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Santa Fe Railway Rolling Stock Reference Series Vol 6 Mechanical Refrigerator Ca
Santa Fe Railway Rolling Stock Reference Series Vol 6 Mechanical Refrigerator Cars and Insulated Refrigerator Cars of the Santa Fe Railway 1949-1988 by John B Moore Jr
Spiral Bound
192 pages
Copyright 2007
CONTENTS
Preface 6
Acknowledgments 9
Chapter 1Santa Fe MTC Cars - History and Operation11
Chapter 2MTC Cars (24 classes) 45
RR-46, -31, -54, -56, -60, -61, -65, -66, -69, -71, -72, -77, -83, -86, -87, -88, -89, -90, -91, -92, -94,- 95, -96, GA- 178
Chapter 3Insulated Refrigerator Car History 123
Chapter 4Insulated Refrigerator Cars (17 classes) 133
RR-57, -58, -59, -62, -63, -64, -67, -68, -73, -74, -75, -76, -78, -79, -80, -81, -82
Chapter 5Paint and Lettering163
Chapter 6Color Gallery 177
Epilogue 190
PREFACE
Following the conclusion of World War II, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway found itself needing new equipment to handle the grow-
ing frozen food business. It became clearly evident to the Santa Fe and its refrigerator department that lower temperatures would have to be obtained to keep pace with new food processing technologies. It was possible to ship frozen food in standard ice bunker cars, but they needed to have heavy insulation and 30% salt-to-ice by weight in the bunkers. This would provide a brine temperature under ideal conditions of around minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit. The actual temperature of the load could not be maintained at or very close to zero in hot weather. While the ice and salt method was satisfactory for some types of frozen foods, it did not provide the sub-zero temperatures Santa Fe engineers desired for all freezer loads. Ideas involving dry ice, liquid oxygen, ammonia absorption, split absorption, absorption systems using chemicals in various combinations, and several arrangements of a compression system were carefully considered.
During 1949, Santa Fe built its first mechanical refrigeration car and tested it for several years. It was not until 1953 that Santa Fe started building the first class of revenue mechanical refrigerator cars. Additional car classes were built or purchased almost yearly for the next 20 years. There were 24 different car classes which contained mechanical refrigeration units. The Santa Fe Railway retired the last of their mechanical refrigerator cars by 1988.
The first of the insulated refrigerator cars (refrigerator cars without ice bunkers) were added to the Santa Fe Refrigerator Department fleet in 1955. The insulated refrigerator cars were assigned reporting marks different from the ice bunker and mechanical refrigerator cars and were handled by the Santa Fe Refrigerator Department. There would eventually be 17 different classes of insulated refrigerator cars, each using one of the following reporting marks: SFRB, SFRA and SFRE. The last insulated cars were removed from service in 1981.
During the roughly three decades of their service. the mechanical refrigerator cars and insulated refrigerator, cars reflected the modern mechanical features of the time Roller bearings were used on many of them, shock control underframes were applied and numerous types of load restraining devices were employed. Improved insulation was thinner, which allowed increasing the cubic capacit1 of the cars. The roof running boards were removed starting in 1969. The Automatic Car Identification (ACI) label: were required that same year, but were discarded several years later as ineffective. The Clean, Oil, Test and Stencil (COT&S) consolidated marking was applied and a revise( version was on the cars at the end of their service.
Both the mechanical and insulated refrigerator car did the job they were built for. However, changes in the business, the loss of an important rate case, as well as de regulation, could not turn the tide of the increased true' competition. Slow service, long transit time, limited shelf life, shipping damage and transportation costs were all factors which led to the loss of business. Santa Fe responded to shippers' requests for refrigerated Trailer on Flat Car (TOFC) in preference to railcar shipments. Santa Fe stored the remaining Mechanical Temperature Controlled (MTC) cars in 1986 and leased cars from Fruit Growers Express. Interestingly, some 200 of Santa Fe's latest MTC cars were leased to Fruit Growers Express and carried Fruit Growers Express (FGMR) reporting marks in 1986-87. The Santa Fe MTC cars marked FGMR were returned to the Santa Fe, re-marked and then retired. The last two of the MTC cars were retired from the live list in May 1988. Santa Fe had ended almost 100 years of hauling perishables in their own refrigerator cars. It was the end of an era.
After that time, perishable shipments were hauled on Santa Fe rails but the cars were from other railroads or private car companies. During 1995 the Santa Fe Leasing Corporation (SFLC) leased 400 mechanical refrigerator cars from the Fruit Growers Express Company and re-marked them SFLC. Santa Fe had returned to hauling perishable freight with Santa Fe cars. The SFLC cars were still in service when the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) approved the merger of the Burlington Northern Railroad and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway on July 20, 1995, and the Santa Fe Railway faded into history.
In reviewing the source documents, books, memos, Official Railway Equipment Registers (ORER), live lists, and advertisements, the data was often in conflict. The data on the cars presented herein is my best selection of the pieces of information I could compile. There are many times the railroad was the victim of following the "cow path process"-doing something because it had always been done a certain way but the reason was forgotten. That is true of data used to fill out the folio sheets for each class of car. The errors stayed with some of those until the end. Of course, it is easy to sit back some 50 years later and spot some of the errors which did not change the course of business but did cause later historians to wonder what the real story was. This book is my presentation of what I believe that story to be.
John B. Moore, Jr. Albuquerque, New Mexico
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