REA express reefers, Part 2

In the first post on this topic, I briefly summarized the history of the Railway Express Agency or REA, and showed examples of some of the cars in their fleet, emphasizing the era that I model, 1953. I also showed a table of the REA pool participants, including Pacific Fruit Express. You can view that post at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/03/express-reefers-from-rea.html .

I now want to turn to models of some of these cars, and a description of how I are use these cars in operating my layout. When the layout is operated, the calendar day involved, say May 15, is treated as that day in 1953, and appropriate crops for that day are moved from the six packing houses on the layout whether or not express cars are involved. The most prominent use of those cars is late winter and early spring, when the California strawberry crop first comes in, but these cars also come into use with the first harvest of any previously unavailable crop.

So when a visitor sees a steel car, REX 6220 (an Atlas model), alongside the Guadalupe Fruit Company loading dock in my layout town of Ballard, they can be sure some new crop is being shipped. This car is from the 1947–48 order of 500 cars, REX 6100–6599. In the previous post (see link in first paragraph, above), there is a photo of a prototype car, REX 6164, from this group.

Likewise, seeing an REX car at the icing dock in my town of Ballard, signifies the same thing about crops. as with REX 1227 in the photo below (a Walthers model), though since Guadalupe Fruit has no pre-cooling capability, this car might be receiving a pre-icing, to fill the ice bunkers prior to loading, or an initial icing, filling the bunkers to the top on a departing loaded car.

But of course, looking at the table of the REA pool in the preceding post (see link in first paragraph, above), express reefers of other ownership are certainly possible, particularly PFE express cars. I’ve described those cars in a previous post (see it at:  https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/01/pfe-express-refrigerators.html ). 

Another prominent member of the REA pool was Great Northern, actually contributing more cars to the REA pool in 1953 than PFE. As it happens, I have an ancient Ambroid kit-built version of a GN wood-sheathed car. Here it’s shown being readied for pickup by a passenger extra on my layout at Shumala.

And of course there might also be express cars of any other railroad, whether or not in the REA pool list, including New York Central. I inherited a nice NYC express reefer, NYC 5943, from Richard Hendrickson (brass, New Jersey International), as you see here, with its distinctive deep side sills. In 1953, NYC had 272 of its original 275 cars like this still in service, numbered NYC 5800–6074.

Although I don’t often load express reefers at the packing houses on my layout, except at those short stretches of harvest season(s) for which they are appropriate, they do show up in mainline passenger trains. Among other things, they carried dairy products and fresh flowers along SP’s Coast Route throughout much of the calendar year. So though PFE is the likeliest reporting mark to show up on an express reefer on my layout, REA and other express cars certainly show up too.

Tony Thompson