REA express cars and reefers often ran at the head end of passenger trains and sometimes as complete trains themselves. The ICRR used to carry strawberries each spring from Louisiana to Chicago in REA wood sided reefers. Early and late in the season these would run in the consists of the Creole and Louisiane. At the peak of the harvest the IC would dispatch full trainloads of as many as 10 of these cars as passenger extras running out of Hammond, LA behind their 1100 series high drivered 4-6-2's. The trains stopped only for engine and crew changes and bettered the schedule of all other trains except the Panama Limited and later the City of New Orleans.
Mark
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Well generally they would be used on passenger trains. It's possible an REA express boxcar could be run in a freight train certainly (less likely for a baggage/express car) but the express boxes did have special trucks and steamline connections to allow them to be used as head-end cars on passenger trains.
Railroads often ran express/mail trains that were all baggage/express, RPO and mail storage cars, with one rider coach or combine tacked on the back. They often ran at night, stopping at most every station picking up and delivering mail and express.
wjstix wrote:It was quite common for baggage/express passenger cars to have the railroad name on the letterboard and REA sublettering - using near the sidedoor entry to the express section.
I have seen similar pictures of SP baggage cars, too - but now I am interested to know just how these were put into consists, especially after WWII.
When were these REA cars used as head-end cars, or were they always put into trains on their own? I see from Thompson's "Southern Pacific's freight Cars Vol 4 Box Cars" on p 236-237 a picture of Train #375, and on p235 Train #374, both with baggage cars labelled REA, plus some 'Overnight' express cars too. There is a diagram of the SP-REA painting scheme on p 238.
It does not look as if these ran on passenger trains such as the Daylights as these had their own 70' Baggage cars running in matched consists. However, what about other trains such as the Coaster, or the Los Angeles Passenger #71/2?
The 'Lark' appeared not to have baggage cars, so did these bags preceed the Lark in express consists?
Peter Harris
REA did own a sizable fleet of express boxes and express refrigerator cars that were painted in their own shade of green. Older copies of the Passenger Equipment Register show some REA cars in the REA listing with other owners.
Most railroad-owned and lettered cars in express service had "RAILWAY EXPRESS AGENCY" lettering on their sides in the same fashion that railroad-owned and lettered RPO's had 'UNITED STATES MAIL" lettering on their sides.
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