The Reefer Nation...or...Madness Chapter 2

Careful, reefers can be addictive I like the beer reefers from MTH. I think my favorite though is the Brookside Dairy reefer. I haven't seen one in O Gauge but I have one in S Scale from Showcase Line (S Helper Service).



Cheers,
Ken

Williams makes the Brookside one. The car is undersized and a model of a steel car instead of wood sided, but it's still a good looking car over all.

 

Wood sided reefers are my favorite. Too bad I'm camera deficient.

Here's a better pic of Pachot Fruit Distributing Co.  Matt

Did I hear reefers?

The scary part is this isnt all of them.

I try to limit it to just the meat cars, but a few others have slipped in over time.

 

(its not embedding for some reason, maybe youtube will fix itself. The direct link is below)

Boilermaker 1,

I tried to play the YouTube you posted, but it won't play.  Matt

Youtube seems to be having some sort of issue. I can see it on youtube, but not embedded.

 

Try the link http://youtu.be/fq3p-kRn7-A

until i can (or they do) fix it.

Very Cool!

Here are some of my favorites my favorites:

 

 

This one doesn't have a particularly colorful paint scheme, but I am a NYC fan.

 

 

 

Same as above.  It's a little drab, but it's NYC!

 

 

 

Bo

Try this link. It has a picture of all the Atlas reefers ever made.

 

http://www.toytrains1.com/atlas_reefers.htm

The official term, coined by yours truly and "ToyTrains1" on this very forum years ago is "Reefer Madness" derived from the movie and marijuana scares of the past and the mad addiction some of us have developed for billboard reefers. I lost count of how many I've collected over the past several years and I'm small-time compared to a couple of my colleagues. The irony is that I haven't photographed any of them.

 

It actually started with Intermountain steel ice bunker reefer kits over 20 years ago, then Atlas came out with the original billboard woodside series. I was hooked.

 

After nearly buying duplicates on eBay after forgetting I had bought them earlier (never taken out of the shipping box) I finally decided to narrow my focus on those that typically ran on the CNW system and Santa Fe with a few odd-ball exceptions.  I've been thinking of building a display case for them. Of course I bought an Atlas Ice House and Ice Dock which I'll put on my layout whenever I get it built.

Matt Jackson, I started out the exact same way. Intermountain, I thought they were great. They still look good. When Atlas came out with reefers I was hooked. It was dope to me. I bought a stash, I mean lots of them. I've gone to therapy and haven't bought one in years. Like you I don't have a single picture of my reefers. My favorite is the "Doggie Diner". It's a dog food reefer but if you grew up in the bay area there were Doggie Diner hot dog stands all over the city. Don

Freak Brothers smoking reefer car

 

Cheech and Chong - up in smoke

Must-have collectibles in the reefer madness series.

Hey Matt,

Those few years of "Reefer Madness" sure were fun !  Atlas cars sure were hot and the forum really provided a great platform for their discussion--it was very interesting,that's for sure.

 I hope that Atlas can regain some of the magic from those times. 

 

Norm 

 

Just have a small roster as pictured plus a Borden's and two Miller's (one red,one yellow).  Have hoped MTH would come through with an A&P Co. and Schlitz.

 

Here is you Doggie Dinner car Don...

 

Hey Don,

You don't have a single pic of any of your reefers?  Not even of any of the K-Line reefers you have?  Matt

Ace - Love the Freak Brothers Reefer car - Going to have to due one like that - Thanks

Billboards are perfect for my steam era-to-be layout and I especially like the Atlas Steam Era Classics for their detail. I can't wait until there are a dozen or more behind my steam locomotives.

 

One of my favorites is shown below.

 

JohnS,

I love the 99 reefers of ale on the wall!  Matt

Not having fifty bucks for a plastic freight car, I rolled my own out of wood and custom decals:

 

Ace, I still have the original FFF Bros. Comic books. Like new. You brought back memories. Don

One thing Atlas did that I really admire is they would only produce models for which they could get data. If they built it there had been a prototype somewhere.

Refers can be additictive.  Railcars and illegal smokes!

Amen to Matt Jackson!!  There are model reefers out there that did not exist.  And I am sure there were other prototypes that nobody has found a photo of, yet.  I spent a lot of time in the vacant lots of vanished breweries researching these, but only managed to get the Hoster Brewing Co. of Columbus, Ohio produced by Atlas, through Dunham's Train Shop.  (I later found the car had been done in HO by somebody in

Columbus) One I really wanted to do, Wooden Shoe Brewery, with a great logo on their trucks, of Ohio, did not have logoed rail cars although they shipped beer by rail. Their logo was copyrighted and a G scale version done for a non-existent car.

Found a lot of breweries (former locations) but could not substantiate whether they

had logoed reefers.  I only collect reefers of companies in four states, including Ohio, to try to keep a finite grip on reality.  I appreciate the posted list.

Don't forget.  Thanks to the Herculean efforts of Paul Strickland (VA Golfer), Atlas O did make one fantasy scheme reefer.  Do the words "Natty Boh" ring a bell with you?

Lionel, 1981-82

My favorite reefer madness.....

I still have reefer madness, within the constraints of my parameters.  I have been lately

disappointed in the Atlas booth, but assumed the economy and a limited supply of

photographs of protoypes had dampened the market for them.  With that lengthy list

(I am afraid to say this or somebody will publish one), it is a wonder there isn't a price

guide for them.

Another thought I've often had:  You see several different milk reefers out of New England for NYC, as well as the butter dish milk tankers, but I have never seen any

that were labeled as though bound for cities in the midwest..Chicago out of Wisconsin?...

or the far west (in spite Calif. Dairy ads on the TV).  No logoed, dedicated milk reefers

for those large populations?

And last but not least, a reefer to keep a body warm...or cold in this case....

 

 

Here's my favorite - even though they spelled my name wrong...  

 

 

 

Andy

A few on the Seattle & Yakima RR from Atlas, Lionel, KMT, and MTH

 

 

 

 

 

I own two--the wonderful silver Sonoma County Wines that Matt shared at the beginning of this thread, and this Apache Beer reefer that a fellow forum member had a hand in.

 

Bill T:  Who made the Lemp cars, even though outside my collecting constraint?  Would have liked to see those in Atlas, if they had a prototype....there was more than one brewery in St. Louis. Unrelated: Somebody has been running cardboard sides including reefers on the net...maybe I shouldn't be skimming over them if they've hit on some real companies?? (not otherwise available)

omg! yall have some nice refers! i have unfortunately neglected collecting these and will correct that next time im at my lionel store!

I have lot of reefers, but my tastes do not run to the billboard type - I have a couple -

but if someone would offer a billboard reefer decorated to, ah, "honor" the recent

rational changes to certain laws in Washington state and Colorado (I think that is correct),

I would buy a couple, for sure, dude.