Model Railroading > InterMountain Railway HO scale PFE Wood Refrigerator Cars

We at InterMountain Railway Company are pleased to announce that the following products are now IN TRANSIT, and should be expected to arrive here in Colorado in the next couple of weeks.  Be sure to contact  your favorite InterMountain Dealer or give us a call to order or for more information.  Visit us at www.intermountain-railway.com

HO scale PFE Wood Refrigerator Cars in the following roads/paint schemes:
47401 PFE Single Herald R-30-18
47402 PFE Stripe R-30-12-18
47403 PFE Double Herald R-30-18
47404 PFE Double Herald - Black and White R-30-18
47410 PFE Single Herald R-40-19
47415 PFE Single Herald R-30-21
47416 PFE Double Herald R-30-21

Thank You for your support,
InterMountain Staff

---

---

---

Purdy Company had a facility south of Mojave in the '50s where these and other cars were demolished. The plywood in the interiors
can be found all over this town from folks buying it for various projects. They tried burning them in the middle of the
night for awhile. I was a dispatcher at the county comm center in those days and would get the wildest phone calls from
drivers passing by. The county stopped that and Purdy built a sort of bunker in which they burned two cars at a time.
Even that would not pass muster these days, for very good reasons.

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

I've been anticipating these since October, when I first heard about them and FINALLY found a dealer who'd take an advance reservation. I didn't want to be left out!

Thank you very much!

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

Beautiful models.  I love wood reefers.

I welcome these! Long live the transition era! 

Javier Cervantes
Castle Rock , CO

Been waiting on these for a couple years now. Finally!

Cheers, Jim

Posted from Android

Intermountain wood PFE reefers are available now.

MB Klein/modeltrainstuff got their shipment and posted them up on the website last Thursday, May 14 around 3pm in the afternoon.  I was watching for them because I knew they wouldn't last long so I bought what I needed shortly after they were listed.  I checked last night and ALL were sold out.  Other vendors may still have some in stock.

My interested in the ice reefers are for a one-off 1953-ish reefer train pulled by an Intermountain cab forward I bought a few years ago.  Tony Thompsons blog discusses a typical mix of PFE reefers for 1953.  The vast majority of PFE ice reefers were sporting double herald by then with only a few odd ones still in single herald.  Tony's lists his 1953 ideal mix as 1/2 to 2/3rds of the fleet painted in the black & white double herald and most of the ermainder in color double herald.

So what about wood reefers such as offered by Intermountain at present?  Tony kindly answered that question as follows:

"If you own, or have access to, the PFE book, there is a table on page 158, showing percentage of PFE cars that were wood-sheathed in various years. In 1950, it was 62 percent; as late as 1958, it was 42 percent.

The book includes many further data about the car fleet by car class over the years. For example, in 1950 the three rebuilt classes you mention, R-30-18, -19 and -21, were about 30 percent of the wood-sheathed cars in service. (Many of the rest were Class R-30-9, modeled by Red Caboose.) Repainting of all cars into the BW scheme was rapid in the early 1950s."

For my purposes, I bought all 6 numbers of the black and white double herald R-30-18 (the only wood reefers offered in B&W double herald), and a couple of the color double herald and a couple single heralds mix-in.   

From this run, 1953 folks, may really only need (based on Tony's data) around 12 of the individual numbered cars assuming equal numbers of color and B&W double herald cars.  The majority of the reefers offered are really mostly pre-1953. 

Below are what was offered in this run.

- 6 numbers of single herald R-30-18
- 6 numbers of color double herald R-30-18
- 6 numbers of B&W double herald R-30-18
- 6 each of single herald R-30-18, R-40-19
- 6 each of single herald R-30-18 R-30-21
- 6 numbers of color double herald R-30-21
- 5 each of R-30-12-18 single herald with horizontal red stripes (a rare paint scheme). 

If I counted right, there were a total of 41 road numbers of various types of wood ice PFE reefers this run from Intermountain.

Per Tony's data on reefers in 1953, it appears wood ice reefers comprised roughly about half of the PFE fleet.  Of the wood reefers, about 30% of them were of the R-30-18,19,21 class, and many of the rest were R-30-9. 

This particular run was announced around 3 or 4 years ago, maybe more, and the delivery date pushed back many times but they have f-i-n-a-l-l-y arrived.  modeltrainstuff sold out of their batch in about 30 hours but other vendors probably still have them - they probably won't be run for another 4 or 5 years so plan accordingly!

It's been an interesting study to see what a typical ice reefer train would be made up of.

Cheers, Jim



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/20 11:09 by SPDRGWfan.

Arved Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've been anticipating these since October, when I
> first heard about them and FINALLY found a dealer
> who'd take an advance reservation. I didn't want
> to be left out!
>
> Thank you very much!

My dealer dropped te ball. eBay to the rescue except I can't find the R-30-19. Wish it'd come in double herald, but...  I need to get the PFE book out and find out what the difference is between the R-30-19 and the '-18 and '-21 (or the R-30-9 for that matter - those photos look awfully close to what I remember an R-30-9 looks like).

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

Arved Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My dealer dropped te ball. eBay to the rescue
> except I can't find the R-30-19. Wish it'd come in
> double herald, but...  I need to get the PFE book
> out and find out what the difference is between
> the R-30-19 and the '-18 and '-21 (or the R-30-9
> for that matter - those photos look awfully close
> to what I remember an R-30-9 looks like).

I read about dealers dropping the ball all too often.  modeltrainstuff got in the full compliment, but you had to be watching for them and order during the the first 12 hours to get your desired selection.  Hogtrainz may have some - they had them for pre-order and don't show them out-of-stock.  Their prices were actually cheaper than modeltrainstuff by nearly 2 dollars a car as well.

I wish the R-30-19 came in double herald as well.  For 1953 models, the versions appropriate were pretty limited really.  The R-30-9's have been offered in the past and will hopefully be re-run in the next year or two.

Cheers, Jim