Jesse,

I wholeheartedly support the recommendation of Cliff and others of the website link also known as Packing Houses of Southern California. Jim Lancaster and Bill Messecar, supported by a team of citrus rail experts, have masterfully put together an extremely valuable resource organized by county and then by city, thereby making making an area of interest just a few clicks away. I believe every citrus packing house of SoCal that once existed gets coverage, usually with extensive history and photos.

For anyone with an interest in railroading in Orange County I also recommend the two volume work “Rails Through the Orange Groves” (1990) by Donaldson & Myers. It covers all aspects of OC railroads from the very beginnings. The Orange County Public Library system and the Fullerton Library & its Local history room had copies last I checked.

Finally, I invite you to visit the Corona Model Railroad Society located in the Corona Heritage Park & Museum at 510 W. Foothill Parkway in Corona. While we do not model Anaheim, you will see Fullerton, Riverside, and Corona at circa 1949 at the height of the citrus industry. In addition to being open to the public each Saturday from 10-2, CMRS will have an Open House on Saturday, November 16 from 9 to 4. Visit us at cmrsclub.com.

Bruce Hendrick
President, CMRS

Prior to August 1965 there were lines operated by the Southern Pacific and the Pacific Electric, which the SP controlled from 1911. The Pacific Electric was merged into the SP in 1965 and all the track of the railroads were operated as the SP.

The Santa Fe served town and station that were served by the SP or PE in many citrus producing places east of Los Angeles. In some area they might be indifferent parts of the town or next to each other, in some case they served the same packing house.

Here are some places served by the Santa Fe and SP: Santa Ana, Anaheim, Tustin, Pomona, Riverside, Highgrove, Redlands.

Santa Fe and PE: Orange, Fullerton, Sunny Hills, San Dimas, Lamanda Park, Azusa, Glendora, La Verne, Claremont, Upland, Rialto, Corona, Redlands and Highland.

Perhaps some more?

Locations where two RR served a packing house: Orange, Sunny Hills, San Dimas, Glendora, Claremont, Upland, Corona, Riverside, Redlands, Rialto and Highland.

cliff prather

Hello my name is jesse and I grew up in Southern California in Anaheim then lake forest. And since I grew up in that area I learned and loved the history of the orange groves and also the railroads that worked in Southern California. ?So me I love the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe. ?So with my layout I want to show the citrus industry on it. I model in Ho scale. ?So my question I need help with is was there a area in Southern California where the SP and the ATSF both worked in the citrus industry? Like one place that served both railroads?

Orange Crate Labels On Crates

Images from the Smithsonian Institution.

Some of these are from Southern California

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Still On Yahoo?

If you are also on the Yahoo version of this group you may have seen the notice below from Yahoo.

I already have plans for moving the content (messages, files and photos) of the Yahoo group to this group so it is not necessary for you to save the Yahoo content.

As part of that move all members of the Yahoo group will become members of this group. If you are a member of both groups I recommend you delete your membership in the Yahoo version of this groups to avoid having two memberships in this group.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

++++

Understand what's changing in Yahoo Groups

Yahoo has made the decision to no longer allow users to upload content to the Yahoo Groups site. Beginning October 21, you won't be able to upload any more content to the site, and as of December 14 all previously posted content on the site will be permanently removed. You'll have until that date to save anything you've uploaded.

What features will go away?

?Files

?Polls

?Links

?Photos

?Folders

?Calendar

?Database

?Attachments

?Conversations

?Email Updates

?Message Digest

?Message History

What will happen to the site?

The Yahoo Groups site will continue to exist, however, all public groups will be made private or restricted. Any new group members will need to request an invite or be invited by an admin. Admins will still be able to manage various group settings, though some functionality will be limited.

What will happen on October 21st?

On October 21st, you will no longer be able to upload any content to the site. To share info with members of your groups, you'll continue to be able to do so via email.

How can I keep my Yahoo Groups content?

Photos and files can be saved right from the Yahoo Groups site, or you can download your data from the Privacy Dashboard.

You'll still be able to communicate with your groups via email and search for private groups on the site. In addition, admins will continue to have limited access to group settings and administration tools.

?

ITTPRODUCTS.COM is great source of sound modules with MP3 samples playable on the website.? The speaker they sell makes plenty of LOUD sound, better than several others I've tried.? For a portable public display (usually a noisey environment), I have a barnyard sounds under a farm scene and get a lot of positive feedback.? Same for a factory set up.? Needs 9V to (I think) 20V AC or DC with the ability to run continuously or only when a button is pushed (train gets to a particular location and triggers a one time station sound, etc.)

开云体育

Thanks, Scott.

What were the names of the packing houses?

Bob Chaparro
Moderator

开云体育

I've been slowly adding sound modules to certain buildings to heighten the industrial ambiance.? The question is, how did it sound in a packing house?? Anything special or distinguishing?? Or any sound at all?

Some very small operations are barely a roof and walls;? probably the only sounds were people talking and the occasional thud when boxes were dropped.

What say ye!


Bill Jolitz

I’ve been told that a typical manufactured block of ice used to cool a refrigerator car load weighed about 300 pounds. That seems like a nice round number (too nice) so I did a little digging.

I know that some of the ice pans used to manufacture ice in Santa Fe ice plants were 11” x 22” x 44” so lets call this the dimension of the resulting ice block.? This is the equivalent of 6.16 cubic feet.

I know that a cubic foot of water weighs 62.43 pounds at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and water expands when it converted to ice, so an ice block should weigh less than 62.43 pounds.

Several sources I consulted say (without giving the temperature) that a cubic foot of ice weighs 57.4 pounds.? So 6.16 cubic feet of ice should weight 354 pounds coming out of the pan. Obviously, there would be a loss of volume (and thus weight) by the time a block made it to the icing platform.

Still, that nice even number of 300 pounds persists.

Tony Thompson stated, "I haven't checked all these calculations but this sounds generally right. In the various PFE documents I saw, the 300-lb. size was cited repeatedly for manufactured ice, so PFE must have largely standardized on that. Natural ice was different, in part because you harvested varying thicknesses depending on the freeze. PFE made its natural ice blocks 22 inches square and as thick as was naturally frozen. Those blocks were stored on edge, each layer thus 22 inches high, avoiding the irregularity that could result if they were stored on the broad face.

Private ice companies of course could cut any size they liked of natural ice (Pete Holst told me that Union Ice liked to cut 22 x 28 inch blocks), and private ice companies manufacturing ice could likewise produce any size they liked."

Charlie Schultz stated, "Everything I have read indicated that on the Santa Fe the blocks were 300 pounds and that the blocks measured as you indicated (11" x 22" x 44"). In shipping ice, as from one plant to another, or in loading ice in the bunkers of reefer cars, it was always measured in terms of tons.?

Regarding lake ice, the last superintendent of the Santa Fe's Bakersfield Ice Plant told me that they occasionally received shipments of lake ice.? According to him, the blocks were not always uniformly cut to the normal dimensions and, as a result, they often would not move well on the plant's conveyors and sometimes even caused jams that were difficult to undo."

Charlie also stated, "With one exception, everything I have ever found indicates that the Santa Fe ice plants produced 300- pound blocks of ice. (One article indicated that the Argentine Ice Plant, which was operated by the Railways Ice Company, produced both 300 and 400 pound blocks of ice.)? In fact, it appears that 300 pound blocks of ice were standard not only with the railroads, but also in non-railroad ice plants in the production ice for commercial (non residential) use.? I have never read anything which gave any indication that the 300-pound block of ice weighed anything other than 300 pounds.? At the same time, I have never read anything, or from my personal experiences seen anything, that indicated that the Santa Fe had any quality control measures to insure that a 300-pound block of ice was exactly that."

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Orange County Citrus Theme Railroad In N Scale

Here is a link to a Don Vail article on modeling Orange County's citrus industry in 1948 in N scale. There also is a track plan.

The article begins on Page 122. You can jump to that page from the Table of Contents on Page 6.

Overall a good article. However, the statement that empty reefers were set out "both iced and dry depending on the produce" is misleading. The reefers were delivered with or without ice in the bunkers at the direction of the shippers, and if iced the size also was so specified. The shippers decided to ice or not based on the season, predicted weather along the route and cost of the ice weighed against these factors.

The statement the shook wood was used to assemble field boxes for the pickers also is inaccurate. Shook would was used for packing crates. Field boxes were made from heavier wood components as these were reusable containers.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

?