Rick,
I will be curious about the answers. I have seen several places a color photo of a large number of ART reefers staged in Grand Junction and this helps explain why.
A 1965 MP Freight Traffic Circular showing a "List of Firms and Industries having Trackage Facilities at Competitive Points" shows all of the Fruit and Vegetable receivers in Omaha-Council Bluffs being served by the UP. This makes sense as the bulk of fresh
produce and fruit into Omaha would be coming from California points that were served by PFE. So it would suggest that most traveled UP Denver to Omaha.
It can stated with some certainty that the Q handled some of this traffic in Kansas City proper. The Q shared with the ATSF and RI switching duties at the KC Produce Yard located along the Missouri River in the current City Market area. The Q switcher for
this duty for a long time was a motor car while the ATSF and RI used 44 tonners. The UP started their own produce yard in Kansas City KS in the late 1930s (this is discussed in Richard Overton's book), but various court proceedings by the other KC railroads
kept it from being major produce yard in KC.
Watching the video, it is hard to tell what kind of reefers were in the train. At the time of the video, all of the big reefer suppliers still had a large number of wood sheathed cars (ART PFE and SFRD had more steel cars as they started building them in
the mid 1930s - the FGE affiliated roads (BREX, WFEX, etc) and MDT still were still almost 100% wood sheathed).
Bill Hirt
CB&Q List
Please see email and link below
You might find this interesting as it states some of the peaches ended up in the Denver to Omaha routing for points east.
Couple of questions, would the Q handle ART reefers on a regular basis? Would Burlington reefers be used on a regular basis for the western slope peaches?
Thanks
Ricky Keil
Papillion, NE