RMAX 100-174

[princessclyne69]

I haven’t found either a diagram or a photo of ART’s first reefers, RMAX 100-174. These 1956- and 1958-built cars were ART’s first mechanical reefers, with 6′ plug doors and 44’5″ interior on a nominal 50′ car design, probably very similar to other operators’ early reefers.

I found what I think these cars turned into, though.

Many of them got de-refrigerated and turned into XMI boxcars. They didn’t have loading racks so couldn’t have become RBLs. Here’s one that I found in Wichita. What’s interesting is that the car is now listed as having a 9′ door, which seems to agree with its appearance. The reinforcement under the door would seem to bear that out also.

This apparently happened between 1970 and 73, since this car was in service as of August 73. The 75 SoE shows 775100-775117 and 775125-160, both of which are shown as built ’56-58′ so there was either some mixing of the two series or they were just lumped in together, despite otherwise identical data.

RG7

[attachment=0:1v4cbut9]151-32 Aug 73.jpg[/attachment:1v4cbut9] [attachment=1:1v4cbut9]151-31 Aug 73.jpg[/attachment:1v4cbut9]

[princessclyne69]

I got an email response off-list from Gene Semon. Something about the difficulty in replying on-list.

So, for record, Gene confirmed what the photo evidence appeared to show, that ART shops converted these cars to insulated boxcars in 1972. In the process, they got new 9′ plug doors.

RMAX 100-125, built 1956, had Camel doors and Frigidaire refrigeration units, while RMAX 125-174, built 1958, had PC&F doors and Carrier refrigeration units. The doors were only 7’9′” high, and stayed that height after rebuilding, as apparent from the photo I shot. The rebuilt car has roller bearing trucks, but I can’t confirm yet that these were original to the cars.

From Gene: After rebuilding, these cars became MP 775100-775117, leased from ART, and MP 775118-775124, leased from NW Equipment Corp, and for the later group, became MP 775125-775160, leased from ART, and MP 775161-775174, leased from NW Equipment Corp.

NW Equipment Corp. would have been owned by N&W, all this being part of some transactions that mattered much more to accountants than I care to follow.

So I strongly suspect that the Wright Trak model would be a good candidate for these cars in their original form. I’ve already confirmed the type of end from that photo. The kit itself has a rather hefty sheet of etched stainless that contains ladders, roofwalk, brake levers and rods, and a lot of small pieces. I remain dubious about this, especially since the Wright Trak site still shows the first model they photographed, minus all those etched parts since the etchings had not arrived yet when they took the pictures of the car for the ad. One reason I didn’t buy this model in the beginning.

If you spend time on STMFC or BBFCL, you may gather by this time that I’m not on the same wavelength as some of those guys. But I’m not going to pull something out of the box either, if somebody familiar with freight cars can immediately spot the shortcomings. After all, I do have a railroad to build.

I hope to have some updates for St. Louis, but probably not anything to show off due to my travel schedule.

RG7

[princessclyne69]

Just a brief update — I found five pictures of these cars, all from the right side. Builder’s photos, which I got from Ed Hawkins many years ago.

100-124 had black hardware, including the door mechanism, and 1″ stripes above and below the reporting marks. 125-174, built two years later, had all the hardware painted same yellow as the car side. Both had the two-herald paint scheme with full-color heralds, with the MP herald toward the brakewheel end, without stripes around the reporting marks.

My assumption is that these cars, many of them, could have been repainted in the early to mid sixties, so they could have carried the yellow with black heralds or the orange. I have no photos to substantiate this.

RG7

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