Any info on a 50 foot, 50 ton Brex Steel Reefer?

[Anonymous]

Hi everybody...

Does anyone have any prototype information on a 50 foot, 50 ton Brex Steel Reefer? It's unusual in the fact that it has two doors on each side of the car...one in the middle and the other on the far left. It also has 8 ice hatches on the roof instead of the 4 I've seen normally. I know it's from at least the 1940's if not earlier. "Brex" might be a shipping company similiar to FGE or PFE but the internet has not yielded much on this...it's only a hunch on my part.

I'd love to know a little background of the car and which lines used it. Thanks...

Bill

[doctorwayne]

I'm not familiar with this particular car, but CNR, CPR, and PGE all had 8 hatch reefers and I think PFE also had a few. The cars were developed in the late '30's by CNR and CPR. Most , if not all, were equipped with underfloor charcoal heaters for use in the winter when carrying cargo that was susceptible to freezing. Some older wooden reefers (not 8 hatch cars) had a small door in the sides near the ends (in the area of the ice bunker) for placement of a charcoal heater for the same purpose. BREX was the reporting marks for Burlington Refrigerated Express, I think.
Wayne

[orsonroy]

Wayne's got it right: BREX was the CB&Q's reefer leasing company. They were (I think) the fifth largest fleet of reefers in the country. I've got a few photos of BREX reefers, but nothing over 40 feet long. These multihatch 50-footers must be oddball express reefers.

(as a modeling note, the Accurail 40-foot reefer is a BREX protptype)

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys...at least this narrows it down a bit. I thought the fact it was a 50 foot reefer was strange to. Never thought to think of it as an express reefer...

FRB