Nostalgia & History > PFE 300944 Mech. Reefer at Hugo, Colorado-2019.

This older mechanical reefer sits at the restored Union Pacific Round House located at Hugo, Colorado. I added these images in case any one is modelling the original mechanical reefers. It is a clean car that you can read all the lettering on the car. This could be a guide where the lettering would go on a model.

I do not recall how long this car has been sitting out there. The car when it was repainted did not receive the proper PFE orange paint. It is turning pink. I can not recall any of the older mechanical reefers ever had the orange paint turn pink. Of course, most of the cars had so much grime that you could not tell if they were orange or brown.

PFE 300944. New 6 58 (1958) R-50-6.  Information on the repacking box. PFE ROS(Roseville, CA.) 1-77.

On the shaded side it has the following painted near the left end. Property of The Museum of Railway Workers. I have a feeling that they are the ones that repainted the car and they did not used the correct orange color.

There is an Union Pacific flat car at Limon, as well as a BN caboose.The flat car has a sticker on it saying Property of the Museum of Railway Workers.

It isn't every day in 2019 that you can go back to 1958 and find out how a railroad car was lettered.

I knew that this was Hugo, but my fingers thought, it was Limon, Colorado.

ACL3042
Gary Rich



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/19 14:34 by ACL3042.

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Thanks for posting the photos.

The roundhouse in the photos appears to be the former Union Pacific roundhouse in Hugo, CO.  There is a railroad museum in Limon, CO but it is at a former railroad station (Rock Island), the Limon roundhouse (Rock Island) was torn down and Google earth shows nothing remains except the turntable pit and roundhouse foundation. 

Limon railroad Museum:
http://www.limonmuseum.com/traincars.html

There is a restored Union Pacific roundhouse in Hugo, CO, a few miles from Limon on US 40.  Both museums are close together, so a mistake as to which is where would be understandable.

Hugo roundhouse;
http://www.hugoroundhouse.org/

Cheers!

Bob

 

Gary,

The Museum of Railway Workers did indeed paint the car, but it did use the right colors. What you are seeing is the effect of UV on the orange paint after 10+ years!

If you've seen the Great Western locomotives that were painted orange, they had the same end result. UV is very hard on paint at high altitude.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/19 02:50 by rrpreservation.

Here's a nicer picture of the car taken in 2010. For those curious, the car was placed into Ice Service as UP 910086.

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> On the shaded side it has the following painted near the left end. Property of The Museum of
> Railway Workers. I have a feeling that they are the ones that repainted the car and they did not
> used the correct orange color.

It's very likely that the correct color WAS used when the car was freshly painted. You have to remember that paint chemistry all changed forever in the late '60s and '70s, when heavy metal pigments were banned and the paint body changed from drying linseed oil to the modern paint formulations we have today. In the past, orange was created from Chromate yellow and either red lead or one of the red oxides. Those oxides didn't change with exposure to sunlight other than the paint weathering away. Today's paints have a hard time with red and yellow pigments that will stand up to the UV light that breaks them down, and it was even worse when the first replacements appeared.

So give the restorers credit for doing the best they could with what was available. Those who try to restore Milwaukee orange locomotives have to deal with the same problem.

steeplecab