Question on prototype PFE R-70-10..R-70-12 Refrigerator Car exhaust pipe.

[doctorwayne]

morey2001

you are close, Dr. Wayne....the kit you are thinking of was originally Pacific HO, later offered by Silver Streak and then Walthers for a time....I just finished building one and your description of the exhaust is accurate...

Chris M.

 

Thanks for the correction on the name, Chris.  I do recall some connection to Silver Streak, too.  It's been many years since I've had that car, but it seems to me that it came in a black box with gold lettering.
Mine was a yellow car with, I think, silver ends and roof, lettered for CN in the noodle scheme.

 

Wayne

[chutton01]

doctorwayne

This may not be much help, as it's in reference to a model rather than a prototype car, but I recall a plastic 50' mechanical reefer kit from Pacific Pike.  It was similar to Athearn's early car with rivetted sides rather than an outside post-type, and a fair bit better detailed than Athearn's, too, with metal grabirons and metal, sprung roller bearing trucks.  This was the first model of a mechanical reefer that I recall seeing with a modelled exhaust, a very short (6"-9" HO) in a "T" shape, with the vertical and horizontal portions having a round cross-section.

Well, the images in the book show for the t-shape that the tubes where of square cross-sections.  Of course, that's a million caveats such that:
1) PFE did experiment with various configurations (different engine/compressor/refrigerator suppliers) from the start in the early 1950s.
2) The images only show a sample of the various early classes of Mech Reefers, even though all exhausts that are visable are the square-tube t-shape.  This includes 40ft (!) and 50ft cars (for the record, the 30, 40, 50, 70 in the PFE car class denotes the nominal load weight)
3) While PFE was huge with a large percentage of the total US reefer fleet, there were other fleets such as FGE and SFRD etc. - maybe these fleets had the round-cross section tee-shape.
Any, I found my answer.  And the PFE book, as stated is really interesting (at least to detail nuts like me).

[morey2001]

you are close, Dr. Wayne....the kit you are thinking of was originally Pacific HO, later offered by Silver Streak and then Walthers for a time....I just finished building one and your description of the exhaust is accurate...

 

Chris M.

[doctorwayne]

chutton01

....R-70-10 to R-70-12 Refrigerator cars, build in the very early 1960s, very similar to the Athearn 50ft (NOT the "57ft" R-70-20s that are still fairly ubiquitous on layouts). OK, I know the model car is a little short and the ends are not right (old-school Athearn after all) - what I am interested in is the refrigerator generator exhaust - was it a simple straight pipe up thru the roof?....

This may not be much help, as it's in reference to a model rather than a prototype car, but I recall a plastic 50' mechanical reefer kit from Pacific Pike.  It was similar to Athearn's early car with rivetted sides rather than an outside post-type, and a fair bit better detailed than Athearn's, too, with metal grabirons and metal, sprung roller bearing trucks.  This was the first model of a mechanical reefer that I recall seeing with a modelled exhaust, a very short (6"-9" HO) in a "T" shape, with the vertical and horizontal portions having a round cross-section.
It was a very nicely-detailed car for the time.
I could find nothing on-line about this manufacturer or the brand.

Wayne

[chutton01]

Graham Line

If you can get your hands on the Thompson/Church/Jones "Pacific Fruit Express" book, pages 204, 205 & 206 have photos of R-40-30, R-50-6, and R-70-11 that show a rain cap on the diesel exhaust that looks like a section of square tube with the ends beveled at 45 degrees.

A mere 4 years later...

I eventually did get a copy of the aforementioned PFE book (2nd Edition), and have been reading it as time permits. From this edition, Chapter 9 "Mechanical Refrigeration), page 215 (Classes R-70-14 and R-70-15) "...R-70-15 [PFE Mechanical Refrigerator car design] was very similar to the R-70-14. One external difference was a change in the exhaust stack for the diesel engine. PFE had long used a T-shaped stack with a square top tube aligned with the long direction of the car. But the R-70-15's had a new kind of stack: a straight stack with spring loaded top, like those used on construction equipment and other small diesel engines. The new style stack was used for all subsequent cars."
So, that answers a question for me - PFE used the T-shaped stack for Mech Refrig types R-70-14 and earlier, include R-40s and R-50s (not counting experimental versions it seems). The R-70-15 was introduced in 1965.  The book itself, while quite interesting, does not cover much past the split up of PFE in 1978 and a little subsequent history till the UP acquired the SP, so the ARMN rebuilds with the open-roof power compartments is not covered.

Sadly, the book so far does not seem to answer my other long-ago question as to why mechanical reefers/ice reefers) had/have that stirrup step under their side doors (although PFE seems to have had them by the 1920s)

[chutton01]

Thanks Graham, that sounds like the "T" cap in the images I posted (horizontal square tube, beveled ends, oriented along the long axis of the reefer).

Good to have independant confirmation.

[Graham Line]

If you can get your hands on the Thompson/Church/Jones "Pacific Fruit Express" book, pages 204, 205 & 206 have photos of R-40-30, R-50-6, and R-70-11 that show a rain cap on the diesel exhaust that looks like a section of square tube with the ends beveled at 45 degrees.  The channel openings point toward the ends of the car, probably for better draft.

[mlehman]

OK, now I'm getting two different pics. Am I correct in seeing what looks like a channel forming the crossbar of the T? If so, then that's a very distinctive feature that will really be good to get right on top of the car where it's often easy to see on the layout.

If that's what PFE was using, then it may in fact be the same basic exhaust arrangement. I'll admit that #2 looked like the end of a raincap when I first saw it, but getting a clearer pic in #1, I'm thinking it's the same thing we're seeing in both pics -- a T-type exhaust cap.

[chutton01]

Sorry zstripe, but for whatever reason my 2 examples linked to the same image of PFE301329, instead of example 1 linking to PFE301309 (which is a R70-9), and example 2 linking to PFE301329 (and when I tried to edit them, they would switch back and forth till I put a newline between the two - annoying).

In the updated Example 1, the T (cap? OK) is very clear (the round pipe a little right of it is part of the background building's gutter system). OK, now look at this iimage of PFE300116 - it has the straight pipe and flapper valve (I know, hard to make out, looks like something in the background, but there's similar images out there of different classes, and that's clearly a pipe and flapper).
So, whoever agreed that the T-cap was removed, I too agree, and I think I am going to wimp out and go with that (bit of styrene and wire atop a thin brass tube), but as suggested keep it removable if need be (also remember, the Athearn ends are incorrect anyway).

50ft Mech Reefers (according to what I have read) didn't last that long as mechanical reefers anyway (and there weren't all that many built, considering - For PFE, maybe 1550 total, till the R70-13s ushered in the era of the 57ft Mech Reef), and even worse, many of the earlier classes had their refrigeration equipment removed by the early 1970s after less that 15 years of service, there after being used in essentially RBL service.

[mlehman]

Ed,

Makes me wonder if a T-type cap is a PFE-only thing?

[7j43k]

There's a very good view of the "t-shaped" stack cap on page 206 of "Pacific Fruit Express".  Other photos in the book of the car series under discussion show this kind of stack, though all the photos are pretty early.  I s'pose the caps could have been changed.  For a model, I think I'd make the stack a drop in piece.  then I could change it later.

The cap in the photo is different than anything else I've seen, so scratching will be involved.

Ed

[sh00fly]

What I like using for the flapper exhaust stack is an Atlas track nail with the rounded head. Looks great!

Some of the early exhaust stacks are a stubby round pipe with a long flat top deflector. Doesn't look like a caboose "T" style stove pipe, more like a switch point indicator or one or the "frog eyes" on the Athearn Genesis caboose.

Chris Palomarez

[zstripe]

Maybe it's me but I don't see a exhaust,on either of the two photos,,,,and I believe the exhaust,came out the

bottom..

Cheers,

Frank

[chutton01]

mlehman

As for the exhaust, definitely not the caboose-style T. All I've seen were maybe 2", usually with one of those flapper-type exhaust "valves" "raincaps." Since reefers sit without running for long periods of time, you don't want water pooling down the exhaust.

Thank you for your answer, but is it possible (well, most anything is possible, is it probable) that the R-70-12's started with a horizontal "T" exhaust (similar to a smoke-jack) which were eventually replaced by a straight vertical exhaust (w/ flapper) - I scanned any archive I could find last night, and while a lot of the images you can't see any exhaust, and in a few it looks a verticle pipe, these 2 images stand out clearly, and it looks like a "T"):

Example 1

Example 2 (this image, which looks like a showcase day for the new R-70-12, can be found in a number of places, but this seems the clearest one I found- looks like a horizontal "T" exhaust to me)

[mlehman]

It's been awhile since I've seen a pic, but will try to turn up one.

As for the exhaust, definitely not the caboose-style T. All I've seen were maybe 2", usually with one of those flapper-type exhaust "valves" "raincaps." Since reefers sit without running for long periods of time, you don't want water pooling down the exhaust.

They usually poke vertically through the roof over the engine bay.

EDIT: Found one photo reference in Gene Green, Refrigerator Car Color Guide (Morning Sun, 2005) on page 8. There are a couple of pics of icing operations from above. There is a PGE mechanical refer #300344 (I think) that has the arrangement I described above. That exhaust might be 2.5" or 3" but the ones I remember are probably closer to 2"

In this case, the roof is tight around the exhaust pipe as it penetrates the roof with no visible gasket. I've seen others where there's clearance around a pipe where it goes through the roof.

[chutton01]

Hi All

Very specific question, google turns up lots of things except what I want to find (as usual). Hopefully this will be a one and done thread.

R-70-10 to R-70-12 Refrigerator cars, build in the very early 1960s, very similar to the Athearn 50ft (NOT the "57ft" R-70-20s that are still fairly ubiquitous on layouts). OK, I know the model car is a little short and the ends are not right (old-school Athearn after all) - what I am interested in is the refrigerator generator exhaust - was it a simple straight pipe up thru the roof? One guy modeled it like an old fashion Caboose smoke jack, which doesn't seem right, another image showed what seems like the exhaust coming thru the end wall.  If it did come thru the roof panel, whereabouts on the roof did it emerge from?

Couldn't find clear prototype images of the generator roof end to form a definite answer - so help is appreciated. Thanks.