I've been collecting Atlas wood sided reefers for several years. Now I am looking for the perfect steam loco to pull the cars. Do you have a prototypical engine(s) they can suggest. Not sure the best match for the wood sided era. Looking for Legacy steam, new or used. Thanks for you help!
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Your request is very broad indeed. Are you modeling a particular railroad? I live a few miles from Altamount in Duanesburg and would be happy to review some roads and engines with you at your convenience. Bill
I had hoped to send you a private message but you do not have an email listed. I live in Duanesburg and have a large 24'X44' point to point layout. There are several guys who come here and bring there trains and run them. The layout is about 32 years old and still in construction like most. I invite you to contact me via my email on my profile page if you are interested in visiting. Its about having fun with trains. Best regards, Bill
If you are talking about a train made up of all deferent reefer's , it doesn't matter. Only toy train guys do that.
Nearly any steam freight locomotive would be appropriate.
The first steel sided reefers didn't start being manufactured until 1936. So woodsided reefers were still around during the height of steam power.
As small as a Mikado to as large as a Bigboy it doesn't really matter. Reefers ran on different railroads, all across the United States.
Billboard reefers were outlawed in 1937, but wooden reefers lasted into the 60s.
Do some research of build dates and pick one. This question is beyond broad and is basically just a question of personal opinion.
A Legacy 4-6-2 Pacific would be a good candidate for pulling wood sided reefers. Most of the major roads had them in freight service way back when.
@Yellowstone Special posted:A Legacy 4-6-2 Pacific would be a good candidate for pulling wood sided reefers. Most of the major roads had them in freight service way back when.
Not really, i.e. "most major railroads". Remember that the "billboard reefers" were outlawed in 1937, which was back when high-wheeled Pacific steam locomotives were assigned to passenger service, and freight trains rarely exceeded 50 to 55 MPH. Probably the best steam locomotive for assignment to a "wood sided reefer" freight train back in the 1940s, would have been a 2-8-2, or 2-8-4, or 4-8-2, depending on the railroad being modeled.
@Hot Water:
Yes, really. Back in the 19-teens, 20s, and 30s, the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, all used them for pulling woodside reefers. The Pennsy, New York Central, and several other roads in the east and midwest used them as well. Yes, other steamers such as Mikes and Berkshires were used for this. But the Pacifics were very common when freight trains were shorter, until the longer and heavier steamers emerged.
I have not heard of Pacifics (4-6-2) being used for freight service pulling reefers or any freight. As a pennsy fan, I have lots of books and materials about the PRR and I have never seen a photo or reference to a pacific pulling reefers on the PRR. There are probably one or two exceptions however. Starting in the early 1930s, PRR built over 300 4-8-2s with 72 inch drivers for high speed freight service. I don't know about other eastern roads in the US. I have heard of pacifics built and used for light freight service in Canada however.
I think a majority of pacifics built in the US had 80 inch drivers to get the speeds desired for high speed passenger service, this made them slipperier than freight loco with smaller drivers. Also the larger drivers reduced the tractive effort available.
My opinion is a 4-8-2 or 4-8-4 for modern fast freight such as perishable reefers. The local delivery or in mixed trains it could be any freight loco as assigned.
@Woof posted:I've been collecting Atlas wood sided reefers for several years. Now I am looking for the perfect steam loco to pull the cars. Do you have a prototypical engine(s) they can suggest. Not sure the best match for the wood sided era. Looking for Legacy steam, new or used. Thanks for you help!
How about a new Legacy PRR L1s Mikado from the 2022 Vol. 2 catalog?
@Yellowstone Special posted:@Hot Water:
Yes, really. Back in the 19-teens, 20s, and 30s, the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, all used them for pulling woodside reefers.
Please provide factual evidence.
The Pennsy, New York Central, and several other roads in the east and midwest used them as well.
Again, please provide factual evidence.
Yes, other steamers such as Mikes and Berkshires were used for this. But the Pacifics were very common when freight trains were shorter,
I don't believe you, without factual evidence.
until the longer and heavier steamers emerged.
Boys, boys. I am not at home right now. But I too, have a variety of railroad books accumulated over the past 25 years or so. Several of these show Pacifics pulling woodside reefers in their consists. I was not necessarily referring to mile-long unit trains with nothing but woodside reefers. But the photos I recall seeing showed several reefers along with other types of freight cars.
I saw Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Pacifics pulling woodside reefers when I was a boy growing up in the 1950s. If the OP, Woof, is looking for a Legacy steamer to pull long unit trains of nothing but woodside reefers, then yes, the longer, heavier steamers would probably fill the bill better.
Geez.
@rplst8 posted:How about a new Legacy PRR L1s Mikado from the 2022 Vol. 2 catalog?
I'm no expert, but I'd agree with this. No point looking any further - just pick any Mikado and you're looking good (and prototypical) pulling wood-sided reefers.
I would agree that Mikado class locomotives would be most common for strings of wooden reefers with Mountain or Northern classes also fairly common on the roads that rostered them.
You don't see a lot of Pacifics in any kind of freight service unless they were subbing for other power.
There is a pretty common photo of a pair of PRR K4s pulling wood cars in freight service. However, the fact that they were double headed shows the inherent challenges with high drivered locomotives used for freight. Two were needed when a single Mikado or Mountain would suffice.
Short answer - a 2-8-2 would be an excellent choice.
@Hot Water posted:
A simple internet search revealed the following information:
4-6-2 "Pacific" Locomotives
Last revised: December 26, 2022
By: Adam Burns
excerpt:
"...Virtually every well-remembered railroad of the time owned at least one 4-6-2. The Pennsylvania's Class K-4s, are typically regarded as the most famous (and likely were the best engineered ever put into service), as they pulled double-duty hauling both passengers and freight trains.
The locomotives ability to pull heavy freights was thanks to their larger size (one of the largest ever built) with tractive efforts exceeding 44,000 pounds and a boiler pressure greater than 205 psi (the PRR also owned the most Pacifics of any railroad, rostering well over 500).
Other roads would follow the PRR and used some 4-6-2s in freight service as well. ..."
reference:https://www.american-rails.com/4-6-2.html
Additionally from https://www.steamlocomotive.co...=USA&wheel=4-6-2
"...Everyone is aware of Pennsylvania's fleet of 425 K4s locomotives, the largest such class in the world. However, for another example of the pervasiveness of the Pacific locomotive type, consider this: as of January 1, 1946, in the New York Central diagram book, the number of J class 4-6-4 passenger locomotives was 274; the number of K class 4-6-2s was 368, although, in all fairness, 102 of the Pacifics were class K11, built as fast freight locomotives, and used for local freight to a certain extent....
...Since the USRA locomotives were built for wartime service, there were obviously more freight types constructed than passenger: thus, there were 81 USRA "light" Pacifics built as opposed to 625 55,000 lb axle loading 2-8-2s and 20 "heavy" 4-6-2s against 233 "heavy" Mikados...
...One of the most interesting developments was on the ACL. This company ordered 165 further Pacifics, identical to the USRA ones, except that they had 69-inch drivers and 210 lbs boiler pressure. These Pacifics, with a starting tractive effort of 45,275 lbs. On the relatively flat route between Richmond and Savannah, these Pacifics had a freight tonnage rating of 4400 tons (unadjusted) in either direction...."
Now one could get into specific dates of service and weather billboard reefers were in these freight trains but it does remain that Pacifics were used in freight service and given the time period, most like hauled a billboard reefer or two.
Lately I have purchase railroad videos from green frog and john pechulis media--I could watch these for hours the amount of modeling info is amazing --numerous videos of period freight trains having some of those woodside reefers in my collection in the consist mixed with steel reefers and other cars--
@20centuryhudson posted:Lately I have purchase railroad videos from green frog and john pechulis media--I could watch these for hours the amount of modeling info is amazing --numerous videos of period freight trains
What period? Many woodside ice reefers still appeared in the 1950s and 1960s, but none of the "billboard sided" reefers.
having some of those woodside reefers in my collection in the consist mixed with steel reefers and other cars--
Which types of woodside reefers? The various refrigerator companies, like PFE, FGE, WFE, BRE, etc., all look fine when run together, but with the "billboard" reefers if you are modeling post WWII.
The 50’s and 60’s and wood reefers were definitely part of the consist— swift Wilson Oscar Meyer for example — billboard reefers maybe a subclass in the definition
Problem easily solved; an A-B-B-A set of FTs. 
Hot Water: Now, you’re IN hot water.
With Farmall-Joe’s enlightening research about the 4-6-2 Pacifics, I challenge you to provide factual evidence that the statements made in my above post, which you refute practically sentence by sentence, are not factual.
After reading the cited articles they clearly state that the vast majority of Pacific class locomotives were used in passenger service. I would question the statement on the American Rails site regarding the use of K4s Pacifics in regular freight service as I have found other discrepancies with citing that web site in the past in my consulting work. As a PRRT&HS member and with nearly 40 PRR books in my collection including probably the most authoritative book on the locomotive, "The Many Faces of the K4", I have only run across two photos of a K4s in freight service. The most famous is the black and white photo of a double headed set of K4s on a freight train and can be found online. The other shows a K4s near the end of its career on a local freight.
On the PRR it was quite the opposite in that the 4-8-2 M1a and M1b Mountains were built for dual service only to be mostly found in fast freight service. The same issue was also true for the sizeable fleet of EMD FP7s the PRR also rostered.
From a more reputable source on the PRR: PRRT&HS discussion on PRR K4s in Freight Service
Of course, it should be stated that no one is saying that Pacifics did not pull freight. What is being stated factually is that it was not common and that other classes of steam locomotives overwhelmingly pulled freight trains because of the inherent advantages of those classes of locomotives to develop the adhesion and tractive effort specific to starting freight trains.
It should also be noted that the UP and SP Pacifics I saw as a kid in the 1950s were “light Pacifics,” relegated to branch line freight service after they had been replaced in passenger service by diesels.
Mi-kah-do, Mi-kah-do, Mi-kah-do…
@Yellowstone Special posted:Hot Water: Now, you’re IN hot water.
With Farmall-Joe’s enlightening research about the 4-6-2 Pacifics, I challenge you to provide factual evidence that the statements made in my above post, which you refute practically sentence by sentence, are not factual.
Well,,,,,,,,just because it is "on the internet" does NOT make it true! Having been born in 1942, in New Jersey, I NEVER saw a Pacific on either the CNJ, nor the DL&W, nor the LV, nor the PRR, nor the NYC in freight service. Plus, the last place the Southern Pacific used Pacifics during the mid to late 1950s was in the commute service out of San Francisco.
@GG1 4877 posted:The most famous is the black and white photo of a double headed set of K4s on a freight train and can be found online.
…
From a more reputable source on the PRR: PRRT&HS discussion on PRR K4s in Freight Service
The most interesting thing about that picture (to me) is the much taller tender on the second locomotive.
The Canadian National and Canadian Pacific both used 4-6-2s in freight service (see Ian Wilson’s excellent series of books). Also , the CN used 2-8-2s in passenger service. I never witnessed these trains in person either, but I know they existed because of photographs. Just because I never witnessed something personally, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. JohnA
I grew. Up in the Bay Area and saw lots of Cab Forwards pulling PFE Refers,saw the in the Sierras as well and it was mostly Cab Forwards.
@Hot Water posted:Well,,,,,,,,just because it is "on the internet" does NOT make it true! Having been born in 1942, in New Jersey, I NEVER saw a Pacific on either the CNJ, nor the DL&W, nor the LV, nor the PRR, nor the NYC in freight service. Plus, the last place the Southern Pacific used Pacifics during the mid to late 1950s was in the commute service out of San Francisco.
Very weak and lame. What about BEFORE 1942?
I’ve taken SP’s commuter trains on the SF Bay Area peninsula. It’s light Pacifics we’re also used for freight on branch line service during the early to mid-1950s.
@mikey posted:I grew. Up in the Bay Area and saw lots of Cab Forwards pulling PFE Refers,saw the in the Sierras as well and it was mostly Cab Forwards.
I to recall cab forwards pulling trains of all PFE refers going east out of the Bay Area. Sometimes there was train after train of refers going east. I do not recalling seeing these trains pulled by anything else until diesels took over. Then it was mostly F units.
@Yellowstone Special posted:What about BEFORE 1942?
I think the real answer is more nuanced if you are going to use a Pacific. I think what Hot Water was getting at is that after 1937 billboard reefers were banned from interchange service. So from 1937 to 1942 it would be unlikely to see consists of mixed billboard reefers. They would have only been able to be used locally (or maybe regionally, because for instance on paper the big railroads were actually made up of smaller ones with their own charters, and I don't know if say traffic moving from the PRR mainline to say the Lines West branches counts as interchange service).
Seeing as most of the wood-sided reefer prototypes that Atlas has modeled are from the billboard era, and assuming the OP has collected ones from many different regions in the U.S. then a consist of them would most likely have happened prior to 1937. At that time, it would be unlikely to see locomotives normally assigned to passenger service pulling strings of mixed freight, let alone billboard reefers.
Now, if the reefers are all from the same locality or they are all just lettered for the express lines they were part of (like Merchants Dispatch, Pacific Fruit, American Refrigerator, Swift, Union, Railway Express, etc.) then anything goes probably, especially once Pacific motive power was being replaced by streamlined diesels and bigger superpower steam on passenger service.
The railroad that actually bought a new Pacific for "freight " service was a special purpose logging road, the Smokies' Little River. Logging roads used all kinds of as available. and homemade power. That is a tiny Pacific that l saw in a tourist road 's shed in SW Mich. I have read published comments about this being thought an oddball choice.
@Hot Water posted:Well,,,,,,,,just because it is "on the internet" does NOT make it true! Having been born in 1942, in New Jersey, I NEVER saw a Pacific on either the CNJ, nor the DL&W, nor the LV, nor the PRR, nor the NYC in freight service. Plus, the last place the Southern Pacific used Pacifics during the mid to late 1950s was in the commute service out of San Francisco.
Well just because you never saw it doesnt mean it didnt happen. Just because its not in a book doesnt mean its not factual. And just because some people tried to provide input to Woof (remember him, he's the one who asked the basic question in the first place) doesnt mean you have to jump all over them. Not sure what the issue is but i dont see this posting under a Proto48 or Prototype modelers header.
The following New Haven I4 Pacific is seen on a freight train in 1947 in the following pic. It looks authentic (for an internet picture anyway) 
It's hard to believe that having fun could be so complicated and filled with angst.
Whatever steam engine you choose to pull the Atlas reefers with will be a great choice. And you will have fond memories of this thread and the decision making process.
Yes, PRR K4s were used in freight service. I don't want to violate any copyright laws so here are google image results of a pic I have linked from Angelfire showing double-headed PRR K4s pulling a fast freight outside of Chicago in 1938.
Photos removed by OGR due to potential copyright
The link to the photo is in this discussion:
https://www.tapatalk.com/group...t-service-t1461.html
-Greg
I think the keywords in the article cited are "pinch hitting" and "break -in". There are always exceptions to the established procedures. the article mentioned used when nothing else was available. Also the use for break-in after overhaul makes sense. If there is going to be a problem the RR wanted to find it before putting a loco on a passenger train where the failure would be very public. There was pride in passenger service in steam day.
My personal choice is to model day to day operations - what was normally done. I don't particularly care for model a one-off situation or rare occurrences. This is one reason that I don't have a model of the PRR S2 Turbine. It was a one-off experimental engine and really did not see general service for very long. This is just my perspective on modeling.
@aussteve posted:It's hard to believe that having fun could be so complicated and filled with angst.
Whatever steam engine you choose to pull the Atlas reefers with will be a great choice. And you will have fond memories of this thread and the decision making process.
The O.P. asked about something prototypical. In this instance like many others there is not a one size fits all answer.
There are different views, experiences, and ideas being expressed here aside from a bit of debate.
I actually enjoy these point, counterpoint threads as long as they don't get too personal.
There's alot of FREE information to be had here.
The O.P. can use this information and choose his head end power based on what he's trying to portray/model.
@Farmall-Joe posted:Not sure what the issue is but i dont see this posting under a Proto48 or Prototype modelers header.
@aussteve posted:It's hard to believe that having fun could be so complicated and filled with angst.
Whatever steam engine you choose to pull the Atlas reefers with will be a great choice. And you will have fond memories of this thread and the decision making process.
The OP asked for a prototypical locomotive! There's no angst here. We're just sharing information about what would have been prototypical.
Sheesh.
Depending on how long the train is, and what time period you Model, you could also go with some smaller and lighter freight power. A 2-6-0 Mogul or a 4-6-0 Ten Wheeler would be right at home on the point of a string of woodside reefers from the turn of the century. A 2-8-0 Consolidation might also be a valid choice.
Access to this requires an OGR Forum Supporting Membership
