HO PFE R-40-28 Reefer: PFE - 1961 Scheme: 6-Pack #1

Overview

Pacific Fruit Express was an American railroad refrigerator car leasing company owned jointly by the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads. It began operations on October 1, 1907, with a fleet of 6,600 cars, and eventually grew to be, at one time, the largest operator of refrigerator cars in the world, with a fleet of 40,509 refrigerator cars in service in 1930. PFE cars were found all over the country, carrying cargo from agricultural western and midwestern states to markets in the east and southeast.

From January through August 1957, 1700 cars were built in class R-40-27, numbered PFE 10001-11700. They featured a 4-foot-wide Youngstown sliding plug-door, sliding toward the left, combined with a 2-foot-wide hinged door to the right of it. This created a 6-foot-wide opening when both were opened, or just a 2-foot-wide opening if the car needed to be inspected before unloading in order to retain the cool interior temperature.

Soon the R-40-27 plans were modified with a 6-foot sliding plug-door, along with the established 2-foot-wide swinging door, creating the new class R-40-28 cars, of which there were 100 (PFE 11701-11800)constructed by in July 1957.

Both the R40-27 and R-40-28 class cars were cooled with ice, and included overhead electric fans to circulate the cool air enroute. As it would turn out, these would be the last ice-cooled refrigerator cars built by PFE. After these classes, all PFE reefers utilized mechanical cooling.

In 1971, 100 of the R-40-27 and -28 cars hand their ice hatches bolted closed and only top icing of a car’s lading (TIV, or Top Icing Ventilated) was performed. TIV cars were then renumbered, with the first digit being changed from a 1 to a 3. In 1972, 450 more cars were converted to TIV, but this time the roadnumbers were changed into the 190000-series.

The two classes were remarkably long lived, the last examples not being retired until after 1980!

Rapido’s all-new HO scale model is the first time that these cars have been offered as a plastic model.

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