36 or 40 FT. Beer Reefers ???

Once Atlas gets caught up we will see some announcements - hopefully by fall.... the GP50's are on the water now - they were announced two years ago..... hopefully the RS1's soon..... and the 55T hoppers.....

Nobody needs reefers more than me!

Nobody needs reefers more than me!

Not going to touch that one

Yep Ben,
You do have to wonder where his mind is at?
First he says "What's the best J ?"
Then he can't get enough Reefers?

It would make one think he's more into wackey backey than trains

Just kidding Mr.M

David

I've also noticed the lack of new beer reefers over the past few catalogs, both from Atlas and MTH (the MTH 36' Premier reefers are very nice and come very close to Atlas in both detail and quality, plus MTH is willing to do the fantasy beer reefers that Atlas won't do without a custom run order, like the Natty Boh's).

Andy

I had asked Lionel about producing the next in their redo of their BEER REFFER series and was told that someone had made a complaint from Pabst Brewing company and now they will NOT make anymore reefers.  I am a big Old Milwaukee beer fan and was looking forward to the new design that they had come up with.  Oh well I have over 25 of the older Ol Mils I guess I can live with that.

Maybe a little off topic, but were 36' reefers still in use after WWII?

Andy Peterson is doing a custom run of Olympia Beer reefers later this year.  Get your orders in quick.

I, too, missed more Atlas reefers...and was disappointed in their Orange Hall display

showing, as I remember, none.  I had wondered if this niche of collecting had run its

course for many people (obviously not for those on this forum), or, if, as I have found,

it is darn hard to find vintage billboard reefers that somebody hasn't done (or to find out if they even existed).  I have heard of ones that I have never seen a photo of.  And while there were zillions of little breweries around the country, ONCE UPON A TIME, many never owned or leased a reefer.  I had not thought anybody's approached Atlas for realism, so will have to check out MTH 36 footers mentioned on here, but only if they are renditions of actual prototype cars, which, thankfully, Atlas cars are.

A lot of stuff, and this is also true in the HO world where you'd think they might operate closer to the prototype, but don't, I want the box to cite when the car was built, and include a photo of the prototype, as some structure kits do.

I have been leery of MTH ones for fear that some or all were fantasies, even though

they had some interesting, York, and Lancaster, Pa. breweries depicted.  I know all

about fantasies from researching a brewery in western Ohio, Wooden Shoe, which

used to ship a lot of beer by rail, but never had its own leased or owned logoed

cars,  However, a "Wooden Shoe" fantasy reefer shows up occasionally in G scale,

and I discovered somebody owns the copyright.  (really neat logo on their trucks, too bad they never had a reefer)

I am guessing somebody on here probably owns one of every Atlas beer reefer.  I

have confined my collecting of them to a controlled cost niche of breweries in four

states. (luckily none of them is Wisconsin, which might force greater expensiture.

I did, some months ago, visit the Potosi, Wisc. brewery/museum, but did not,

as hoped, find their walls covered with photos of brewery cars Atlas has not

done)

The answer is yes. Meat Packers had specially equipped cars that carried meat on hooks which rode on tracks in the car. When the car was unloaded at a packing house, there would be a system of tracks that would allow the meat on hooks to be wheeled out of the car onto the tracks in the packing plant to locations where the meat was processed. These plants would have a siding /unloading platform system that would allow several cars to be positioned with each one lining up with tracks to access the car and unload . In some cases, cars might be positioned on adjacent sidings and unloaded via the tracks with the hung meat from the farthest cars riding on tracks through the adjacent cars to reach the meat packers unloading platform.

These unloading and handling systems were designed when the common refigerator car size was 36 foot in length. In the postwar period, these 36 foot cars were upgraded , rebuilt and modenized to allow there continued use with the older plants without necessitating redesign and reworking of the systems in the meat packers plant. it been designed with the 36 foot car design. Some new 36 foot reefers for this service were built as late as 1942 or so. There are photos showing Swift 36 foot reefers in the yellow car with Red/White Swift logo, Red car body with White Swift logo and Silver car body with a red Swifts Premium logo. Some of these cars were rebuilt with steel ends and plug doors.

I'm OK with fantasy beer reefers as long as nobody is trying to pretend they are the real deal. Somebody made a Bear Whiz reefer in G gauge and I'd love to see that one in 0. 

No beer refers, but will make soda products full of addicting sugar!

Oly Beer!  It's the water!  (getting air sickness bag!)

LIRR Steamer: very interesting posting on meat handling with reefers.  Means platforms for a meat packing plant model will need a lot of detail...can't say I have seen photos of that at all..usually just the plants from some distance. HO models I have seen do not show that.  Carcasses unloaded on racks from/in the cars mean they must have come from one plant, as dressed, and then been shipped to another for packaging, requiring loading plant to have the racks, too, from "kill" plant to packing plant. This after the carcasses to the butcher era, that is, in later days of

packaged meat.   Guess I would shoot to model the "kill" plant....with livestock coming

in and reefers going out...