One of the sites I use is Rail Photos.. If you research the railroad car in question the information includes the built date.
One surprising photo was of a 40' PFE reefer still in use as of 9/29/76.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
BRAKIE One of the sites I use is Rail Photos.. If you research the railroad car in question the information includes the built date. One surprising photo was of a 40' PFE reefer still in use as of 9/29/76.
Random_Idea_Poster_6263 BRAKIE One of the sites I use is Rail Photos.. If you research the railroad car in question the information includes the built date. One surprising photo was of a 40' PFE reefer still in use as of 9/29/76. That must have been quite something and a suprise to see that. I will take a look and use it as a reference guide. Thanks!
That must have been quite something and a suprise to see that. I will take a look and use it as a reference guide. Thanks!
I did a little reading up on the old 40' ice PFE reefers, and after ice operations was discontinued in most locations by the early 1970's, some of the ice reefers continued to be used in ventilator service, at least for a few years.
Probably some of the old ice reefers were in relatively good condition when ice service ended, so they were repurposed for a few years and by the late 1970's, retired and scrapped, perhaps some lasted a bit longer.
Here are some comments on ice reefer service:
PFE ended icing service in Sept. 1973. Ice refers were still used as ventilators for crops like onions, grapefruit, oranges and dates Cars in this service would move with hatches open for ventilation rather than refrigeration.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
The underlying assumption is that the data is readily available; and therefore the manufacturer should provide that data.
That may be true for most modern era models, but it certainly isn't true for 19th Century and TOC (not 2000!) models and prototypes. In researching the 1800s and TOC, it quickly becomes apparent that much of the information that is available does not fully correlate at best, and is contradictory at worst. Major rebuilding programs further clouded the issues.
Given the poor state of database maintenance in the US (and in most places), I suspect there will be plenty of modern era data that doesn't matchup as time marches on. The computer databases will be just as suspect as paper records of the past are now.