Frisco Refrigerator Line (FRL) - 40 Foot Wood Side Ice Bunker Refrigerator Cars

Discussion in 'General' started by Frisco2008, Sep 28, 2008.

  1. Frisco2008

    Frisco2008 Member Frisco.org Supporter

    I found this photograph of the McAllen, TX depot circa 1930.

    Does anyone else have any information or photographs of these reefers?
     
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  2. Frisco2008

    Frisco2008 Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Well, okay no picture yet.

    Fussy software.
     
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  3. Frisco2008

    Frisco2008 Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Okay, here is another try.
     
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  4. bob_wintle

    bob_wintle Member Frisco.org Supporter

    It looks as though you are having the same problem in uploading your photographs that I had when I first started to upload mine.

    I ended up having to have my 17 year old show me how to reduce them in size.

    I sure wish I could remember what she showed me.

    I will ask her again tonight and post a hint later. Good luck and I am looking forward to seeing your photographs.

    Bob Wintle
     
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  5. Frisco2008

    Frisco2008 Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Take a look at my photograph album.

    There are 2 pictures there.
     
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  6. TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020)

    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020) Passed Away July 15, 2020 Frisco.org Supporter

    I am a poor one to give advice on computer problems, but I had success after I had a picture scanned or saved by emailing it to myself.

    I then save that image from the email and then post it to the board.

    I do not know any of the computer science behind all that but it worked for me.

    I have posted about fifty photographs here doing it that way.

    Tom
     
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  7. bob_wintle

    bob_wintle Member Frisco.org Supporter

    I just talked to my daughter and the way she did it was to save my photographs to her Photo Bucket site, then uploaded them to this site from there.

    Way over my head but that it what she said.

    Bob Wintle
     
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  8. Rick McClellan

    Rick McClellan 2009 Engineer of the Year

    Bob,

    Are you talking about the 222000 and 333000 series reefers?

    If so, I remember seeing these cars at Kraft Foods in Springfield, MO dedicated to cheese service.

    Now the doors that served these cars on the east side of the building have been bricked in.

    Ship IT on the Frisco!

    Rick
     
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  9. John Sanders

    John Sanders Member

    The Frisco Refrigerator Line (FRL) car in your photograph is from group of 2500 cars built by ACF, lot 6346, and delivered in late 1912 and early 1913.

    FRL was an independent car line, but coincidentally the offices were in the Frisco Building in St. Louis and the shops were listed as being in Springfield, MO. FRL cars were listed on a separate page of the Original Railway Equipment Register (ORER) from the Frisco and Chicage and Eastern Illinois (C&EI) until April 1920.

    FRL was dissolved with cars 1 through 1000 assigned and renumbered to C&EI. Cars 1001 though 2500 were assigned to SLSF. On December 7, 1920, C&EI sold their cars to Fruit Growers Express (FGE) and they lasted into the late 1940s.

    Frisco kept their cars and ran about 600 of them through a rebuild program in the Monett car shops in 1923 through 1925. Additional Frisco cars were converted to ventilated box cars and regular box cars. Some Frisco cars survived into the 1950s as ice cars, in addition to the Merchants Dispatch Transportation (MDT) cars, but were mostly retired from interchange service by the early 1930s.

    One ACF builder's photograph survives. Millard Smart had a lettering arrangement for these cars dated 1915. He loaned it to a live steam group in Kansas City, but it may not have been returned. I would like to have some decals made, possibly by Art Griffin.

    The attached photograph is not clear enough to do art work. A better broadside photograph or drawing is needed. Anyone interested in modeling the strawberry harvests in the teens and 20s needs these cars!

    John Sanders

    FILE4028.JPG

    FILE5280.JPG
     
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  10. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    A whole separate thread to come, but I have slowly been assimilating information from the old Frisco Employee magazines on strawberry movements in the 1920s up to the early 1930s.

    This thread provides some motivation to wrap it up!
     
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  11. billkarisch

    billkarisch Member

    I am interested in the ventilated box cars shown in the photograph.

    Evidently carriers of that era used a lot of them for produce, not to mention their versatility for backhaul as a box car.

    Checking a 1918 list of equipment on one of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico connections, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, I see that they had 1,745 ventilated cars to only 50 refrigerator cars.

    Since both railroads were after a lot of the same produce from the Texas Valley, I wonder if the Frisco Refrigerator Lines has a similar ratio of cars?
     
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  12. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    I dusted off the the 1943 ORER.

    At least by this date, 2728 was gone. I will have to look more carefully at all of the different notes to see if there were any ventilated boxcars that I am missing under different numbers.

    Westerfield has some Atlantic Cost Line (ACL) USRA clone vented boxcars that look like they would be a good starting point for the courageous kit basher.

    John,

    Do you or others have any dimensions on the SL-SF ventilated boxcars, including outside length, width, height from rail, door openings?

    Best Regards,
     
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  13. John Sanders

    John Sanders Member

    I do not have dimensions for the ventilated cars, but they would be similar to those of the refrigerator cars.

    Without having all of the ORER volumes I would guess the number of ventilated cars, SLSF 2501 to SLSF 2999, increased as the refrigerator cars declined. My records show 480 ventilated cars in both 1931 and 1932. By then the refrigerator car totals were down to 95 and 91 respectively.

    The refrigerator cars totaled over 1400 as late as January 1924, dropped to about 1200 in September 1925. These totals would include original FRL cars, renumbered and probably repainted, rebuilt cars. Totals for the refrigerator cars dropped to 576 cars in 1927, so many of the missing cars might be conversions to ventilated cars.

    For modeling the refrigerator cars, Sunshine models makes a truss rod Burlington reefer with angled queen posts that at least has the look of the FRL car. A model of the ventilated car might use the same kit.

    Bill Welch, FGEX enthusiast, has built a model of the FGEX car series that came from the C&EI.

    John Sanders

    FILE496.jpg
     
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  14. John Sanders

    John Sanders Member

    The attached cropped photograph is in the background of the depot at Fayetteville, AR.

    Photograph from the collection of Tom Galbraith.

    The refrigerator cars are shown in their post-FRL appearance, after the split of the FRL and after the SLSF rebuild.

    I am guessing about 1925.

    Once again we have a photograph that has great atmosphere, but is not quite clear enough to produce decal art.

    John Sanders

    FRL_Car_Fayetteville_AR_ca_1925.jpg
     
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  15. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    So, am I understanding correctly that the car FRL 1010 would have been built in 1912?

    A guy wants to make a V-scale model of it for use on my SLSF 1908 route I am building, but it may be too "new". :D
     
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  16. John Sanders

    John Sanders Member

    The roster page at the bottom shows build dates of 1911 and 1912.

    The American Car and Foundry (ACF) build lists show 1912 and 1913 build dates for the 2500 cars.

    Sorry but you would have to move your time period up a little bit for your V-scale car.

    John Sanders
     
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  17. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Thanks John for the reply and data.

    So much for that SLSF reefer!

    Do you have any idea what the Frisco used for refrigerator cars during 1908?

    Andre
     
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  18. FriscoCharlie

    FriscoCharlie Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Wow, would I like to have that in an N-scale model!

    Charlie
     
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  19. John Sanders

    John Sanders Member

    Give this a try.

    This link is to a collection of car diagrams produced in about 1902. The diagrams were done in pencil and painted in actual car paint. The refrigerator car is lettered in the early Yoakum scheme for the Frisco System. This may be the only pre-FRL lettering information to survive. The logo is similar to the old Frisco System box car seen in a Vista, MO thread.

    http://digitalcollections.missouristate.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/Frisco&CISOPTR=17&REC=2

    The late 1890s ORER issues show that the KCFS&M had several refrigerators, fewer than 75, in several types including Hanrahan, etc.. These were likely on the roster to serve the fruit growing area between Fordland, MO and Thayer, MO.

    A photograph of the fruit packing house at St Elmo, MO, near West Plains, shows lots of cars. The cars may be Armour, or American Refrigerator Transit (ART). The lettering does not show clearly in the photographs.

    The second link shows the unknown cars at St Elmo. Both photographs are in the Missouri State Digital Image collection.

    http://library.missouristate.edu/projects/fruitfulheritage/scripts/full.php?slideid=104

    John Sanders
     
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  20. John Sanders

    John Sanders Member

    The Frisco System refrigerator car is on page 07.

    John
     
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