Western Railroad Discussion > A Rare Bird for Fiftyfooter

Starting to collect slides of some PNW private owner cars. Just aquired this view from Tucson, AZ in 1978 showing a Evans built 50' Double plug door car painted for Quinault Pacific, a cedar panel manufacturing plant in Shelton, WA. The company started in 1961 selling under the Versapanel brand name, but was out of business by 1985 following the bad recession and a misguided attempt to enter into the export market with Hong Kong and China. Apparently someone saw a car painted like this as recently as 2003. I'm also amused to discover that this type Evans built car are nicknamed "Blue Island Reefers" in some circles, although they are not reefers nor insulated in most cases (some were insulated for shipping canned goods and foodstuffs). Now I want to see if I can a manufacture interested in producing a model of the car.
 

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/18 12:50 by funnelfan.

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Back in that era the SP created the Evergreen Freight Car Company to acquire RB, insulated boxcars without any load dividers, specifically for lumber service.  The fact they were insulated made them technically refrigerator cars and subject to different car service rules that allowed the SP/EFCX to require eastern railroads to return them quickly empty for another lumber load.  This was during a time when SP general service boxcars would disappear offline and be used for local loads by the boxcar starved bankrupt eastern railroads.  Arguably between the high cost of the cars and the high cost of so much empty mileage it was a very expensive fix for the  shortage of boxcars for lumber loading in Oregon, but in those days marketing performance was measured by revenue not contribution or profit.

JBWX 

Hey, that is one rare bird! Can't say I have ever seen one. Thanks for thinking of me! 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/18 19:13 by Fiftyfooter.

jbwest Wrote:
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> Back in that era the SP created the Evergreen
> Freight Car Company to acquire RB, insulated
> boxcars without any load dividers, specifically
> for lumber service.  The fact they were insulated
> made them technically refrigerator cars and
> subject to different car service rules that
> allowed the SP/EFCX to require eastern railroads
> to return them quickly empty for another lumber
> load.  This was during a time when SP general
> service boxcars would disappear offline and be
> used for local loads by the boxcar starved
> bankrupt eastern railroads.  Arguably between the
> high cost of the cars and the high cost of so much
> empty mileage it was a very expensive fix for the
>  shortage of boxcars for lumber loading in
> Oregon, but in those days marketing performance
> was measured by revenue not contribution or
> profit.

The SP created the Evergreen Freightcar Company to get their empty cars returned immediately by foreign railroads.  However the reason for return was not the fact that the cars were insulated, or the fact that they were hardwood lined specially for rolled newsprint loading, but the fact that they were PRIVATELY OWNED!  The SP owned the Evergreen Freight Car Corporation outright, and the Superintendent of the Oregon Division was always its president.  The private car owner EFCX, then ordered its offline cars to be immediately returned empty to Eugene.
G

Fiftyfooter Wrote:
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> Hey, that is one rare bird! Can't say I have ever
> seen one. Thanks for thinking of me! 

This car is a new on me also!

SantaFeRuss

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