony Thompson did an excellent series on PFE in the Jan., Feb., Mar., and April 1987 issues of Railroad Model Craftsman. I don’t know whether back issues would be available or not, but there’s a book by Thompson and Church on the subject.
Depending on how accurate you want to be, the Tichy reefer looks fairly close to some of the '20s reefers shown in the magazine articles:
Prior to 1929, the car’s sidesill could be somewhat different, although many older cars were re-built, in 1924-28, with sidefames similar to the car pictured. Until 1929, the car would be a more yellow colour - Floquil Maine Central Yellow is recommended - and there were no heralds on the early cars, either. Between 1929 and 1946, the SP herald was situated on the side nearest the “B” end of the car, with the UP herald on the opposite side - it had several versions over the years, so you’d need to nail down the specific date for the car you’re modelling. Supposedly, the PFE reporting marks weren’t introduced until 1925 - photos in the magazine show “PACIFIC FRUIT EXPRESS” spelled out, with only the car number and dimensional data below. However, the same cars do have PFE reporting marks on the car ends. I’d guess that the book mentioned might clear up that little mystery.
Wayne
Thanks for the quick answer. The only Tichy product I saw was in HO, not N. Is the Microtrain Iced reefer a decent substitute? Or are there other, better N gauge products?
Thanks again,
Dan S.
Sorry, Dan, I missed the reference to N scale. [D)][banghead]
After some hunting around, I finally found a picture of the Microtrain reefer. As far as I can tell, the stock number is 49500 (49000 for undecorated) and it looks much like the HO scale car by Tichy.
Wayne
Up to 1922 the following PFE classes were in service:
R-30-1 (built 1905), R-30-2, (built 1906) R-30-4/5 (1907) R-30-11 (built 1911) R-30-11 1/2 (built 1911) & R-30-12 (built 1917 through 1923), all classes in total exceded 22,000 cars.
Class R1 & 2 incorporated a unique built up fish belly side sill and frame thus the nick name “Possum bellies” some were updated as well with outside metal sheathed roofs, but no new truck assemblies, bolster design constraints prevented retrofitting later cast designs. A common problem among this class was for the side sheathing to come adrift were it overlapped the side sill, many cars received side sheath bolts but it proved more ecnomical to replace the mutlitude of bolts with a flange constructed from light iron, a must have detail if modeling these cars in their later years. PFE had no great urgency in upgrading many, most carried obsolete 1916 paint and lettering standards to retirement or rebuilding to R-30-13 standards.
These were also the among the most popular class of PFE reefers to be re-assigned for temporary express service, all in such service were repainted dark olive green with replacement passenger certified axles and wheel fitted to their existing Arch Bar side frames If modeling these, all hardware is black with chocolate brown sideframes and black underbody, lettering is gold leaf. One could forgo modeling the upgraded brake gear but do include the steam and signal lines.
This class has I believe never before been offered in model form and it would be a difficuilt kitbash if a even suitable doner was available.
R-30-11 through R-30-12 can be best represented by any 40 foot wooden reefer with the following changes: Cars equipped with wood sheathed roofs did not have hatch platforms and wood roofs were never painted black, likwise o