Nostalgia & History > "Reefer Madness" - Two questions for "Senior" C&NW and

......Would it be safe to assume that the UP handed off solid trains of PFE Reefers to the C&NW, Eastbound, at (was it Fremont, NE.)? If yes, within the early 50's timeframe, is it safe to presume that the North Western would have assigned sets of A-B-A F-7's for power to said trains?

Thanks for sharing your expertise.

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out

ATSF100WEST Wrote:
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> ......Would it be safe to assume that the UP
> handed off solid trains of PFE Reefers to the
> C&NW, Eastbound, at (was it Fremont, NE.)? If
> yes, within the early 50's timeframe, is it safe
> to presume that the North Western would have
> assigned sets of A-B-A F-7's for power to said
> trains?
>
> Thanks for sharing your expertise.
>
> Bob

Bob,

The 50s was before my time in that territory, but I can shed some light on these queries for you.

The key point is that before the end of icing service in 1973, all icers had to be routed via Council Bluffs (for re-icing there before interchange to the Iowa Lines). So only mechanicals (and venters) could be interchanged at Fremont. I suspect that during the 1950s and early 1960s all the EB perishables routed CNW were interchanged at Council Bluffs. I am not sure, but perhaps one might have seen ABA CNW F7s coupling on (or maybe lash-ups of CNW GP9s) while the train of reefers was at the Council Bluffs ice dock (after the UP turbine or steam engines cut off, of course).

By the 1970s interchange with CNW had grown to the point that UP built 5-6 different trains for CNW at North Platte that carried loaded reefers as well as other traffic. We made a CNW - GTW block, this block carried reefers to Toronto and Montreal, a big volume in the fall when the juice grapes were moving (for home-brew wine making). But that same train also carried Chicago TOFC, it was only half reefers. We made a CNW - Blue Island PC block, this was the biggest single block of reefers leaving North Platte, but it also included any non-perishable traffic routed that way. Perishable for CNW proper went in a Proviso block that included a lot of non-perishable traffic. There was even a train of CNW Iowa shorts ("Madame X") that typically had a few reefers in its consist.

The really great CNW perishable show started in Oct. 73, when we (at UP) started the "PC P&M" (UP symbol) #246 "PC Perishables" (CNW symbol) on the North Platte - Blue Island run via CNW. This train carried Selkirk, Enola and Blue Island blocks. The Selkirk and Enola blocks were all perishables on most days, the smaller Blue Island block was mostly perishable, so the whole train looked like a giant reefer block. It was a close connection to the N. California and PNW fruit blocks coming in from the West Coast, so it really was the first true transcon perishable train -- the reefers were humped exactly once between the West Coast origins and the humps at Selkirk or Enola. We achieved 6th morning delivery in East Coast markets (compared to 9th morning now). The Overland Route transcon perishable traffic almost completely deserted Milw, RI, BN and IC once this train started. It often left North Platte with over 100 perishable loads. This was really the last of the Mohicans, the last high-speed transcon reefer block. SP's highly over-hyped "Salad Bowl Express" (started up a year later) was one of the connections for this train; it actually represented nothing new at all, just a reversion to the fast 1967-68-69 RV schedule SP used to run. The UP-CNW-PC train was the real innovation.

I doubt there were any carload trains quite so spectacular-looking on the North Platte - Chicago run in the 60s or 50s (although the power was perhaps more attractive back then).

Best regards,

Rob L.

Fremont did not get going as an acitve interchange point until the mid 1970's. In the 1950s PFE fruit blocks would have gone to Council Bluffsf and interchanged as blocks, not trains, to the IA lines. The IA lines were CBQ, MILW, CRIP, IC, CGW and CNW. The UP was very careful not to favor any particular railroad. In addition the WAB had a branch line into Council Bluffs but they did not have the service to move Eastbound PFEs to Eastern markets.

bobwilcox Wrote:
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> Fremont did not get going as an active interchange
> point until the mid 1970's.

This is by and large true, but during the latter half of the 1960s CNW was running a hot WB boxcar merchandise train (#247) to Fremont interchange with UP. I suppose most everything else went via the Bluffs. From this humble beginning, the Fremont interchange grew to eclipse the Council Bluffs interchange by the mid-70s.

Best regards,

Rob L.