Colorado Reefers

There are more model Colorado reefers...there are the Atlas Coors and Schneider/Century beer cars, and O scale kit built double-door Colorado Midland and Athearn/All  Nation CB&Q double door reefer.  A Coors reefer kit was done by Athearn/All Nation/other owners, also.   Those are the ones I can think of....there were other breweries in Colorado..I've seen a photo of one of the Burlington double door reefers backed across a street into a brewery in Denver, identified as near Denver's Union Station...did THAT brewery have its own logoed reefers?  AND did any of those breweries in Pueblo have their own logoed reefers?  I think one of those breweries was related to a brewery in Wisconsin. (sorry, don't have those brewery

names at hand)

I have two box cars, made for Atlas in Austria (early O scale Atlas)....they are box

cars, not reefers, one silver and one black, professionally lettered for Coors....I wonder about the history of these cars...were they a souvenir from the Coors Golden brewery?

Atlas made a Tivoli brewery reefer. The brewery is still there in downtown Denver .No beer just students now. But they still have the copper kettles.

  I just might bring the reefer to run at the Boulder show !

I have that Atlas O Tivoli reefer as well - the bright green color really stands out. Spent some time in that building many years ago as a grad student when living in Denver. I got the reefer for the memory of that time.

Weaver did a pair of Colorado beer reefers as their 2004 club cars. They were lettered for brands of a microbrewery and had locomotives painted on the side. One of them was Iron Horse Ale; I forget the other. One was red and the other light blue. 

Weaver also did a Colorado & Southern (or maybe Colorado Midland - I forget) reefer with a logo that looks like a militiaman or something. It's yellow.  

I thought this was a whole different topic.......

 I think the Tivoli Reefer is one of the best looking reefers

Yes, I have the Tivoli car, but with the double door Athearn Burlington kit car prototype shown in a photo as serving a "Denver" brewery, I wasn't sure that was the same brewery, or was the only Denver brewery.

At one time there was the 'Zang' brewery a couple of blocks from the Tivioli brewery.

At the time I beleive it was next to a loading siding.

Chuck:  I have not heard of that one....any more information?  I did get a lead on someone from the Pueblo historical society (in a building in downtown Pueblo), who said there were Pueblo breweries with logoed reefers, but when I asked for more info, I did not get a response.  The above mentioned photo showed the Burlington car  sitting on a track halfway in the building,  through a cardoor just off the street, crossed by the tracks to reach it.

  Several buildings from thr Zang brewery are still there across from the Denver Aquarium including the Brew Masters house that fancy building you can see driving north on I-25. I heard it was also used as a brothel at one time.

  Way back when bars of the old west where supplied by only one brewery. Sometimes the brewery owned the bar. A good example of this is in the old section of Pueblo near the train station. You can see on top of the old buildings in stone a Coors logo,a Tivoli logo and the best is an old Schlitz logo with a big globe of the earth with an eagle flying above it. Your not likely to see this stuff only when someone points it out to you on a walking tour of old town Pueblo. I took the tour when I was waiting for the U.P 844 to return to Denver from the state fair a few years ago.

Speaking of Tivioli.... Reminds me of back in 1976 when my friend and I took a 'self guided tour' of the brewery long after it went out of business in 1969. Wanted to check out all the old machinery still in there. It was trashed from homeless people and wineos living there. There was still old stale beer in the copper kettles that was a least 7 years old! Got busted by Denver's finest for trespassing! Oops. Back in the day it had 2 track sidings that lead into the building. They have cleaned it up now and restored the building and like Choo-Choo Mike said it now a part of the collage campus. It was a restruant and retail shops before that.

There is a gentleman here in Denver who has acquired the right to many of the brand names and beer names and is in the process of recreating them.

Atlas also did a 36' Wood Refrigerator Car for Nuckolls Packing Co of Pueblo.  Pat B.

I had forgotten about that Reefer

If we are talking refrigerator car cars in general and not just beer cars, then there is a second Nuckolls car, Bourk/ Donaldson distributors,  Skyland Eggs car, Century Beer in Trinidad, to add to the Colorado list

  At lease a half dozen companies have made an O gauge version of the Pepper Packing Company reefer.I think K-line did it first. They all look pretty much the same. 

 But where did they get the idea from? I have never seen a photo of the real thing. I've even asked some old timers who worked there and they never saw a railcar that looked like that. Anybody have any info or could post a photo?

From the Burlington Bulletin No. 12.  Copyright 1984 BRHS:

They're everywhere, even in S Scale:

Rusty

 Thanks for posting the pictures Chuck and Rusty !

From the info in the article I don't think that paint job was ever on a woodsided reefer. But both then Pepper Packing Company and the Needham look great either way.

Whew!  When I first saw the Pepper Packing post, I am thinkin' "oh, rats, another fantasy car"..so am glad to see the posted photos just above!!  Now a Coors car, a real one, is sitting at the Colorado RR Museum in Golden, so it exists,  and I think Lionel probably did the first of three Coors reefers that I know about, adding Kris and Atlas, but did K-Line do one, or anybody else?

coloradohirailer -

Sticking with just Coors reefers, MTH did the following:

20-94204  Operating Reefer

20-94218  40' Steel Reefer

30-78044  19th Century Reefer

30-78056  Modern Reefer

K-Line never did a Coors car.

Ramon

Garcia: Thanks!  I don't think I've seen an MTH Coors car...unless I just gave it a

glance and thought it was Lionel's or another.

Garcia:  I did a search for Coors cars for MTH...there are a LOT of 'em.  But only the

last one on your list of reefers was now on eBay...and it is a modern car.  There are

tank cars, trailer-train flats, etc. lettered for Coors.  Guess I haven't noticed because

they are modern. The first three numbers did not come up today...Thanks.

 I hope you guys are not drinking that stuff. Remember Choo-Choo Mike swims in that water supply!

Up in one of those water tanks over the Golden Coors brewery?  None of them are

open top, are they?  With a scuba tank, I hope....

wow, what a disturbing image

coloradohirailer -

My reply was limited to Coors reefers.  There are quite a few Coors cars (even more Coors Light cars).

I have a list of beer cars if anyone is interested.

Ramon

John G

 You can't hurt my feelings. Your just jealous of my Santa Fe Speedo swimsuit!