Nostalgia & History > REA 50' express reefers

Sirs,

I'm a little behind this, what can someone tell me about these cars? The number series will be helpfull too. Thanks in advance,
MrOGDEN
South of Burmester

Obvious use was expedited perishable moves but beyond that many of them ended
up in use on the San Luis Central in Colorado and were scrapped there. Should
be tons of pictures circulating.

They may well have been used for potatoes as well. I recall seeing a string of them at Grand Forks, ND around 1980. Painted orange and carrying San Luis marks. About the only temperature sensitive crop up there would have been spuds.

John Gezelius
Tustin, CA

The REA Express refrigerator cars you're most likely referring to were their most recent cars, built in about 1957: REX 6900-7899.

In the late 1960s, additional reporting marks were added and given to some of these cars based on their assignments (OREX=C&O/B&O, PREX=PC, SREX=MILW).

Reporting marks REX (and the other three) disappeared in 1973 or 1974, with various companies purchasing over 800 of the original 1000 cars. San Luis Central got the most: 500 cars, numbered in SLC series 200-699 originally (some were modified and renumbered above 700).

Carl Shaver
Lombard, IL

When REA Express, successor to Railway Express Agency, Inc., was collapsing, their fleet of express refrigerator cars were sold off. San Luis Central bought about 300 I believe, and used them in transporting potatoes grown in the San Luis Valley of Colorado to market. Later, the railroads had a severe shortage of refrigerator cars in the summer of 1973, and the REA cars, now initialled SLC, were "free running" and were used in many places.

I was trainmaster at Fullerton in 1972 and 1973. In the summer of 73', Santa Fe ran out of their SFRD reefers and took any cars they could get. The Santa Fe ice plant at San Bernardino ran out of ice at that time too, so we were icing cars at Fullerton every day, then spotting the cars for loading each night. The ice plant at Fullerton, privately owned, was across the main line from the Fullerton depot (it is now a church, I believe) and they used a conveyor mounted on a 1929 Chevy truck to ice the cars, including many SLC (REA) 50 foot reefers.

That summer, we were loading between 10 and 25 cars of celery, oranges, frozen juice, broccoli and cauliflower every day. My how that area has grown up!!!

As a side note, the SLC was owned by a real entrepreneur and rail innovator who also held a position as Assistant Superintendent of a major Midwestern rail carrier. He later left that position to found one of the most successful regional railroads, which was later sold to a larger railroad. He then took over another regional carrier in a remote area of the US. Anybody able to guess who that was??

TIOGA PASS

No, the cold air in Maine has frozen my brain.

Sounds like you are talking about Mr. Ed Burkhardt.

SCL1517 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sounds like you are talking about Mr. Ed
> Burkhardt.


The SLC reefers was one of Ed Burkhardt's ventures. He knew many potato shippers would take the smaller-sized car.

Rather than an Asst Supt, he was CNW's Asst. Vice President - Transportation at the time he bought the fleet of SLC reefers.

Best regards,

Rob L.

And then, after the SLC was done with them, the trucks off of many of the refrigerators were recycled and ended up under the Amtrak 1400-series MHC cars that were built by Trall in the mid-1980's. I'm waiting for someone to repaint an MHC as an REA car.

I'm sure Mr. Burkhardt is still involved with SLC...ever notice how many SLC box cars these days carry MM&A heralds on their sides?

Carl Shaver
Lombard, IL

The Colorado Railroad Museum has car #247 which was acquired by SLC in 1972. In the next six months it will be moved to a new location on the property and is on the list of cars to be repainted.

Jim Barton