I grew up in that great RR town of Alexandria VA. It was also the home of Fruit Growers Express. My understanding is that they were kind of a Pullman car company for Reefer Fleets. I've always had an interest in the company and want to add some FGE reefers to my collection. For some reason I am having a hard time doing this. Are there any O scale or even traditional cars out there?
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Not a reefer but a plug door insulated car by Atlas Trainman (0526) available in 2 road numbers.
Cool. Thanks.
I'll keep a eye out for those. Im surprised more haven't been done.
Atlas announced this one in 2007, cat # 8522/9522.
They had previously done a run, cat # 8511/9511 in March 2005, but never posted a picture on their website.
I found one listed by Public Delivery Track this morning, although I don't know how old the list is, plus a mention of one as stocked by The Western Depot, and that was just in a few minutes.
Good luck with your hunt for these cars.
Ed
Quite a few years back MTH issued a 6 car set of 40' FGE Reefers sub-lettered for the ACL. I don't recall any other sets.
[see photos below]
Fruit Growers Express was formed at Alexandria in 1920 by Southern Railway and included the Atlantic Coast Line and Pennsylvania RRs among the first 10 pool members. FGE had shops in both Alexandria,Va. and Jacksonville, Fla. and during the late 1920s teamed up with Western Express and Burlington to better balance the nationwide reefer pool.
During the season back in the day we used to see long lines of FGE Reefers at Southern Railway's peach sheds and block ice docks in Gaffney, S.C. The same scene,to a much lesser extent,could be seen on the Short Lines at the Sheds in North Carolina's Sandhill peach-growing country near the Seaboard at Hamlet.
MTH Set: Die-Cast sprung trucks,Operating Metal Couplers, Detailed ABS Body, Aluminum painted roofs & Tuscan ends. Six consecutive numbers.
Used to see lines of FGEX reefers - mostly wood in those days - in N&W's East Yard at Bristol, VA. It was evidently a basing point for reefers needed at Pet Milk's plants at Greeneville, TN on the Southern and Abingdon, VA on N&W. They'd occasionally show up on the Abingdon Branch, being loaded with apples out of West Jefferson, NC, I was told.
This was well before any cars were sublettered for railroads. These were all either FGEX or WFEX markings.
EdKing
On the Atlantic Coast Line-Seaboard Air Line Historical Society page there's a link to the online magazine "S-CL Modeler". They have a PDF file (81 pages) on the history of the FGEX cars available for down loading:
http://s-clmodeler.aclsal.org/
Right click on it and click on the "Save Link As" button.
This was a joint effort from the B&O Modeler, PRR Keystone Modeler, and Seaboard-Coast Line Modeler groups.
Weaver made the "Solid Gold" scheme (I think with ACL reporting marks) about ten years ago on it's 57-foot mechanical reefer. That car is ideal for the 70s and 80s. You will have to hunt around to find one now. The mechanical reefer is my favorite Weaver freight car. I custom painted the one below in the "Real Cold" variation and FGMR reporting marks.
RM
One was painted "Solid Clod" in 12":1'
Here's a blurb I found online, written by Tim Gilbert on the Ry-ops-industrial SIG Yahoo Group:
Fans of the FGEX have often despaired of the lack of coverage that PFE and SFRD have received in books. Right now, the bible of reefer operations seems to be Thompson, Church & Jones' PACIFIC FRUIT EXPRESS.
While collecting some commodity data about the SOU's operation in Jacksonville per a request from Mike Brock, I reviewed the Florida Citrus discussion in Willis T. Gherke's doctorial 1951 thesis at Wisconsin on THE FREIGHT GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEABOARD AIR LINE. This may fill a void.
Reprints of Gherke's thesis are available from the ACL/SAL Historical Society.
What follows is basically paraphrasing and condensing Gherke's thesis as it pertains to the movement of Florida Citrus using the tables he included in his work. Unless as otherwise specified, the years Gherke used are from 1947 through 1950. While circumstances changed after 1950, any discussion of those years would be speculative. Additionally, this analysis is divided in two parts - first, fresh citrus, and then, processed as canned and frozen.
Fresh Florida Citrus which was mostly oranges was in competition with primarily with oranges grown in California. Between 1939 and 1944, Florida provided an average of 41% of the national production of oranges, California 55%, and all other states 4%. In the 1949-50 season, however, Florida produced 59% of the total vs. California's 39% after being hit with a hard freeze. The importance of higher-priced California oranges in northern markets was due to one, they were produced year around (vs. Florida producing very little during the hot summer months); two, California oranges were less perishable, and the quality more
uniform; three, advertising California citrus was more intense; and four, they were generally considered superior for eating out-of-hand although Florida oranges were juicier.
In most eastern markets and at Cincinnati, the receipts of Florida oranges in 1949 were roughly equal to those combined receipts from California and Arizona. In DC, 62% of the oranges came from Florida vs. only 28% at Pittsburgh. In the Mid-West excluding Cincinnati, Florida provided between 14% and 42% of the total oranges unloaded.
The table below shows the destination by "carlots" or "carlot equivalents" of interstate shipments of fresh citrus from Florida during the 1949-50 season. Gherke's source for this table was the Florida State Marketing Bureau's ANNUAL FRUIT & VEGETABLE REPORT, 1949-1950 Season.
There were approximately 500 boxes per carlot, and, when the average tons per each car was 22.5 tons at the time, that meaning that each box weighed ninety pounds each including the weight of the crate. The table is divided into three modes of transport: - rail, ship & truck.
Destination Rail Ship Truck Total % of Total
New England 3,131 611 862 4,604 7.4%
New York 7,585 4,479 3,567 15,631 15.4%
New Jersey 408 - 505 913 1.5%
Pennsylvania 4,026 - 3,154 7,180 11.5%
MD, DE & DC 1,159 - 1,491 2,650 4.3%
Northeast 16,307 5,090 9,579 30,976 49.7%
% Total 52.6% 16.4% 30.9% 100.0%
Virginia 427 - 1,290 1,717 2.8%
North Carolina 667 - 1,466 2,133 3.4%
South Carolina 261 - 1,225 1,486 2.4%
Georgia 457 - 2,128 2,585 4.1%
Alabama 235 - 1,199 1,434 2.3%
Southeast 2,047 - 7,308 9,355 15.0%
% Total 21.9% - 78.1% 100.0%
WV, KY 456 - 879 935 1.5%
Tennessee 1,040 - 906 1,940 3.1%
MS, LA, AK 194 - 1,084 1,278 2.0%
TX, OK 56 - 972 1,028 1.6%
South Central 1,646 - 3,841 5,487 8.8%
% Total 30.0% - 70.0% 100.0%
Ohio 2,107 - 1,422 3,529 5.7%
Indiana 81 - 1,065 1,146 1.8%
Illinois 1,844 - 2,070 3,914 6.3%
Michigan 1,636 - 748 2,284 3.8%
Missouri 791 - 585 1,376 2.2%
Mid-West 6,459 - 5,890 12,349 19.8%
% Total 52.3% - 47.7% 100.0%
Other West 823 - 989 1,812 2.8%
Canada 1,292 - 316 1,608 2.6%
TOTAL 28,973 5,090 28,285 62,348 100.0%
% Total 46.5% 8.2% 45.4% 100.0%
According to this table, 46.5% of the "carlots" of Fresh Florida Citrus reached their destination via rail, 8.2% by ship and 45.4% by truck nationally. By region, however, there were deviations from this norm.
Truck terminations exceeded combined rail & ship movements for all states south of Nebraska and the Ohio and Potomac Rivers with the exception of Tennessee. North and west of this line, the combined rail & ship terminations were generally in the majority with the exception of a few states like Illinois & Indiana where trucks could get a back haul of manufactured commodities into Florida.
Generally, rail (& ship) had a strong majority in states in the northeast which had large auction markets such as New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc.. Traders in those markets preferred rail (or ship) because movements of products into those markets could be anticipated though a more regular reporting system of commodity flow into markets than the lone wolf trucker who might show up seemingly anywhere any anytime. This tended to disrupt the normal trading activity.
Movement via ships was on the wain. Trucks had to haul the citrus from the packing houses to either Jacksonville or Fort Pierce. The movement to New York from Jacksonville took four to five days (vs. all-rail's four days), but once the commodity was loaded aboard the ship, any possibility of diversion was negated.
Transit times by trucks were a lot faster than by rail. For instance from Sanford FL to Rochester NY, the transit time by rail was 84 hours vs. 42 hours by truck; from Sanford to Washington, 49 hours by rail vs.
30 by truck; to Louisville, 56 via rail vs. 30 by truck; and Nashville,
48 hours by rail vs. 32 hours by truck. (I have no idea why it took two
more hours to get a truckload to Nashville than to Louisville.)
Of the 28,973 carlots carried on the rails nationally, about 68% of the cars were routed east of the Appalachians and the other 32% west. The routings east included those of the Northeast, Canada & Southeast. Over 60% of the 28,973 carlots were routed through Potomac Yard towards the Northeast and Canada. The majority of cars routed west of the Appalachians terminated in the Midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois & Missouri plus Tennessee. Tennessee's rail traffic appeared to be a bit of an anomaly when compared to Kentucky although KY was probably served in large part by the Cincinnati market.
Most of the Florida fresh citrus moved in reefers; only a small percentage was carried by ventilated boxcars. The reefer traffic was managed by FGEX. By 1949, after the ICC Distribution Orders enacted during WW II had been canceled, almost all of the reefers in the trade were either owned by FGEX or affiliated with FGEX (e.g. BREX and WFEX reefers - both companies had the same top management as FGEX, but different stock holders).
During the season, empties had to be hauled back to Florida. Sometimes, however, the cars would be returned loaded for certain commodities which did not reek, prone to dampness nor rough freight which could damage the insulation of the reefer. Gherke estimated that empty reefer car mileage on the SAL was about a third in 1949.
Shipments were usually pre-cooled whether moving under ice or dry. Pre-cooling could take place in cold storage, in special pre-cooling rooms or in the reefers themselves. FGEX provided the icing service. On the SAL, regular icing stations were Wildwood & Baldwin FL, Savannah and Hamlet NC plus those on secondary lines such as Birmingham & Montgomery AL (reicing only), Atlanta and Portsmouth VA. I don't know where icing stations were located on the ACL and FEC. There were 11 emergency icing stations in Florida plus a number of cities outside Florida. The ice is manufactured at either FGEX plants or outside contractors.
Shippers determined whether the citrus should move iced or dry based upon the weather forecasts. The hatches could be opened for ventilation or closed if the citrus would freeze by train crews at major stops en route. At what temperature any change in ventilation would occur would be based upon guidance from the shipper.
About half of the perishables sent from Florida were shipped before the sale was made. In these cases, the shipper consigned the car to himself to some diversion point (on the SAL, Jacksonville, Savannah, Richmond or Pot Yard - to this list may be added Waycross for the ACL). Diversion (and/or reconsignment) allowed the shipper (or reconsignee) to delay choosing which market would provide the best price. Southeastern railroads permitted three free diversions or reconsignments without charge. When a reconsignment occurred, a new waybill was made; a
diversion without a change in ownership merely required the destination in shown in the waybill changed. Florida shippers, however, had less time to canvass the markets than the California shippers.
During the 1947-48 season, SAL handled 18,187 carloads destined to
"Official Territory" - the Northeast. Shippers filed 6,303 diversion requests including reconsignments on these 18,187 loads. Some of these 6,303 diversions were second and third diversions of the same car. 4,305 (or 68%) of the diversions occurred while the car was on the SAL; 179 (3%) on other Southern Territory lines; 1,336 (or 21%) at the RF&P's Pot Yard; and 483 (or 8%) on Other Official Territory Lines.
Another way to get better market prices was to hold the car in a yard somewhere for a day or two. In the meantime, it was hoped that the glut in that market would be reduced, and prices would increase. Because of the perishable nature of the citrus, however, "holds" could be done only for a couple of days.
Trucks carried the citrus from the groves to the packing houses. There, the produce was shipped and shipped from one of the three major roads. The table below shows the tons which the ACL, SAL & FEC originated in 1949 according to their ICC commodity filings. The associated carload data was determined using the 22.5 tons per reefer average. The difference between the estimated 41,000 plus carloads of rail traffic which were originated using 22.5 tons/car average using the ICC numbers and the 28,973 carlots developed by the Florida State Market Bureau for
the 1949-50 season was mostly due to the 26% decrease in tonnage in 1950 from 1949. This difference, however, has been deemed to be immaterial in attempting to explain the flow of traffic over the rails.
Railroad Tons Orig. Tons Orig. Tons Orig. Originated & Term. & Delivered Carloads
1949 On Line To Conn RR's Total Total % Total
ACL 6,000 430,000 436,000 19,378 46.8%
SAL 6,000 332,000 338,000 15,023 36.3%
FEC - 157,000 157,000 6,978 16.9%
Total 12,000 919,000 931,000 41,379 100.0%
98.7% of the Fresh Citrus tons were delivered to other railroads in the southeast in 1949 per the following table:
Railroad Tons Rec'd Tons Rec'd Tons Rec'd Received % Total & Term. & Delivered Carloads Originated 1949 On Line To Conn RR's Total Total (see note)
ACL 2,000 103,000 105,000 4,667 11.3%
SAL 3,000 84,000 87,000 3,866 9.3%
FEC - - - - -
SOU 17,000 128,000 145,000 6,445 15.6%
Clinchfield - 49,000 49,000 2,178 5.3%
CG 3,000 116,000 119,000 5,289 12.8%
MD&S - 88,000 88,000 3,911 9.5%
RF&P - 594,000 594,000 26,356 63.7%
Total 25,000 No Meaningful Figures
NOTE: - The percent Total is based upon Originated Traffic because the purpose of this analysis is to trace the movement of Fresh Florida Citrus.
Citrus originated by the FEC was delivered in Jacksonville and split in roughly equal amounts between the ACL, SAL and SOU. In addition, the SOU and CG received some of their citrus via the SAL-MD&S route as this afforded more direct routing to the Mid West than a routing through Hamlet and Bostic. All of the Clinchfield's traffic went to the Mid-West. The Central of Georgia was the conduit to the Illinois Central; the Clinchfield to the C&O - west of the Appalachians; while
some of ACL's traffic was delivered to the L&N. In Gherke's study, the IC and L&N were not southeastern RR's. The SOU bridge line traffic was mostly delivered to railroads in the Mid-West; what was received and terminated was probably to the Cincinnati market.
The RF&P forwarded from Richmond to Pot Yard 63.7% of Fresh Florida Citrus in 1949. Probably all of these 26,356 carloads were delivered by the ACL and SAL.
The 1949 flow of traffic from the southeastern roads becomes a bit murky as it enters the Northeast & Mid-West. The ICC did analyze the carload movements of citrus fruit in March 1947 (ICC docket #29799) which Gherke used to show this flow - March was a peak month in the Florida Citrus season. Of the 5,489 carloads of that month, only 880 (or 16.0%) were delivered to the Central Freight Association representing the Mid-West with the remaining 84% delivered to either railroads in Trunk Line territory (64%), or New England (20%). The table below shows the numbers of carloads handled by the PRR, B&O, C&O and the ubiquitous "All Other."
March 1947 Numbers of Carloads Handled By:
PRR PRR B&O B&O C&O C&O
Term. Del'd Term. Del'd Term. Del'd. All
on to on to on to Other
Line Others Line Others Line Others TOTAL
Trunk Line 2,688 409 190 147 35 - 68 3,537
New England - 975 - 97 - - - 1,072
Cent. Fgt. 56 - 62 177 249 143 193 880
TOTAL 2,744 1,384 252 421 184 143 261 5,489
According to this March 1947 table, 4,351 (or 79%) of the carloads went through Pot Yard of which the PRR got the lion's share of the business (94%) with the B&O getting the rest. Other than PRR roads seemed to be preferred in the Mid-West.
* * * * * * * *
Fresh Citrus accounted for only a portion of the total Florida citrus crop. In the 1947-48 season, 51% of the oranges and 58% of the grapefruit were processed into juice, concentrate, marmalade, etc.. Only 20% of California's oranges were processed in the 1947-48 season as were 38% of Texas' grapefruit.
In Florida, there were 62 plants canning citrus. One carload of concentrated juice is roughly equivalent to seventeen carloads of fresh fruit. In addition, there were shipments of frozen juice, but much of this moved by truck because of the more reliable mechanical refrigeration units.
Gherke used a 1946-47 season study undertaken by the USDA in order to determine the effect of the restoration of shipping by water domestically; the table used compares rail to water with no reference to trucks. Also, the unit of measurement of this table is different from the comparable table for fresh citrus. Therefore, to provide a comparison, the table below compares the "rail" geographic distribution of fresh Florida citrus in the 1949-50 season with the "rail" geographic distribution of processed Florida citrus using percentages.
Destination 1949-50 Fresh 1946-47 Processed
New England 12.9% 5.8%
Middle Atlantic 43.4% 27.9%
Canada 4.5% 6.8%
Total thru Pot Yard 60.7% 40.6%
Southeast 7.1% 9.5%
Other South 5.7% 7.7%
Mid-West 24.2% 29.0%
Mountain 0.8% 2.1%
Pacific Coast 1.2% 11.0%
Total 100.0% 100.0%
Canned Citrus generally moved in uniced reefers when there was a supply.
When reefers were otherwise occupied, boxcars could be used. During the winter, canned citrus had to move in reefers in order to prevent the freezing of product. Although icing was not required, tariffs on canned goods provided for diversion and reconsignment, partial loading or unloading of cars as well as storage in transit.
Storage in transit allowed brokers and wholesalers to buy canned citrus in large quantities when prices were low. That product would be carried to a warehouse where it was unloaded and stored until the owner decided to move it to market. This movement would take place using the storage and transit rates.
Because canned Florida citrus is lumped in with all other canned and packaged food in the ICC reports, it is impossible for me to follow the traffic flow via the various railroads as could be done with fresh citrus above.
Hope this helps,
Tim Gilbert
Add the Atlas 6740 40' wood side reefer to the list of FGEX cars.
I do wish Atlas had a search by roadname feature.
If you add WFEX and BREX cars that were managed as part of the same pool your list increases substantially.
Bob
Thanks for posting the info from Tim Gilbert. Besides the information on destinations for florida citrus it reinforces the point made in a Trains article a few years ago, that railroads were loosing out to faster truck service long before the interstate highway system was built.
I found a pic of SOLID CLOD
http://www.flickr.com/photos/t...n-trucks/4551866100/
I would love to have a few of the 80's FGE cars in all their different mutations, SOLID COLD,SOLID GOLD,REAL COLD. THE CHILLER and the aforementioned clod.
Athearn is making the steel FGE Mechanical Refrigerator Cars in HO scale, now if MTH would follow them into O Scale production of FGE Mechanical Refrigerator Cars.
Andrew
Andrew,
How long has Athearn been making these cars?
The reason I ask is that I have only 1 of them from my HO days, but I can't seem to find anywhere where it says who made it. I know I bought a lot of Athearn rolling stock back then.
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