|
Question: Expanded Metal Panels On SFRD Reefer Roofs
Question: Expanded Metal Panels On SFRD Reefer Roofs On the Groups.io Real Steam Era Freight Car Discussion group David Soderblom asked: I don¡¯t personally recall seeing that some SFRD cars had expanded metal panels across the cars, on the car center side of the hatches. Did anyone else do this, and which SFRD classes? Bob Chaparro Moderator |
|
Model: Cab Forward With PFE Reefer Block
Model: Cab Forward With PFE Reefer Block A post by Brian Moore on the Facebook Southern Pacific Prototype Modelers group. Description: Westward X4185.? SP Class AC-8 4185 at the west end of Callender, Calif. with an empty reefer block. Wednesday 28 April 1954. My Notes: Brian lives in Plymouth, England. Bob Chaparro Moderator |
|
Re: Check Out The Icing Platform
The orange machine to the right is an automatic icing machine, the one to the left is a machine used to add salt to the ice bunkers. On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 12:19?PM Bob Chaparro via <chiefbobbb=[email protected]> wrote:
|
|
Re: Check Out The Icing Platform
What is ProRail? In the early 1980s, a group of model railroad owner-operators collected into small groups at NMRA regional and national conventions to discuss prototype operations on model railroad layouts. Occasionally, it was suggested the group should plan a get-together specifically to discuss operations and share operating on each other¡¯s railroads. At an ad-hoc operating weekend in 1986 at Lee Nicholas¡¯ home in Utah, the discussion coalesced into a plan to hold an owner-operator hosted ProRail Annual event. ? The first ProRail Annual was held in April 1987 in Chicago. The Chicago owner-operator group, informally known as RailGroup, agreed to host the first event if Kansas City would agree to host the second ¨C ensuring no one would be embarrassed by hosting the one-and-only ¡°annual¡± event. At the time, no one knew whether there would ever be a third ProRail Annual, although an operating group in northern New Jersey cautiously offered they might be interested, and they ultimately did host the third ProRail Annual.??Since that first ¡°ProRail87,¡± twenty-three ProRail Annual events have followed in locations throughout the country from Massachusetts to California. Because the ProRail Annual event has proven to be very successful, and because attendance at an Annual is naturally limited by the availability of operating positions, the Annual has spawned numerous regional and local weekend ¡°ProOp¡± events. These events are regularly hosted a various times throughout the year by groups from Atlanta, Georgia, to Vancouver, B.C. |
|
Check Out The Icing Platform
Check Out The Icing Platform A post by Doug Harding on Facebook. He comments: Today I ran on a very nice Union Pacific layout modeling the Council Bluffs and eastern Nebraska. HO scale, no scenery, but superb track and operations. I handled the transfers between the UP and all the railroads that came into Council Bluffs from the east. My Notes: Two icing machines! Doug took this at ProRail last week. Layout owned by Mark Amfahr of Woodland, MN. Bob Chaparro Moderator |
|
Packing Citrus In The Grove - I. L. Lyon & Sons
Packing Citrus In The Grove - I. L. Lyon & Sons A post by Robert Wilkiewicz on the Facebook Urban Archaeology SoCal Pomona Valley Ontario IE History group. Description: Antique postcard from Redlands California C. N. Jackson Photographer My Notes: This appears to reflect an earlier time when the crop was packed in the grove. Notice these are packing crates and not field boxes. This evolved to packing on the open platforms of local railroad depots to packing at purpose-built packing houses. Bob Chaparro Moderator |
|
Re: Ghost Sunkist Sign
I remember in the early sixties I went on a Cub Scouts tour of that packing house on 19th Street in Upland.
My only memory was watching all the citrus being sorted. My brother¡¯s best friend¡¯s dad operated a lemon and grapefruit farm near 15th and Campus (¡°Squeak¡± Wilson Farm).
My brother and I and Darryl Wilson spent one day after school up in a tree house in a eucalyptus tree. We were reading Playboy magazines and smoking cigarettes. Our experience turned my brother and I from taking up smoking.
Our family lived on 14th and First Avenue and growers had homes all around us.
Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear the Santa Fe local either heading up or returning from the 19th Street Packing house.
-Bruce Brewer?
? |
|
Re: Ghost Sunkist Sign
Reminds me of this incredible discovery in Upland several years ago. Citrus logo brings back a fragrant memory in UplandDavid Allen
Like a faint memory struggling to the surface, a faded Sunkist logo reappeared during demolition of a century-old packing house in Upland. The packing house is coming down to make way for 42 single-family homes. When a wooden exterior wall was torn down on Monday, an older brick wall was exposed. ¡°Sunkist¡± is written in large letters outlined in orange. It was a surprise to all, especially as the building had been studied, walked and documented. ¡°It looks like the sign was originally on the exterior of the building but was covered over with a later addition,¡± Jeff Zwack, Upland¡¯s development services director, wrote in an email after an inquiry from Councilman Gino Filippi. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of interest in the community about it,¡± Filippi told me. Upland Heritage, a preservation nonprofit, was looking into photographing the wall and possibly moving it, Filippi said. I visited the wall Monday. The packing house is on the south side of East 19th Street within view of a Kohl¡¯s and a Bed Bath and Beyond, both part of the Colonies Crossroads shopping center. The packing house abuts the street and the Sunkist logo faces westbound motorists like a billboard, albeit for something that hasn¡¯t existed for decades. This was my second sight of such a sign in Upland. On Foothill Boulevard a dozen years ago, remodeling exposed a painted logo for the old Shopping Bag market, defunct for decades. Instant nostalgia. Yet Sunkist is different. Upland was founded on citrus, not grocery stores. Many of the homes in this neighborhood were built on former groves. This sign was like an apparition, the Ghost of Citrus Past. Some motorists Monday slowed at the sight of the quaint logo and the in-progress demolition, experiencing a moment of wonder as history unfolded. Some stopped in the construction driveway for a longer look. ¡°I saw ¡®Sunkist¡¯ and pulled over to take pictures,¡± said Robin Baker. Baker¡¯s husband, Doug, was taking his own pictures. They were both sorry the packing house was being demolished. ¡°I hate to see it go,¡± Doug said. ¡°I¡¯m nostalgic for old Upland and orchards.¡± The Bakers live in a 1911 home on Euclid Avenue once owned by the Scheu family, which made orchard heaters that attempted to keep fruit from freezing on winter nights. They would have liked to see the packing house converted into artist lofts, shops or restaurants. ¡°Oh well,¡± Robin said. ¡°Progress.¡± Upland has four remaining packing houses, all clustered downtown. This northern packing house, where oranges were brought, sorted and packed, was built in 1914 by the Upland Citrus Association along a spur of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad. The spur ¡°terminated along the southern elevation of the packing house, allowing the packed citrus to be shipped across the nation,¡± according to a cultural resources assessment of the property done last year at City Hall¡¯s behest. Citrus Association founders Earl Paul and George Harrison were local ranchers. (No, not that George Harrison.) Six years later they founded Old Baldy Citrus Association and made the packing house its headquarters. By the time of a 1937 photo, the packing house had seven loading docks and a Sunkist logo. It became Cucamonga Mesa Growers in 1952 and seems to have ceased operations by the late 1970s, if not earlier. Weeks Roses used the site in the 1980s as a nursery and added a greenhouse. The property was sold in 2006 and has sat vacant. Homes to the north of the packing house were developed in 1999. ¡°We were told the packing house would be down two years after we moved in,¡± Mike Rhodes, one of the original homeowners, told me in his driveway Monday. At one point 98 townhomes were proposed, alarming neighbors. Rhodes welcomes the pending development, especially in its scaled-down form, as the packing house was continually broken into. ¡°It got graffitied, it was vandalized, people were living in there,¡± Rhodes said. ¡°It was just sitting there idle for year after year after Weeks moved out.¡± A Meritage Homes executive didn¡¯t get back to me before deadline Tuesday, but the company¡¯s plan is for 42 single-family homes of one or two stories in Craftsman, Spanish and Santa Barbara architectural styles on the fan-shaped, 10-acre lot. ¡°They revised the plans multiple times to get to that plan, which is the lowest density,¡± said Vincent Acuna, an assistant city planner. For a small park at the rear of the property, arbors and trellises will be built from wood salvaged from the packing house. ¡°All the names of the streets derive from the packing house to reflect the history of what was there,¡± Acuna said. In the meantime, the Sunkist wall, a closer reflection of that history, was still standing Tuesday morning, and it appeared the demolition crew was working around it. Drive by for a look at old Upland, maybe on your way to Target or Panera, only a short hop away in new Upland. David Allen chronicles a dying age Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Contact david.allen@... or 909-483-9339, visit , like on Facebook and follow on Twitter. |
|
BAR 2903 ex-BAR 10113 (Boxcar)
BAR 2903 ex-BAR 10113 (Boxcar) Pacific Fruit Express used Bangor & Aroostook reefers under an arrangement with that railroad. This photo is from a post by Larry Curtis on the Facebook Bangor & Aroostook Railroad group. Larry identifies this as a refrigerator car. BAR 2903 is not a refrigerator car. Visually, the latitudinal running boards on the roof confirm this. But more importantly, the January 1955 Official Railway Equipment Register identifies this car as a boxcar, specifically an AAR Class IXH or insulated boxcar with a heater. There have been reports of two older wood sheathed BAR refrigerator cars having been painted in the red-white-blue paint scheme as an experiment but this car is not one of those. And there were never any BAR steel sheathed reefers painted in the red-white-blue paint scheme. Every photo identified as such actually is a photo of an insulated boxcar. Many model manufacturers get this wrong. Bob Chaparro Moderator |
|
UP 3610 With Reefer Block
UP 3610 With Reefer Block A post by Taylor Rush on the Facebook From the Album group. Description: Flying white extra flags and trailing a long line of iced and loaded refrigerator cars as she enters the yards at Cheyenne, Wyoming is Union Pacific MC-2 class "Mallet Consolidation" number 3610. The big coal-burning 2-8-8-0 "Mallet" articulated was built by the Schenectady plant of the American Locomotive Company, construction number 58272, in May of 1918. Nicknamed "Bull Mooses" by their crews, eventually the Union Pacific would roster seventy of these slow but powerful locomotives. They were succesful enough that between 1937 and 1943 all were simpled and upgraded. Number 3610 would emerge from the shops as a SA-C-2 class and carrying the new number 3510. Bob Chaparro Moderator |
|
California Citrus State Historic Park - Riverside
California Citrus State Historic Park - Riverside Looking to get out into nature? Now you¡¯ll have even more time to explore! California Citrus State Historic Park is now open from 8 AM to 7 PM on weekends and 8 AM to 5 PM on weekdays. Take a walk through our scenic trails, enjoy the fresh air with your furry friends, or find the perfect spot for a sunny photo ¡ª there¡¯s no better time to soak in the beauty of the citrus groves!
My Notes: The Visitors Center has many citrus industry displays. Bob Chaparro Moderator |
|
Sunkist Billboard (1933)
Sunkist Billboard (1933) A photo from the Milwaukee Public Library. Description: This photograph shows a two-story clapboard building on the corner of N. 4th and W. Vliet. The building has a false front, and advertising for cigarettes on the side of the building. A billboard for Sunkist oranges is to the right of the building. Photographer: Henry H. Hunter Bob Chaparro Moderator |
|
Re: Model: SP Beet Gondola With Cull Lemon Load
Here is a photograph of a beet gondola full of culled oranges parked at the Sunkist packing plant on my Santa Maria Valley Industrial Railroad.
I extended the sides of a Round House gondola to make the beet gondola.? I used Woodland Scenics Fruit Trees and Orchards TK11 and TK12.
I used diluted?white glue and a little green and yellow high lights?to add some interest to the loaded oranges.
The SMVRR is located?in central?California, from what I have read, the oranges could be sent to the City of Industry in the Los Angles?area and used for making flavoring and citric acid.
?
|
|
Rialto's Orange Shipments - 1904
Rialto's Orange Shipments - 1904 A post by David Eck. He comments: Left: Newspaper article on August 20, 1904 from the San Bernardino Daily Times-Index. The article talks about the California Citrus Union's (CCU) packing house in Rialto. It was a great year for them. They shipped 757 rail cars of oranges and lemons in total which was 234 cars more than the previous season. Mentioned specifically were CCU's Rialto Brand and Gondolier Brand oranges. Right: Rialto Brand Orange Crate Label and Gondolier Brand Orange Crate Label. Both were in use in Rialto in 1904. Bob Chaparro Moderator |
Bob Chaparro
Joesap1