Jonathan,
I don't have the Jones books, but looking at the Spoor and Holck books, I am
pretty positive at least two of the pictures are the General American 53'
Express Reefer. These were REA wooden fish-belly reefers for refrigerated
goods or for dry goods in the off-season. The reason you see no markings is
that until 1952, REA just had a very small "Railway Express Agency" over the
door with "Express Refrigerator" on each side of the door. It wasn't until
1952 that REA started using the famous red diamonds on these cars. As these
car rarely were washed, the name could be almost invisible.
These REA cars could be found on many passenger trains. Remember, the
railroads all owned a portion of REA. I agree, information on this
fascinating part of railroading is hard to come by. Roseman wrote a small
book on REA. It would be nice if someone would write a more extensive book.
If you are up to a resin kit. Sunshine makes a superb model of the GA 53'
reefer. If not, buy the Athern one and rework it a bit to make it closer.
Also, Branchline is coming out with the 1948 REA reefer (if we live that
long!) and Walthers just came out with the 1955 REA reefer. Now all we need
is a good plastic Troop Kitchen (fortunately, I was able to get 9 brass ones
from Iron Horse/Presicion Scale when they came out - they are beautiful!)
Rich
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