H&M Productions published some great books about 10 years ago. They are very hard to find now.
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
I think some (at least) of Rath's reefers were leased from the Mather Company. You might try looking up the Mather Refrigerator Express or Mather Stock Car Co.
Tom
Yes, of course I had used search engines, but turned up only models (which may or may not have any basis in fact), decal sets, and flamboyant antique (pre-war) wooden cars. This time I tried again and had better results, with a couple of steel 1940s & 1950s cars such as I saw when I was a kid in the region in the 1960s. Thanks for the impetus to try again.
If you're really, REALLY interested in refrigerator billboard boxcars let me recommend one super book in the subject.
It's called "Billboard Refrigerator Cars" and it's by Richard H. Hendrickson and Edward S. Kaminski, published in 2008 by Signature Press, 11508 Green Road, Wilton Ca. 95693
A great book on the classic billboard boxcars of the pre-war era. Check the railbook dealers, it may still be available. There are some post-war boxcars featured as well.
No, I don't remember what I paid for it, but I'm not sorry I bought it.
Have you tried using one of the popular Internet search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo?
By entering the search phrase Rath Packing Company Refrigerator Cars into Google, several show up with full color photos, and from the exact time frame you're interested in.
Zeeke Anybody have a good photo of a 1950s-60s reefer from the Rath Packing Company, Waterloo, Iowa?
Anybody have a good photo of a 1950s-60s reefer from the Rath Packing Company, Waterloo, Iowa?
Zeeke:
Suggest you search e-bay for color photos of various models of the Rath Packing Co. Billboard reefers.. and here is a pdf from the "Freight Car Journal" of April,1992 with lots of information, and some B&W photos as well. @ http://dgcasdor.ipower.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/fcj44.pdf
The really fancy decorated ones were mostly owned by Commercial Packing Houses and were rolling advertising for their Companies. Armour, Hormel,Cudahay, Swift,Budweiser, were some I remember, and then their were the railroad fleets of reefers SPFE, UPFE, etc.
In the Mid-South, growing up there were the Illinois Central's banana trains, went up to their big icing facility in South Fulton,Ky, and then on north. Fresh Strawberries were brough to our area (Memphis, and on North) in refrigerator cars that rode on the IC's many passenger trains out of Louisiana, in season.
At the McComb,(Ms.)City Depot Railroad Museum is ICRR #51000,the only all-aluminum reefer ever built.
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