Wooden Express Refrigerator Cars on UP Passenger Trains

[dazzar]

Did Union Pacific have only their own road name on wooden express refrigerator cars on their passenger trains or did they have also carry other road name cars and if so what were they? I am looking at putting a couple on the front of my UP pullman heavyweight cars.

[Anonymous]

Union Pacific's express refrigerator cars were supplied by Pacific Fruit Express, a company jointly owned by Southern Pacific. PFE also furnished express reefers to SP.

The cars were painted Pullman green and lettered "Pacific Fruit Express" in gold or dark yellow.

Express refrigerators and boxcars were used in interchange service, so it was very common for foreign-road cars of those types to appear in UP passenger trains, particularly those devoted primarily to mail and express traffic.

The Railway Express Agency, a company jointly-owned by many railroads, provided a substantial number of express refrigerators, so they were among the most frequently seen head-end cars.

An article in "Union Pacific Modeler", published in 1994, depicted the entire consist of a Union Pacific mail-express-passenger train which operated in 1957. The train had 14 cars, 7 of which were express refrigerators. The reefers were painted for PFE, Santa Fe, Pennsylvania, Atlantic Coast Line, Northern Refrigerator Co., and Railway Express Agency (2 cars).