Reefer loads

In 1955, there were 1,387,000 carloads shipped in reefers. The breakdown is as follows:

Product	Carloads (000)	% of total
Meat and packing house products	299	21.6%
Fresh fruits	257	18.5%
Fresh vegetables	207	14.9%
Manufactured food products	196	14.1%
Potatoes	191	13.8%
Beer & malt liquors	75	5.4%
Cheese & dairy products	58	4.2%
Containers returned empty	16	1.2%
All other	88	6.3%

What's In Those Cars, Anyway? The Dispatcher's Office, January, 2000, pp. 6-10.

Santa Fe reefers, like Pacific Fruit Express, were for produce. Of its entire fleet, Santa Fe only had 30 ice reefers ever which had meat hook racks, and these appear to have been used for on-line Harvey House service, or possibly a dedicated service to a packer and market. These were too few to have any impact on the overall fleet.

Most meat packers, Armour, Swift, Cudahy, etc., had huge fleets of their own cars to ship meat from slaughterhouse to market. You would not find a SRFD reefer at the local packing plant. Most meat reefers cycled from packing plant to warehouse and back, with regular stops at company owned shops for cleaning and repairs.

One major crop of the 40s and 50s were potatoes from the Bakersfield, CA, area. 85% of the national supply came from there with peak shipments in June. Keith Jordan has supplied an ATSF chart of the California growing season, dated 1944, which would account for much of the SFRD shipments.

Depending on the seasonal needs, empty reefers from one railroad could be moved to another to handle reefer shortages. Santa Fe reefers have been documented hauling fruit from Florida to Chicago.

Railroad were not eager to run their produce reefers back home empty unless they were in great demand for another trip east. In less harried seasons, common dry loads would include newspapers and magazines from East Coast publishers, all manner of clean items, such as canned goods and boxed items, or LCL shipments from people like the mail order houses in Chicago or Kansas City. During the holiday season in the early 50s, Santa Fe ran a daily train westbound of approximately 60 reefers between Chicago and California operating on passenger schedules. The cars carried westbound Christmas express traffic and bulk mail.

Ben Perry wrote, "During the ealry and mid 1960's the New Haven RR would operate mail extras during the December Holiday rush between Boston and New York. These trains would consist mostly of 40 foot reefers (not express reefers) with various railroad reporting marks such as FGE, WFE, SFRD, and PFE."

Tim Gilbert wrote, "There were commodities which could be carried in car load lots on westbounds. Among the westbound commodities carried on the UP between Laramie & Rawlins in the Fall of 1947 according to a Conductor's Wheel Report was produce not produced in the Far West - Bananas, Grapefruit, et al.; beverages; canned goods; as well as wool, machinery, appliances, tires."

Bill Messecar reported, "The results of our effort to reduce empty westbound refrigerator car movement are shown by the fact that in 1954 we handled 62,902 loaded SFRD refrigerator cars eastbound into Belen and in the same year moved west from Belen 43,107 empty SFRD cars and 20,221 loaded SFRD."

Also in peak seasons, entire trains of empty reefers would be expedited from Chicago back to California to cover the tremendous reefer need.

Damage claims ran high with perishable goods, often more than 10%. In 1949, the Pennsylvania reported 17% damage losses.

Reefers in LCL Shipments

Many westbound reefers were used for Less than Carload shipments. A railroad would normally substitute 2-3 reefers for one boxcar, which was ideal for LCL shippers. Santa Fe developed the Mahoney transload facility near the west end of Argentine Yard in Kansas City. Box cars of LCL goods were brought to Mahoney where they were transloaded into reefers for various western destinations. Of course empty reefers or those hauling nonperishable freight could be found anywhere in the train, not just at the headend.

One drawback to using reefers as boxcars was the door width. The Santa Fe standard was 5', while most railroads had 4' doors. Loading was by hand truck. The sliding plug door first appeared on Santa Fe cars in 1949, helped make the inside more accessible to fork lift trucks. This was the same period where box cars were moving from 6' to 8' doors. Yet another concern was that reefer doors hinged outward, meaning they required just over 30" of swing clearance. Sliding doors required virtually no clearance to loading doors. If clearances were too tight, the doors of reefers would have to be opened before the car was set for unloading and closed after the car was pulled with a load.

As a comparison, a BX-37 class 40' boxcar had internal dimensions of 40'6" long, 9' wide, and 10'4" high for a total of 3,766 cu. ft. The 40' RR-29 class reefer, rebuilt around the same time, had internal dimensions of 33'2" L x 8'2.5" W x 7'9" high for a total capacity of 2,110 cu. ft. Insulation and ice bunkers took up the rest of the space in addition to the overall car being shorter.

Tim Gilbert reported:

"Reefers were used in LCL service only when there was a boxcar
shortage. Reefers were substituted in LCL service for boxcars in
Chicago, Kansas City and other points in the Mid West in order to
provide primarily a supply of empty boxcars for grain loading."

"The three reefers for one boxcar rule pertained only for carload lots
which specified a minimum weight to qualify for the carload lower
rate. There was no minimum weight for an LCL car except during WW II.
(Exception: During WW II when there was a minimum ten ton weight for
loading an LCL car, the three reefer for one boxcar provision was
applied to LCL cars.)" John Barry has supplied a "History of Substitution Arrangement of Refrigerator Cars for Box Cars on Westbound Transcontinental Traffic."

"Another complication using reefers in LCL service was that they
could be routed only in one direction vs. a boxcar which could be
sent almost anywhere - car rules about reloading empties only in the
direction of their home road was largely ignored, and no where more
than in LCL service."

"Once a boxcar was put into LCL service, it was apt to stay in it for a while until that boxcar was unloaded at a station which could not reload it. Refer to the routing of C&O #1 in Mono's ad on pages 56-57 of the September 1948 TRAINS magazine. #1 was loaded in Crawfordsville IN on June 16th, 1947 and remained in LCL service until July 16th, 1947 traveling to Louisville KY, Montgomery AL, Miami FL, Savannah GA, Atlanta GA, Macon GA, and Hamlet NC before being spun out of LCL service near Columbia SC. There was no such luxury with reefers. Their services were required near the fields to ship their produce to eastern markets."

"C&NW's Proviso Transfer was also had the capability to use reefers in LCL service without upsetting much the LCL unloading/loading function. First of all, incoming LCL was unloaded on separate tracks than those used for outbound load. Furthermore, cars on each inbound and outbound track could be served directly from a platform which meant packages did not have to be hauled through a multitude of car doors on parallel tracks. Because of these platforms, a string of reefers could be set on one track, loaded for certain points to the west, and could be pulled somewhat more independently than for a station where loading was done through car doors on adjacent tracks where one pull could shut down loading operations for the entire freight house."

"According to a Fall 1947 UP Wheel Report for cars between Laramie and Rawlins, WY, about 30% or 43 of the 145 westbound LCL carloadings were in reefers. 31 of the LCL-toting reefers were owned by PFE while another five were owned by SFRD."