Weathering A Reefer

A post from Ralph Heiss' Lehigh Valley Harbor Terminal Railway on weathering a reefer with PanPastel medial and an artist's pencil:

This is fairly easy and certainly less messy than using wet media.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Photo: SFRD 35361

Photo of a Class Rr-28 reefer with straight line map:

The location is Buffalo, NY, in 1941.

This is one of 500 Rr-28 reefers rebuilt in 1940 from Classes Rr-W, X, Y, 2, 3 and 4 wood sheathed USRA-style cars.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

I misspoke by equating demurrage with per diem. While they both represent charges by a railroad for others use of their equipment, they specifically differ as follows:

Demurrage - A penalty charge assessed by railroads for the detention of cars by shippers or receivers of freight beyond a specified free time.

Per Diem - The amount which is paid by one carrier to another carrier for the daily use of its equipment.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

开云体育

Reefer Trip Factoid

A Tony Thompson observation...

"...most freight cars averaged less than nine trips PER YEAR...PFE was proud that its cars averaged between ten and eleven round trips per year, higher than any other reefer owner and higher than most railroads' freight cars of any type."

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Simulating Caboose & Reefer Operations On Cajon Pass

In 2015 I had the pleasure of visiting Jon Harrison's HO scale railroad in Portland, OR, during the NMRA National Convention. Jon models the Cajon Summit in 1950 as well as part of the grade that leads to it. The topography is scaled from USGS topo maps and he included the structures as well. The hand laid track is Central Valley with 60 inch minimum radius curves.

In Jon's era at Cajon Summit one to three steam helpers would assist eastbound freights up the grade from San Bernardino. Santa Fe practice was to cut the helpers in front of the caboose at the rear of the train. When the train reached Summit, the rear helpers would cut off and back the caboose into an uphill spur, where the brakes would be set on the caboose.

The helpers would leave the spur and position themselves for their return to San Bernardino. With the siding switch thrown, the caboose's brakes were released and the caboose would coast down the grade and couple onto the back of the train with no further train movements, usually. If the caboose didn’t make it all the way, the helper could shove it onto the rear of the train.

Through many trails, Jon could not get his caboose to consistently connect to the end of his train. It needed a little extra boost to assure coupling. The solution was a motorized caboose.

John writes, "Geoff Bunza, a friend, neighbor of mine, and a true electronics genius, has been tackling my caboose rolling problem and has come up with a DCC controlled powered car. Details are posted on the Model Railroad Hobbyist Blog ( ). Yesterday he brought over a car to try on my layout. I made? some minor modifications to allow it to go through turnouts and operate more smoothly and started learning about controlling down the grade. My wife shot the following video of my first attempt. Please be aware that this is a work in progress and I am confident that I can convincingly reproduce the prototype action after some more modifications are made and I learn to control it better (apply the brakes like a good brakeman would do!)"

Video:

Additional General Video:

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Intermountain HO Scale SFRD Reefer Kits

A few days ago, Intermountain confirmed production of an undecorated SFRD reefer kit. The kit number is 41199 and the price will $19.95,

The car has a steel exterior with swing doors and fishbelly underframe. The prototype would be a rebuild of a previous wood sheathed reefer with a steel superstructure.

Intermountain Drawing:

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

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-

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.

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