Brian,
The Keystone Modeller site had some problems, IIRC, and now only
issues #7 and above are online, so I cannot reference TKM #4.

Dean Payne

--- In STMFC@..., Brian Carlson <prrk41361@y...> wrote:

Dean, you may want to Check the PRRTHS TKM #4, 11-03 where Elden

Gatwood covered modeling these cars in resin, while I couldn't
really tell if he shimed his cars (At least one was the Sunshine
model though) you make be able to with your car in hand.

Brian J carlson

At 03:59 PM 1/20/2005, you wrote:

The Santa Fe,
like PFE, avoided handing off perishable traffic to the Pennsy, which had
the nation's worst record for timely movement of perishables,

In 1954, the Pennsy received 7,500 cars of perishables from the Chicago
Produce Terminal. Approximately 60,000 carloads of perishable traffic
eastbound were handled through the Dolton interchange with the IHB.

ET SLSF East Tulso OK

Is this "East Tulsa" or "East Thomas" which was the Frisco's yard in
Birmingham, Al? The latter *may* have been ETH, but I have never seen
definitive proof

FRA GM&O

This is the symbol for the former GM&N Frascati car shops, Mobile, Alabama

The Santa Fe,
like PFE, avoided handing off perishable traffic to the Pennsy, which had
the nation's worst record for timely movement of perishables,

I wouldn't put too much stock in the Chicago bottleneck theory as far as
perishables....
The CB&Q had strict shedules to drop eastbound reefers and livestock at the
IHB interchange at Congress Park. I believe the IHB forwarded the cars to
the NYC, NKP, etc.. with equal haste... an extra 2-3 days for produce, meat
(live or hanging) would not be tolerated by either the railroads or the
shippers...too much money at stake.
Charlie Vlk

--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson
<rhendrickson@o...> wrote - "So it was certainly the case the MDT
and other off-line reefers sometimes turned up as eastbound loads in
western reefer blocks, but such trains never had "a lot" of off-line
cars.

Thanks for your reply. That's what I thought. Unfortunately I wanted
to justify more MDT reefers in Erie trains.

When did the special handling of reefers due to the shortage around
the time of WWII end?

On the economic side,
there would have been additional car delay resulting in more per-diem
expense for RI on those cars, unless there happened to be some sort of
reclaim mechanism involved. I'm curious if anyone can offer comments as to why
RI-SP handled their westbound empty PFE's that way vs. normal train
schedules, and was there indeed a per-diem reclaim arrangement between
the RR's to help RI with the extra cost of moving the cars that way?

Charlie Vlk asked:
"A neat conversion. How close is it to what prototype(s)?"

It's closest to the WAB radial roof SS automobile boxcars. It

about 1' too long and ~4-6" too high. The number of roof carlines

correct but are slightly off in spacing. The MDC doors are 6'-6';

Wabash cars look to be 5'-6' or 5'-7'. The end door is a decent

the WAB cars; the A end will have to be replaced with a 3/3/3

end (the Tyco 50 ft plug door boxcar is one source!) or 5/5/6

See George Drake's article in the November/December 1980 Mainline

for more information on the Wabash cars.


"The same conversion could be done in N with the Walthers car."

If the N scale Walthers car is the same as the HO car, it has a

vice the radial roof. I'm not sure what prototypes would match.

--- In STMFC@..., Mike Aufderheide <mononinmonon@y...>
wrote:

Chet,

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting. Any idea
how these were routed. UP to Council Bluffs? Were
these cars part of block dropped at Decatur from a
train going through to the east?

Mike,

The larger amount of perishable traffic was received by the Wabash

Kansas City from the SP/CRIP and UP. Some cars were received at
Council Bluffs from the UP. All the cars arrived at Decatur on
trains 82, 90, and 98 from Kansas City. Cars received at Council
Bluffs would have been added to these trains at Moberly, Mo. There
was one exception, PFE 61266, Spuds, arrived at Decatur on train

from Chicago. The Wabash forwarded a large number of perishable

to the ERIE at Huntington, IN, for movement east.

Ben-
I'll have to pull out the Walthers N cars to see what they have on

don't recall the end doors but we have other cars that could be
donors....but I also don' t recall if it has a radial roof...
Thanks,
Charlie Vlk

Chet French wrote

The Wabash forwarded a large number of perishable cars
to the ERIE at Huntington, IN, for movement east.

This raises an interesting issue - Since Chicago was notorious
for lengthy delays (2-3 days to get through the interchanges) was
it a common practice among the eastern and midwestern carriers to
exchange perishables at other locations where connections got the
cars moving east sooner, rather than later?

For example, Huntington is shown 24 miles southwest of Fort Wayne.
On that same line in Indiana, the Wabash crossed the Monon, NYC,
NKP, PRR, ERIE, and B&O. I never thought about it before, but would
Wabash have made most perishable connections via these lesser
interchanges rather than via the big "gateway" cities?