In a message dated 12/16/00 3:56:47 PM Eastern Standard Time,
muskoka@... writes:

It's 2 letters, the first is 'R' and the second (depending on which
sample is viewed) is either 'd', 'Q', or 'x' (i.e. Rd, RQ, or Rx).

It would help if you gave us the numbers, too. There were sooo many series
of reefers the number series might jog someone's memory.

I'm working with a UP conductor's manual recorded in March, 1948, for thru
trains between Laramie and Rawlins Wyoming. Almost every car inital and
number is legible with just a few exceptions - one in particular is nagging
at me: It's 2 letters, the first is 'R' and the second (depending on which
sample is viewed) is either 'd', 'Q', or 'x' (i.e. Rd, RQ, or Rx). The cars
are reefers -- as there are re-icing instructions. The car numbers span a
wide numeric range and the only ORER reefer numbers that match in full are
URTX, so that's what I'm assuming these entries are. 'Cept there is one
entry where he writes in full 'URTX'....

By and large he uses the full car initial. The only exceptions I've noted
are 'Q' for CBQ, and on occassion he leaves off the X on private cars.

So the question I have is there a common nickname for URTX that would
explain the codes I've come across?

Oh, there is one more item of interest: SFRD26384, westbound with a load of
eggs.

-----------------------------------
Dave Nelson

Dave Nelson wrote:

Oh, there is one more item of interest: SFRD26384, westbound with a load of
eggs.

Dave and others,

RD26384 was an Rr-12 reefer, which originally was built in 1928 as an Rr-7.
In 1932, 100 Rr-7s were modified with stage icing and re-classed as Rr-12s
in series 30000-30099. They also had the hatch covers turned around for use
as ventilators and were assigned to banana service. In 1942, 85 cars had the
stage icing removed and were renumbered in the 26351-26450 series. The other
15 cars joined them in 1945.

They were steel framed, wood sheathed with ARA style steel underframes.
Sunshine makes an HO scale resin kit.

I don't know about the other reefers you talk about. I would've guessed RD,
since that was a common shorthand, but it appears that SFRD26384 was called
out differently.

Keith Jordan

Dave Nelson wrote, about some reefers he found in a 1948 UP conductor's
time book:

I've written them down as URTX and I'm assuming they're all reefers,

but the original initials looked like Rd, RQ, or Rx. There is a mix of east
and westbounds here.

road car_nrcar_type contents
URTX 34861 REEFER Candy
URTX 25771 REEFER Mdse
URTX 34840 REEFER Mdse
URTX 4352 REEFER Potatoes
URTX 7325 REEFER Potatoes
URTX 26225 REEFER Potatoes
URTX 14349 REEFER Potatoes
URTX 23819 REEFER Mdse
URTX 25927 REEFER Mdse
URTX 20399 REEFER Cherries?
URTX 14737 REEFER Beer
URTX 34820 REEFER Waste
URTX 34276 REEFER Juice
URTX 63013 REEFER Mty
URTX 36427 REEFER Wine

...could these cars belong to some other owner?

Dave, I'm very doubtful that these are all URTX cars. First of all, there
are a lot of them. I don't know how many cars total are listed in the data
you have, but in 1948 the URTX fleet only totaled slightly more than 6,000
cars, and I'd be very surprised if that many of them were running at that
time on the UP. Secondly, almost all of those numbers could be SFRD cars
(from a fleet that totalled about 15,000 cars). And some of the loads look
like backhaul cargoes for westbound empties, which would explain what SFRD
cars were doing in UP trains. (It might be some help to know which
direction the cars were moving.) Offhand, the one exception that jumps out
at me is 63013, which would almost certainly have been a URTX meat reefer.

I've had some experience trying to interpret the chicken scratches in
conductors' time books, and what it tells me is that reporting marks were
often recorded in a cryptic shorthand that only the conductor himself could
decipher with assurance (and that weren't necessarily consistent from one
entry to another, either). So I'm going to suggest that a lot of those
entries represented "RD," which was common trainmen's shorthand for SFRD.
If you like, I can go through the list and identify possible SFRD classes
(or you can do that yourself from the rosters in the Jordan et. al. Santa
Fe reefer book).

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520