Tom I know of no specific book on Council Bluffs, but would not be surprized
if there was something published locally for their 100 / 125 / 150
celebration. Have you checked with the local library in CB? Or with the new
UP History museum in CB?
The PFE book http://www.signaturepress.com/pfe2.html has extensive coverage
of the PFE icing facilities at Council Bluffs and discusses the PFE and meat
traffic through Omaha/Council Bluffs. In later years CB was also a clean out
stop for westbound empties, which I did not know. Which could be part of the
reason PFE and/or UP wanted empties rounted in blocks via CNW.
For general information about reefers another book is The Great Yellow
Fleet: A History of American Railroad Refrigerator Cars, by John H White,
Golden West Books, 1986. This book gives a very good overveiw of the early
history of reefers. Sadly the editor botched some of the later 20th century
information, and this section of the book is known for errors, which
unfortunatly reflects on John White. White's research is very good and
reliable, it was the editor who inserted less then accruate information.
Don't forget the Wabash also had trackage into CB. While not a direct route
to Chicago and hence reefer traffic, the WAB could have been the source or a
lot of those auto parts you asked about. The WAB handled lots of auto
related traffic.
There is a nice model club in the CB RI depot. Members include current UP
employees. They might be able to help with additonal information. The
Western Heritage Division of the NMRA covers this area and may also be able
to help. http://www.whdnmra.org/
You might want to join the Yahoo Operations group, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ry-ops-industrialSIG/ Might be a few in that
group who could answer your questions about traffic/operations.
Douglas Harding
Iowa Central Railroad
http://d.harding.home.mchsi.com
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