As some of you know, my layout's era is late 1940s, specifically 1948/49. Part of my enjoyment is researching and having only items (trains, vehicles, building, etc) that were around from 1948 through 1949 on my layout.
PFE was a major owner of reefers and I wanted to know which paint schemes were on their cars for my era. Turns out to be a little complicated.
From 1907 until 1946, their cars had the black and white Southern Pacific Lines round herald on one side of the car, and the colored Union Pacific Herald on the other side. The SP herald changed little during this period, but the UP did change and that allows dating of the cars (plus the cars went from yellow to light orange in 1929).
Scheme 1: The original UP herald has System in the name as well as the diagonal stripe with Overland within the strip. "System" was removed in 1936. This was gone on their cars by 1948.
Sceme 2: In 1936 "System" was removed and due to PFE regular repaint practice, it was rare by 1949. This herald was used until 1942.
Scheme 3: In 1942 the "Simple" scheme was introduced where the diagonal "Overland" was removed. Since the "Simple" (no diagonal) was applied during WWII, only cars that required a repaint got this scheme. This resulted in not that many cars getting this scheme.
Scheme 4: Starting in 1946, both heralds were applied to each side of the car. This scheme was referred to as 2C. PFE did a major rebuilding effort after WWII, and this scheme was applied to newly maintained cars neglected during the war, all rebuilds and new cars. This scheme was on most cars by 1949.
Scheme 5: In mid-1950, the UP herald was changed to black and white.
So, there were three possible PFE paint schemes in 1948/9. Scheme 1 was gone by 1948, and scheme 5 came after 1949.
Scheme 2 was rare by 1948, so I have only one car painted that way. It is an Atlas model. I may get another just because the car is really nice.
There were very few PFE cars painted in Scheme 3, but I still wanted one since they were around in 1948. Problem is I have only found one model, a Weaver, that has that scheme. It is not a great model, wrong color and rides high, so I may repaint an Atlas car to this scheme some day.
Most PFE cars in 1948/9 were in Scheme 4. So I plan to get at least three cars. I currently have one, and it is a Lionel model.
Since my layout is primarily PRR, what I really want are reefers from Fruit Growers Express, owned by the PRR. Unfortunately, there are no correct 40' FGE cars available that I can find. MTH just release a 36' reefer in the correct late 40s scheme, but 36' reefers were gone except for use in the meat industry and MoW cars. I will keep looking.
