36' Wood Sheathed Ice Reefer with Modern Steel Underframes
MTL-58550 N Scale Supply Price
New Release Date: January 2000

Picture courtesy of Micro-Trains®

The railroad refrigerator car has often been referred to as the car that changed America's eating habits. To lower the temperature and to protect products during shipping, various types of insulation and icing methods were used. The cars were built 36'- 38' in length so the doors would match the loading dock doors at packing houses. Wood construction was preferred over steel because of the belief that wood was a superior insulating material.
This 36' wood sheathed ice reefer w/modern steel underframe was built in 1923 and re-weighed and repainted in April of 1934. It is painted box car red with reefer yellow sides and black lettering on sides, white on ends. #14796 was a rolling advertisement for Armour’s Cloverbloom Full Cream Butter; the 1933 Inter-state Commerce Commission regulations against billboard advertising on car sides did not apply to cars that were shipper-owned and used exclusively for its owner's products. Coil-elliptic trucks improved riding quality in fast speed service.

Philip Armour began acquiring cars around 1883. By 1900 he had his own car manufacturing plant in Kansas City, and 17 lines with 12,000 cars. The Armour meat packing company created the largest private refrigerator car fleets in the United States.

In 1932, Armour was taken over by the General American Transportation Company, but the cars continued in service wearing Armour lettering for many years.

Back to Micro-Trains 58500 Series Page

Back to Micro-Trains Page