Still Belong To Other Yahoo Railroad Groups?

Our transition to Groups.io from Yahoo is complete and I welcome our new members.

As far as I can determine, all the Yahoo message archives, files and photos were successfully transferred to this group.

But...if you still belong to other Yahoo railroad groups that have not migrated to Groups.io I urge you to contact the moderators and encourage them to act now.

Starting December 14 Yahoo will begin eliminating the following resources from your groups:

?Files

?Polls

?Links

?Photos

?Folders

?Calendar

?Database

?Attachments

?Conversations

?Email Updates

?Message Digest

?Message History

If your moderators do now act quickly, these resources will be lost forever. That is one of the reasons I paid to have our resources transferred. I'm not a humanitarian. These resources were personally valuable to me and I how to you as well.

There are ways for your moderators to transfer these resources without paying a few but they are somewhat complex and time-consuming. Darryl Huffman recommends this how-to link:

Perhaps you can share this with your moderators who are unwilling or unable to pay to migrate resources to Groups.io.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Chicago's Commission Row - Wholesale Produce and Grocery Dealers

The text below is taken from the document, Landmark Designation Report, adopted by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, May 13, 2015.

Chicago was a major destination for Southern California produce shipped by rail.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

++++

In addition to, and concurrent with the market hall and open air markets described above, Randolph St. and its cross streets west of Halsted included a concentration of wholesale dealers of produce and groceries which were housed in a buildings known as commission houses, and this part of Randolph St. was known as “Commission Row".

The emergence of wholesale produce dealers in Chicago was a result of the industrialization of the nation’s food system initiated by the development of railroads.? As Chicago’s rail network expanded, the city’s food market reached out to areas with longer growing seasons. West Coast harvests reached the city as early as 1869 when Chicago wholesaler Washington Porter ordered an ice-

chilled railcar filled with California produce. By the 1880s citrus from Florida and Central America (the latter via the Port of New Orleans) was flowing into the Chicago wholesale markets. By 1890 Porter was importing 8,000 rail car loads (known as “carlots”) of produce each year, and he was only one of dozens of produce wholesalers in Chicago by that time.?

Commission merchants were operating on Randolph as early as 1863.? The historian A. T. Andreas noted a Henry Schoellkopf establishing a wholesale food concern on the 800 block of Randolph St. in that year (the building no longer survives), and building signage visible in circa 1890 photos of Randolph St. show the presence of numerous wholesale produce and grocery dealers.

In the 1930s economists at the University of Chicago published papers that reveal the workings of Chicago’s wholesale food markets.? “Carlot” produce sent to Chicago was either owned by the farmer who grew it or by brokers known as “carlot receivers” who bought produce in railroad car-sized quantities directly from farmers.? Either the farmer or the broker would negotiate with commission merchants in Chicago a fixed-fee commission for every carlot the merchant

sold. When the rail shipment arrived in the city, the commission merchant would unload and transport his produce to his commission house where it was then displayed and resold to retail grocers, the hotel and restaurant trade, department stores, and institutions such as hospitals and clubs. Another type of market entrepreneur, known as a “jobber,” operated differently from the commission merchant.? The jobber assumed more risk and actually bought the carlots of pro-

duce and took profits from its sale. In economic studies and Chicago press at the time there was little distinction between these two types of marketer, and the term commission merchant was typically applied to both. In addition to buying rail-shipped produce, commission merchants also bought from the farmers market in the middle of Randolph St.?

Reefer Operations At The Highland Park Society Of Railroad Engineers

This HO scale club in San Gabriel operates the Highland Pacific Railroad.

They constructed a railroad empire with 3,500 feet of track in a 40 foot x 42 foot area created with a former single family residence.

The mainline is 1,200 feet long with additional trackage for industrial spurs, yards, etc.? Loosely based on the Western Pacific, the railroad travels through view breaks from a waist high seaport to six foot high majestic western mountain range.

Trains are operated in prototype fashion from a Centralized Traffic Control Center with five road cabs and ten yard panels.? Ninety percent of scenery is complete along with 100 percent of the track.? Branch lines in progress include a lumber railroad, a narrow gauge ore hauler and future interurban line. Special effect lighting insures realism by adding daylight, dusk, nighttime and dawn cycles.

I took these photos at the Society's open house yesterday.
Bob Chaparro
Moderator

High praise indeed, Diane! I’ve long admired your N Scale work online.

Out-of-State members who find themselves in Southern California in the future will note from cmrsclub.com that we are open every Saturday 10-2. Or contact us if you need a midweek visit.

Bruce

Fantastic details, both inside and out. Sure wish that I could visit, but it's a long and expensive trip for me.

Diane Wolfgram
Butte, MT

The Corona Model Railroad Society will conduct a free Open House on Saturday, November 16 from 9 to 4. Our 98% complete HO DCC railroad depicts the Santa Fe’s Third District through Corona, Riverside, and Fullerton circa 1949 at the height of Southern California’s citrus industry and in the midst of the steam to diesel transition. Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Pacific Electric operations are also modeled accurately for this time period. A great many actual packing houses are modeled along with lemon and orange groves.

For more information about CMRS and our HO railroad visit cmrsclub.com.

CMRS is located in the Corona Heritage Park at 510 W Foothill Parkway in Corona. The Corona Museum will also be open 10-2. Free parking and admission to all aspects of the park.

Packing House Scene On Mark Rick's Railroad

Mark says, "It's that busy time of year! An SP SW-1 switches the Sunkist Packing Plant in San Fernando, Ca. 1954. The boxcar is going to the small shed, used to store shook. 4 iced cars are on the ready track while two cars are being loaded at the dock. Reefers outbound to Taylor Yard wait on the main line. In the distance, citrus trees, more oranges, a good crop this year! Photo from my home SP & PE Layout"

This appears to be HO scale based on the Showcase Miniatures packing house. I have no details about Mark.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

开云体育

Model: SFRD 17019

A photo courtesy of Eric Hansmann from the recent Chicagoland Railroad Prototype Modelers Convention.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

The train just crossed the bridge over the Colorado River at Topock.
The road down on the left is Oatman Highway.

Robert Cheeks
Riverside CA

A photo from the Santa Fe Railway.
Does anyone know the location?
Bob Chaparro
Moderator

开云体育

There is a really interesting business in the UK (while that entity lasts) named ModelU which? 3-D scans of people in whatever costume they desire and posed for railroad or general activities (shopping, standing around talking, etc.) and reproduces them through 3-D printing? in most common scales. See?. Check out some of their reproductions and you will see how good they can be.

The? ModelU are a little pricey for a large set. The sets of women shopping and just talking in 1930's costume for the Pendon Museum are incredibly artistic.?

Note, I have no business interest in ModelU other than wanting to buy a lot of their figures reproduced in 3.5 mm.? For Dianne I'm sure they can be reproduced in 1/160 (instead of UK N scale of 1/152) as well. I am pretty sure?

I have yet to find anything similar in the US so if there is anyone in the UK wants to get dressed up like a California 1940's-1950's icing crew and get scanned (Brian Moore are you listening) we can possibly get the figures. I have a couple of these figures for my weird 4 mm scale (OO, remember HO is 3.5 mm/ft.) occasional binge. They are excellent, easy to paint and deploy.??

kja

开云体育

Icing Platform Series

Tony Thompson's Modeling The SP Blog ( ) had several articles on icing platforms and links to some of these previously were posted. Below are links to the entire series to date.

These articles feature photos and good modeling tips.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

++++

?

BAR Reefers In PFE Service

Posted 10/23/19

Some comments from Tony Thompson Modeling The SP blog at . The photos in the original article () are not used here. Instead, there are photo links.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

In a previous post, I discussed the presence in Pacific Fruit Express territory of “foreign” refrigerator cars, that is, reefers not owned by PFE. I emphasized ordinary (AAR Class RS) ice-bunker cars used for produce loading, as opposed to, say, meat cars. You can read that post at:

.

I spent some time in that post talking specifically about Bangor & Aroostook cars, because of a very interesting article in the BAR employee magazine, Maine Lines, about the lease of the entire BAR fleet to PFE between June 1 and October 1 of each year. Effectively every single BAR reefer went west for PFE use during those months, June through September, busy harvest season in PFE territory.

What do we know about those BAR cars? First, we know that from at least as early as 1924, there had been a contract between BAR and New York Central’s Merchants Despatch (MDT) to provide empty reefers for use. That is documented in Roger Hinman’s book, Merchants Despatch (Signature Press, 2011). Such a contract obligated MDT to supply cars as requested by BAR, but had the drawback that when car supply was tight for MDT, they might not be able to meet all of the BAR requests.

The first significant change in that situation was in 1950, when MDT was in the process of scrapping a number of older wood-sheathed reefers. These were cars built in the decade 1920–1930 and were being superseded in MDT service by steel reefers. As author Hinman put it, BAR bought cars “right off the scrap line” at MDT shops (Page 159), and rebuilt them at their own Derby Shops.

These cars went to BAR in the summer of 1950. The ORER (Official Railway Equipment Register) issue for July 1950 shows zero RS cars in the BAR listing, but in the following issue, October, there were 288 cars listed, and by the issue after that, January 1951, the full 325-car purchase was listed. Over the following years, BAR acquired a few more of these cars. For example, in the ORER issue for January 1953 (my benchmark for my own layout), there were 338 cars in this group.

Some of these cars were painted in a striking scheme with a broad blue stripe across the lower part of the car and an upper white part, with a brown potato. This undated photo from the Bob’s Photo collection, shows the first car, numbered 6000 (all the BAR cars from MDT were numbered in the range 6000-6999). This is one of the 1926-built MDT cars with corrugated steel ends:

But we know that many of these newly acquired reefers were simply painted yellow (and a few years later, orange, instead of the dramatic blue-white scheme). Why the difference, and how many cars of each paint scheme were in the fleet, is unknown to me. I hope someone with BAR knowledge may volunteer information on that point.

[Moderator's Note: No BAR refrigerator cars were painted red-white-blue. The prototype BAR cars incorrectly identified as refrigerator cars actually are insulated plug door boxcars. Model manufacturers continue to churn out BAR refrigerator cars in this erroneous paint scheme.]

I chose to use a Red Caboose paint scheme of a BAR wood-sheathed reefer, which has the black railroad emblem as compared to the outline emblem you see in the photo above. I don’t know for sure which is correct for 1953 (or maybe both). I also suspect that the absence of lines above and below the reporting marks, and the absence of periods in the initials, may correspond to a time later than 1953.

These rebuilt wood-sheathed cars were perhaps a stopgap for BAR, and during 1951, BAR went to Pacific Car & Foundry (the 1953 Car Builders’ Cyclopedia incorrectly says it was Pressed Steel Car Company) with an order for 500 new cars, very similar if not identical to the then-new PFE Class R-40-26, with sliding doors. These 500 cars were first listed in the ORER issue for April 1952. I have seen a wide range of dates assigned these cars in model publications, but clearly they were built at the beginning of 1952. Here is the builder photo included in the 1953 Cyclopedia (19th edition):

Before long, BAR went to Pacific Car & Foundry for 350 more cars, these placed in the 8000–8350 series, and those cars were dimensionally identical to the 7000-series cars.

There is a fairly near car body to this sliding-door car, the Accurail 8500-series steel reefer (you can see their whole line at this link: .

It is in fact a Fruit Growers Express prototype, and has a straight side sill instead of the tabbed sill you see above on the BAR car. The placard and route card boards seen above could easily be added to the Accurail model, as could some representation of the fan plate. I have in fact discussed these changes to make the very similar PFE Class R-40-26 car, in a previous post (and that post can be found here: . Below is the Accurail model (Accurail photo). Incidentally, this kit, Accurail 8511, appears to be currently in stock.

I may eventually work on modifying one of the Accurail 8500-series models to represent a BAR steel car, but for now, the model shown above of a wood-sheathed ca, BAR 6166, represents the BAR presence in the PFE fleet in harvest season on my layout.

Tony Thompson

Yahoo Citrus Industry Modeling Group Is Closing - Please Delete Your Membership In The Yahoo Group

As some of you may know, on December 14, 2019, Yahoo Groups will no longer host user created content on its sites. New content can no longer be uploaded after October 28, 2019.

I am moving the members, message archive, photos and files of that group to 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 the Groups.io version.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator