Box of the Month March 2023 - Pacific Fruit Express & More!

Box of the Month March 2023 - Pacific Fruit Express & More!
This month Dan & Nichole go through another box of HO scale model trains.
This time the box is all refrigerator cars from Athearn, InterMountain, and Red Caboose!
Dan has fond memories of seeing Pacific Fruit Express trains rolling over Donner Pass during his childhood. Since Dan is basing his future HO layout on Donner Pass, having a PFE train is a must.
Over the years Dan has acquired a number of refrigerator car models. These are prototype accurate cars that are decorated for both Southern Pacific Fruit Express (SPFE) and Union Pacific Fruit Express (UPFE). There are also some cars in the blue Golden West Service scheme.
Besides PFE cars, Dan also has a Burlington Northern car decorated for Western Fruit Express (BNFE), and a pair of ex-Fruit Growers Express cars, one decorated for Santa Fe and one for Union Pacific. The ex-FGE cars even have sound!
If you like model trains, be sure to check out this edition of Box of the Month!
#modeltrains #scalemodels #hoscale #train #refrigerator

[@jhoodfysh]

thanks for the fun time.

[@DanielCortopassi]

You're welcome. We're glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching!

[@gacj2010]

Another fantastic show

[@DanielCortopassi]

Thanks so much!

[@pacset2]

Very cool

[@DanielCortopassi]

We're glad you liked the show. Thanks for watching!

[@paulkirkmanMYTRAINS]

"There was organizing there at some point" !!! By the way, everyone breaks things now and then. Part of the SCALE hobby. Great review !!

[@DanielCortopassi]

Yes, I really did try to have a system at one point. Years of carting things between my house and my former partner's place, and the moving to a new house with Nichole kind of messed that up a little. Hopefully it will soon be moot. Work on the train room is progressing, and the plan is to move everything in there once the room is ready. And yes, we all break things, no matter how careful we try to be. Thanks for watching!

[@dominichetherington2287]

Hi you 2 great to see you again regards from England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@DanielCortopassi]

We're glad you were able to join us. Thanks for watching!

[@floydbeard5073]

I have some of these very nice units thanks for sharing with us.

[@DanielCortopassi]

You're welcome. We're glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching!

[@randallellison6421]

Very cool refers Dan! Intermountain hasn't been my 1st choice for rolling stock (mainly because of the way the trucks are assembled), but they're still good looking cars, love seeing the BN logo on some of them, reminds me of when I was a kid!

[@riogrande5761]

Not all Intermountain models have the mulit-piece trucks. They seem to have switched to one piece trucks. I replaced a bunch with the one piece.

[@DanielCortopassi]

The worst ones I can remember were on the Intermountain Canadian hoppers. I ran some of those at a club a few years ago and at least one of them had the trucks fall apart. It's become a back burner project for now, but I was in the process of replacing all the trucks with Accurail trucks and better quality wheels. I don't think these refrigerator cars had the same problem. Thanks for watching!

[@donaldkormos5529]

Glad to see some reefers!! I've been adding Arduino-based MP3 compressor sounds players to my reefer rolling stock. Arduino lets me turn the sound on randomly and for random time lengths.

[@DanielCortopassi]

That sounds interesting. I've been curious about the Arduino for a while. It sounds like it can be used in a lot of different ways. Thanks for sharing and for watching!

[@dancundiff2058]

in the 80's those PFE trains were 100 cars oor more....the last 'fruit block' I took over Donner Pass (I retired in 2006) was 8 cars long!!!

[@DanielCortopassi]

I remember seeing long trains of PFE cars on Donner when I was a lot younger. It's sad that the business dwindled, though I plan to run at least one PFE train on the layout. I'm not sure how long the trains would have been circa 1990-1995, but that would be my target. I'm willing to use modelers license if I need to. Thanks for watching!

[@stephendollahan425]

The PFE trains you saw on Doner,were what was called the salad bowl express, run jointly by SP, UP, and CSX, starting in Bakersfield, going up the central valley, an Salinas valley to the bay area. From there the Express was built up, and ran from there, to New York City, in under 60 hours.

[@DanielCortopassi]

Now that you mention it, I remember seeing a TV program or maybe a news segment about the salad bowl express many years ago. I'm looking forward to re-creating that on the layout. Thanks for the info and for watching!

[@stephendollahan425]

Yeah, it was a History Channel program called Trains Unlimited. I watched it first time in the early 2000's.

[@riogrande5761]

At one time I had some Golden West rolling stock, but having grown up in the 70's as a teen, I didn't want to run trains without cabooses - so I back dated essentially 1977 - 1983 although I can run trains into the mid-late 80's I sold off all of my early 90's rolling stock including the Golden West, even though it's a nice scheme. I believe PFE orange came first. Having grown up in northern California I also had to have a bunch of PFE orange reefers, although I don't remember seeing them in person. Judging by dandy Dan's rolling stock, he averages about 10 years later than my modeling period.

[@DanielCortopassi]

My era is basically 1990-1996, though I'm not planning to be super strict about it. If something from the 70's or 80's doesn't look out of place, then I don't mind it. I have a bunch of cabooses too so I'll probably find excuses to use them. Thanks for watching!

[@iannarita9816]

Pacific Fruit Express was divided between UP and SP in 1978. Nicole these things can be repaired!

[@DanielCortopassi]

Thanks for the info. I knew PFE had been split but I wasn't sure exactly when. And, yes, they are fixable. I do sometimes wish that more models came with metal stirrups though. Thanks for watching!

[@RonMontagueSWRR]

I think have about 30 SPFE, UPFE, and PFE's 57' mechanical reefer cars, and want more.

[@DanielCortopassi]

You can never have too many, right? I would assume that at some point the cars will be re-run. Thanks for watching!

[@devernepersonal3636]

pause at 3:40 and see how shocked and traumatized Nicole is that Dan actually broke a part of a model.

[@DanielCortopassi]

I don't think she's seen me do that very often. I try to be super careful but this just reminded me how fragile some of the little details are on these models. Thanks for watching!

[@YardGoat2022]

I’m waiting on the Intermountain 57’ PFE to release these to the stores; the one with the etch grill you can see through. Says on their website “contact your dealer,” but I don’t see any shops having them. Dan, what era is that “Solid Cold” refer?

[@DanielCortopassi]

I did a review of the Athearn FGE cars a while back. Specifics were a little hard to come by but from what I was able to find out, they were built in the early 1980s. Some, like mine, went to other railroads in the 1990s. Some were rebuilt with more modern refrigeration units and were still in service in 2015. There may still be some around, but I didn't find photos of them. Thanks for watching!

[@taylorbaggarleyunionpacifi3409]

Hey Dan and Nicole it's been forever well working drivers license then hired out at the railroad I had train sell one club members pass away were been busy working new location for are club I want say hello u both love u guys

[@DanielCortopassi]

It sounds like you've got a lot going on. Thanks for taking the time to watch! We appreciate it!

[@taylorbaggarleyunionpacifi3409]

@@DanielCortopassi your welcome Dan and Nicole

[@154Colin]

The first mechanical refrigerator car was a Golden West Service, but the reporting marks were "VCY." Why?

[@randallellison6421]

My guess is that it's a second hand car. It's not uncommon to see rolling stock still bearing their as delivered scheme, but with the reporting marks patched for the cars current owners, same with locomotives too. GECX has several BNSF Dash 9s still in full Heritage 2 paint, but with the current owner's reporting marks stenciled somewhere on the side.

[@DanielCortopassi]

VCY is Ventura County Railway. Most of the Golden West cars carried reporting marks for shortlines, even though they were used by SP. From what I've been able to gather, SP was in poor financial shape after the ill-fated SPSF merger. A lot of rolling stock was in need of repairs that SP couldn't afford. The cars were sold to Greenbrier and leased back to SP after being repaired. For legal reasons they had to carry railroad reporting marks, which is why they were lettered for various shortlines. Galveston Railroad (GVSR) and Cole Rail (CRLE) were two others that were used. There were even a few cars lettered for KCS for a short time. Thanks for watching!

[@TheLocutus70]

Nicole...😳 Daniel...🤷‍♂️

[@DanielCortopassi]

I think she might have been more upset about the broken stirrup than I was. It reminds me that I need to handle these things carefully, and that I wish they had metal stirrups. Thanks for watching!

[@iannarita9816]

PS Wikipedia entry: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Fruit_Express

[@DanielCortopassi]

Thanks for the info!