The empties problem

[NYC_George]

Jim
In the seventies I can remember 100 car Pacific Fruit Express trains arriving at Hunt’s Point Produce Market, New York, NY when I caught midnight switcher there off the extra list. We had to break up the train so the day crew could distribute them to the 100 or so whole sellers. I really never knew what happened to the empties. I’m going to assume they we’re sent back to California? Is this the case, they were sent back empty? I don’t even know if the train runs any more.

George

 

[UP2CSX]

George, I'm assuming that you were still seeing fruit blocks of ice reefers back then. That was about the only way to transport fruit from California to the East Coast and get it there in good condition. Once the ice reefers were empty, they were generally shipped back as empties as fillers in whatever trains were headed west unless there was a real fruit rush going on, in which case they'd get shipped back in solid blocks.

By the late 70's, everything started to change. The ice reefers were mostly gone and everything was shipped in mechanical reefers. There were still solid reefer blocks shipped east but more and more of the traffic was siphoned off by trucks, either over the road or by piggyback service. The mechanical reefers didn't have the thick walls and felt insulation that the ice reefers had and they could be used to ship things like canned goods back west so there weren't as many empties as before.

Fast forward to now and there are very few solid blocks of fruits or vegetables shipped by train except by piggybacks. The most important thing shipped by reefer is frozen concentrated orange juice and that is from Florida both north and westbound. Frozen orange juice doesn't have the time constraints of fresh fruit so the railroads have kept the majority of that traffic. Most of the other reefer traffic is now non-time sensitive frozen foods like french fries shipped in cryogenic refrigerator cars.

Having been a railfan for 45 years, it's quite striking to see trains now, where refrigerator cars are a rarity, to back in the 50's and 60's, when reefer were really common.

 

[NYC_George]

Ice to mechanical

Jim thanks. Good answer but I think you got your dates wrong as to when they switched from ice to mechanical. I remember working the Westchester Meat Market job in 1970 and some one was checking the fuel level of the mechanical reefer cars in the yard.

George

 

[UP2CSX]

By 1970, the fleet was about 40% mechanical reefers and 60% ice reefers, at least for PFE, which the company I'm most familiar with. It's very likely that there were mechanical reefers that needed fuel in 1970, especially for meat service, which were using mechanical reefers sooner since the loads were usually shipped frozen. Fruit and produce jobs just needed to be kept near 40 degrees so ice reefers stayed in service much longer. The last PFE ice fruit reefer was constructed in 1957 and wasn't retired until 1986. It was still in regular revenue service until 1977. Many of the former ice reefers were converted to mechanicals in their last years to squeeze a little more service out of a dying breed of car.

 

[Trussrod]

George & Jim,
Ah yes, times past, I also can rember the long trains of a 100 cars or more and the inclusion of many PFE refers here in Calif. Just wish at the time I had been more inclined
to take some pictures of the various things like the ice houses and platforms and some of the cars too! Thank God for Model Railroading to keep the Older times alive! Those were the Glory days alright back in the '50's and on.