It can be found at the following coordinates on Google Maps:

39°44'10.5"N 104°19'23.6"W

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Here's Google's Street View imagery dated May 2023.

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Danny

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Rich Sievers commented:

The unit is now privately owned and has been stored out-of-service for many, many years at an abandoned grain elevator next to the UP main track in Strasburg, Colorado, east of Denver.

Its reporting marks are 'MCRX 1048', standing for Markus Rail Transport.

Nice! Did anyone ever make decals for this PFE switcher?

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PFE Switcher 1048

Photo courtesy of Craig Walker.

Pacific Fruit Express NW2 No. 1048 began life as Union Pacific 1048. It is seen here at the PFE shops in Tucson, Arizona, on September 12, 1981. Russell Eslick photograph.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

When this photo was taken, the Tustin Branch end at Villa Park and the Villa Park Orchards (VPOA) packing house was one of the few remaining packing houses still operating in Orange County. By this time, most of the fruit packed by VPOA was trucked in from other counties, especially San Diego. VPOA business was so good that they purchased the old Santiago Orange Growers packing house in Orange and packed out of it to where both the SP and Santa Fe provided service, eventually the SP abandon service to this house. In a few years, the Villa Park packing was closed and the SP Tustin Branch ?was cut back more. VPOA’s packing house in Orange became the last operating packing house in Orange County. VPOA eventually closed the Orange Packing house but still operates packing houses on Ventura County and in the Central Valley. The Orange packing house was purchased by Chapman University and incorporated into a resident housing development.

PFE Reefers At Villa Park Orchards Packing House

A post by Don Golde?on Flickr.

Description:

At least seven PFE reefers on the SP on the old Tustin Branch spotted at the Villa Park Orchards orange packing facility at Villa Park, CA sometime in mid-May 1975.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Train On A Crate Label

A post by David Eck.

He comments:

Economy Brand Lemon Crate Label. Red Ball grade fruit. Grown on the McNally Ranch in La Mirada, Los Angeles County, California. Printed by Western Lithograph in July 1933.

Why is this scantily clad woman on the label? I guess someone had to pull the curtain back so we could see the buildings and orchards of McNally Ranch.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Sunkist Grower Sign

A post from the Facebook History of Corona group.

Description & Comments:

Sunkist - Orange Heights Association

Haven’t been able to find the exact location of this grove in Corona.? That said, E.H. Wallace and his wife lived at 824 Belle St. (Where the hospital is now), were members of the Christian church and in 1946 Eldridge ‘E.H’ Wallace passed away.

It was fairly common for citizens of Corona to own small citrus groves and then pool with other grove owners of the Orange Heights Association to distribute their oranges and lemons.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Cull Lemons From Goleta

Tony Thompson commented:

In the 1950s, cull lemons for juice processing were shipped in iced reefers, using bins inside for the fruit, according to Bruce Jones, who was a relief agent at Oxnard for a while. He said the lemons came from Goleta. He couldn’t recall where the lemons were going, maybe to that Anaheim plant.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Fontana Citrus Lands - 1915

A post by David Eck.

Description:

Newspaper ad for Fontana Citrus Lands - 1915

This ad appeared in the Rialto Record on February 26, 1915. The company is offering land suitable for citrus growing. This land includes water right which are absolutely critical to raising citrus in hot, dry Southern California. The ad makes it sound pretty much perfect.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Santa Fe Texas Locos With Reefer Block

A post by Taylor Rush on the Facebook From the Album group.

Description:

Shaking the ground as they storm towards the photographer at thirty miles per hour with eighty-seven cars in tow are a pair of Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 5011 class "Texas" locomotives, number 5015 and 5025. The gigantic oil-burning 2-10-4 machines were built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1944 and carried construction numbers 70821 and 70831. Designed for dual-service, these superpower behemoths rolled on 74" drivers that transferred 108,961 pounds of tractive effort to the rails. They were fitted with roller bearings on all axles, sporting a cast-steel bed with integrated cylinders, a Worthington 6-SA feedwater heater, Walschaerts valve gear with lightweight rods, and nearly 6,000 cylinder horsepower. The extra freight was captured near Abo, New Mexico on October 5, 1947.

Four of the class have been preserved. Number 5011 at the Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood, Missouri, number 5017 at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin, number 5021 at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California, and number 5030 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Original photo taken by R. H. Kindig.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

The destination for the lemon to Anaheim was on the Santa Fe. It was to the Minute Maid plant off the Santa Fe's Fullerton to San Diego line, the Fourth District.

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Cliff Prather

Model: SP Beet Gondola With Cull Lemon Load

Awhile back someone told me they had seen an SP beet gondola with a load of cull oranges parked at the old Sunkist juice plant (now gone) in Ontario, Ca.

I don’t know about oranges, but I do know that SP hauled cull lemons from Arizona to an Anaheim juice plant and (via the Santa Fe) the Exchange Lemon Products plant in Corona. Exchange Products also received cull lemons by boxcar.

An article on prototype gondolas for transporting lemons was posted on this group in 2018:

The article kindled my interest in building an HO scale gondola with a cull lemon load. I reported on this project five years ago:

I followed up that project with a second gondola from Red Caboose/Intermountain.

For this third project I started out with a R-T-R Intermountain SP beet gondola with the board sides used prior to the use of plywood sides. Is this load prototypical? Maybe not but I do have an authorized modeler’s license issued by…me.

For lemons I used some of my stock of JTT Scenery Products #92124 miniature fruit, which included a packet of lemons. JTT now is owned by Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC), who marketed this product as JTT #0592124.

Be advised that these probably are the last lemons available in HO scale, but they are listed as out-of-stock by MRC. Woodland Scenics did not offer scale lemons. Alpine Division Scale Models did but they no longer are in business.

For lemons your best source is E-Bay for the Alpine, the old JTT or MRC products.

I scratch-built a base for the upper interior section of the gondola and installed it. I then attached the upper section (the board extension section) to the main body of the gondola. I coated the base with Pacer Technology's Formula 560 Canopy Glue and sprinkled on some lemons. Adhesion was good. When dry I gave the first layer another coat of diluted (20% water) Canopy Glue and added more lemons. I added a third coat just for insurance. This produced a good, built-up layer of lemons with no bare spots showing through to the base.

When this was dry, I shook off the excess lemons. Done.

The photo below is the finished model temporarily parked on a siding next to a scratch-built shallow relief model of a packing house. This packing house would not have processed cull lemons, so this car is waiting to be switched to the nearby Exchange Lemon Products Plant, which on my railroad had yet to be modeled.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

S Brand Lemon Crate Label

A post by David Eck.

He comments:

Grown & Packed by Rancho Sespe in Sespe, Ventura County, California. Printed by Schmidt Lithograph, Los Angeles. Circa 1910s.

Sespe was a small community in Ventura County near the Santa Clara River. By the 1890s, it had a post office, school and railroad station. Local backers hoped it would become the area's primary town. This didn't happen. The nearby city of Fillmore grew and eventually overshadowed little Sespe and the town declined. Little of the town of Sespe remains.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

PFE Icing Platform – Yuma, Arizona

A photo from a 1927 Yuma Chamber of Commerce publication.

Thanks to Don Gray for the tip.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

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Look at the number board:

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"FOURTH 842"-! The 4th section of scheduled train # 842. Talk about a produce rush!

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~ Larry Wines

SP Reefer Block - Arizona

A photo from a column by The Rogue Columnist.

Description:

Heavy-duty Southern Pacific steam power is in charge of this train of reefers carrying Salt River produce.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

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SP Reefer Block - Arizona

A photo from a column by The Rogue Columnist.

Description:

Heavy-duty Southern Pacific steam power is in charge of this train of reefers carrying Salt River produce.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

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Note that the 1948 scheme as shown is wrong.? The UP medallion should be just Black & White.

The more we look, the more we find.

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Cheers,

Dick Harley

Laguna Beach,? CA

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