My friend Bob Chapparo has two groups that might interest you.

Both are on Groups IO.  One is called the Bull Shippers.  I don't know if they cover meat reefers or livestock operations on the railroad or both.  the other group is the citrus modelers group.  They focus on the citrus industry in So. Cal. but cover refrigerated transport from so Cal to the rest of the country.  I think you would find interesting information on both groups.

The produce was mostly shipped in 40 foot ice bunker cars.  I think the 50 foot ice bunker car that Athearn made was used mainly for fish, but I may be wrong. 

Meat used 36 foot cars until the end of the ice bunker era.  The reason was that it was mostly the big national meat packer headquartered in Chicago like Rath, Swift, and a couple of others whose names escape me right now.  The reason for the 36 foot car standard for meat is that the packing houses were set up to receive 36 foot cars before 40 foot cars became available, and the meat packers did not want to rebuild the packing houses to have doors to fit 40 foot cars, so they ran 36 foot cars up into the late 1950's and even into the 60's.

Produce was different.  Produce was and is a much more critical commodity.  For instance raspberries go from harvest to food market in 3 days or less.  If raspberries are shipped across country from coast to coast, it is by airfreight.  Trucks can't get from the West Coast to the East Coast fast enough to keep the berries fresh.  strawberries are shipped by truck, and get to the east coast in 5 days.  I don't know if anyone ships strawberries by train at all.  They probably shipped them from either coast to Chicago before the interstate highway system was built, but I doubt if they sent them coast to coast.

Citrus, Potatoes, and apples can be kept in cold storage for longer time periods, so they can be and are shipped by rail, but the citrus at least was considered a priority shipment to be handled with all speed on the railroad.  Fruit was expected to be unloaded immediately as soon as the railcars got to their destination.  Also the Santa Fe & PFE (S.P. & U.P.) expected the have the cars returned to the west coast in expedited fashion.  They also were careful about what sort of products were shipped west on the return trip on the reefers.  Anything coming west on a reefer had to be a "clean" load.  Often if enough clean freight was not found, the cars were sent back west empty to be reloaded ASAP.

Picture

FYI, there is clearly a track of meat reefers in the "produce" yard.  The track under the left end of the overhead crane are all meat reefers (Swift, Hormel, Rath, etc).  There are also boxcars mixed into the tracks.  The whole track on the right are boxcars.

The other thing is timing of unloading of the cars, because the produce was sold in the early morning hours, so it could be in the restaurants and stores before lunch.  That would mean the switching would be in the afternoon-evening, with the spotting of loaded cars in the evening, to be available for the produce distributors before dawn.

When you see rows of produce

When you see rows of produce reefers lined up in a terminal like that, they were generally spotted overnight or very early in the morning.  The sellers' agents and the railroad agents would go through each load to make sure there was no damage (there often was), settle the resulting claims, the car was released to the seller, then they auctioned off the load a case or cases at a time.  On to the next car.  By lunch the cars are emptied and released back to the railroad.  Workers cleaned out the damaged cases and loose fruit or veggies, the bunkers were drained, doors and hatches closed, then a switch crew pulled the tracks and off the empties went.

The produce was on market shelves or in restaurant kitchens by that afternoon.

Meat reefers were different.   Most went to "branch houses" owned by the meat packers where the meat portions (often quarters hung on hooks) were cut down to commercial sizes and sold to local butcher shops, restaurants, and later, supermarkets.

Since meat reefers were controlled by the packers, not the railroads, they were not necessarily spotted and emptied in the morning, but they didn't sit around for long.  And if a stray meat reefer showed up in one of these produce terminals it was probably a load that was rejected by the packer and the railroad was actioning off the contents for non-human consumption (dog food), or to less discerning butchers if you get my drift.

Now two things to keep in mind about the above photo:  it shows the New York Central's 30th Street Yard in the city.  All the intown yards were very cramped for space so they were not just used for produce.  As you can see there are several boxcars mixed so this is being used as a team track as well.  And since this was 1957, that string of meat reefers (note there seems to be one from each of the big packers) might be carrying prepackaged packing house products destined to a grocery chain,  in which case they are not here to have their loads auctioned off.  Again, a team track operation.

Oh, and for the true steam era freight car fans, note that Brock's Law is in force here as well.  There's a Northern Pacific boxcar at the far end.

Scott Chatfield

Act as an agent for the buyers

One layout that featured a larger produce receiver had the person who ran that job act as their purchasing manager. There is a clipboard that shows what produce is being requested and the agent will check with the yard master when trains arrive with produce, to check for any commodity that is desired. In this era produce was often shipped as a ‘roller’, or a carload without a buyer....yet. Lots of phone calls from the originating locations to known buyers along the route. Cars could be rerouted multiple times without incurring a surcharge. 

So on this layout, a train would pull into the yard/depot (Many reefers were on passenger trains) and the yard master would alert the agent that they have “yellow and orange cars” in the consist. The agent would then look over the waybills in the car cards and tell the YM which cars he wants and which can keep ‘rolling east’. 

Once the desired cars are cut out of the train and set on a specific track, the produce agent becomes the crew for the local job that takes the cars to the produce yard and spots them accordingly. 

This can happen multiple times in an operation session.  Adding in unloading times and blue flag protection can increase the complexity of the operation. 

Let us know how this works out for you. Join those groups listed above and be prepared for your journey down this rabbit hole. The entire operation of shipping produce has encompassed many layouts. There are two in my circle that do just that. It’s a lot of fun to see California valley layouts here in Great Northern country. Enjoy. 

RE: Strawberries

In the steam era before air freight was common and I know on the SP, when strawberries were in season, they were shipped East in short dedicated reefer trains on passenger train scheduling and speeds to facilitate their timely arrival to the Eastern markets.

Espee over Donner

Interesting Thread

Great pic, too.

Previous to retirement (last year) I was out of the main stream model railroading loop for quite some time... please enlighten me as to "Brock's Law"?

Thanks.

Andre

Brocks law

Its something like anybody who is modeling the national car fleet is a Northern Pacific modeler.

The NP had a huge fleet and in any picture of a yard or a complete manifest train there will be an NP car.

Pretty much the same could be said for the PRR and NYC.

The name of the citrus modelers group was

citrusmodeling@yahoogroups.com.  I think it has been changed to citrusmodeling@groupsio.com.

Brock's Law

"Every steam era manifest freight has at least one Northern Pacific boxcar.". Coined by Mike Brock, long time host of the Cocoa Beach RPM meet.

Scott Chatfield

Got It!

i.e."Brock's Law".

Thanks!

Good thing, 'cause I like NP cars and want an excuse to run them in the Ozarks in the early 1960s.

Andre

NKP Magazine Fall 2017

Steve.

The link below will take you to the NKP Fall 2017 Magazine.

This issue featured "Food Terminals of the NKP." 

https://nkphts-shop.myshopify.com/collections/nkphts-magazines/products/2017-fall-magazine

Here in New Jersey

My friend models the NYC yard pictured above (though not on the scale as pictured above) and we do model the hot produce traffic at 30th St, as well as the meat traffic at 30th St Yard and on the 30th St. Branch, aka , "The High Line". Also, the associated "cleaning out" of said cars goes along with all this traffic, which is another step in the process. It's good, stressful fun, as we dodge the hot milk and LCL traffic!

Perishable Freight Operations

You might find some useful information in a special report done for the Potomac Division of the NMRA:

http://potomac-nmra.org/Special_Interest_Reports/Perishable%20Freight.pdf

Alex

Florida East Coast 5th District

which was south of Miami to Homestead and Florida City. There was much produce shipped from there and Richard Beall told me that in 50s sometimes 5 sections of train 41/42 the Homestead Local ran. Often they would spot a baggage car near Kendall and a night returning train would get it to Miami in time to be attached to the Havana Special which departed at 10:00pm.

Oops forgot the load

Forgot to mention the baggage car was loaded with strawberries.