I noticed a half dozen Rapido meat reefers on the shelf at Chuck's Depot in Marion, IL, too. I can't recall the paint and lettering schemes.

Eric Hansmann
Murfreesboro, TN

1. A heads-up about that shaft being square!  I recall posts about square shafts, and somehow still missed that I have one here!
2. A heads-up about the Tangent brakewheels. Ordered a couple of sets attached to some of those K-Brake sprues. $4 shipping is rare nowadays.

Model: SFRD 8423

At the recent Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society Convention in Pueblo, CO, Peter Aue of Germany showed me a number of custom-made details he is using to model a fifty-car Santa Fe reefer block in HO scale representing the year 1950. All fifty reefers are to represent car classes in service that year with the appropriate paint schemes, car details, car numbers and stencils.

Over twenty different SFRD refrigerator car classes will be required. This includes models from Sunshine, Intermountain, Westerfield and Athearn.

His model of SFRD 8423 is one of the fifty cars. This is a Class Rr-40 ice bunker refrigerator car that started with an InterMountain kit. He modified the kit with many photo-etched parts (running boards, ladder and fan parts, reinforcement panels, ice hatch cover stops, etc.), cast resin ends and custom printed decals. All of these items are non-commercial and are of his own design. And he weathered the finished model.

To no one's surprise this model won an award at the convention.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Railroad Citrus Industry Modeling Group

https://groups.io/g/RailroadCitrusIndustryModelingGroup

A very interesting car for that period especially but what are the trucks on it?

When I arrived at the airport in Pueblo, CO, last week for the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society's annual convention I discovered this photo on a wall. The photo shows a scene from the great Pueblo flood of 1921.

The reefer in this scene is between Second and Thirds Streets on Court Street, looking down an alley. I'm guessing there were tracks down the alley. This location is two block away from the old Santa Fe mainline through Pueblo. Here is the same scene today:

https://tinyurl.com/y65atn2e

SFRD 11819 was a Class Rr-T ice bunker refrigerator car from the series 11651-12150. The 500 cars were built in 1915 by AC&F. Only 204 of these cars were in revenue service in 1938 and only 3 in 1940. The car has Santa Fe No. 4 type ventilators. These were truss rod cars and were similar to the ensuing Rr-U and Rr-V classes, the final SFRD truss rod cars. These three classes had composite underframes and wood superstructure framing. Good photos of these design features are found on Page 60 of the book, Santa Fe Refrigerator Cars Ice Bunker Cars 1884-1979.

This early design may explain the relatively short lives of these cars and why they were not rebuilt into more modern cars. The flexibility of their wood superstructures led to loose joints and heat penetration.

A photo of sister car SFRD 11825 appears on Page 71 of the reefer book. The reefer in this link is from the same flood but probably is a different car:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hollywoodplace/42853440182/in/photostream/lightbox/

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Railroad Citrus Industry Modeling Group

https://groups.io/g/RailroadCitrusIndustryModelingGroup

+++

The 1921 Pueblo Flood

Fifteen hundred people lost their lives in the flood and there was twenty million dollars in damage. The Arkansas River rose over fifteen feet in some places.

Scene at Pueblo Union Station

http://i.imgur.com/6bDwHdk.jpg

Scene across the street from Union Station. The reefer was carried one half mile.

https://mountainscholar.org/bitstream/handle/10217/18542/PMFC_104.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Book with many railroad photos:

https://mountainscholar.org/handle/10217/20112

Download the book to read it and see the photos.