50 ton 40 foot Steel hinged door refrigerator car WFE 68400-68649

HO scale KIT with trucks and magnetic couplers. 

These custom painted models by Accurail are excellent representations of cars WFEX 68400 to 68649 built by Pacific Car and Foundry in 1949, the last hinged door, ice cooled, refrigerator cars purchased by WFE. The base car is Accurail's item 8300 which is an accurate rendition of cars WFEX 68400 to 68649. Each kit includes several other appropriate car numbers so you can have multiple non-conflicting car numbers on your layout. We are offering these models in three correct paint schemes based on the time the cars were painted. As described below in detail, WFEX marked cars operated nation-wide are therefore credible on other than Great Northern model railroads.

First is the as built scheme of 1949 with optic style lettering, boxcar red roof, and ends, yellow sides with red kickplates below the door, black hardware including fan generator housing at BL and AR corners above the body bolster, 42” Side Facing Goat Great Northern Railway herald, and ventilator-refrigerator lettering. The first lot was car number 68452, which is now sold out. The second lot is car number 68509, which will be available in April. We are accepting orders, which will be fulfilled when we receive the cars.

The second scheme, applied from about 1956 forward, features optic style lettering, with boxcar red ends, silver roof, all yellow sides including hardware and kickplate, 48” Side Facing Goat Great Northern Railway herald, and refrigerator lettering.  The first lot was car number 68536, which is now available. The second lot is car number 68647, which will be available in April. We are accepting orders for both car numbers. Orders for 68647 will be fulfilled when we receive the cars.

The third scheme, applied from 1960 forward, features gothic style lettering, with boxcar red ends, silver roof, all yellow sides including hardware and kickplate, 48” Side Facing Goat Great Northern Railway herald, and refrigerator lettering. The first lot was car number 68643, which is now available. The second lot is car number 68482, which will be available in April. We are accepting orders for both car numbers. Orders for 68482 will be fulfilled when we receive the cars.

We believe that WFE repainted its cars on roughly seven-year cycles, and that when repaint orders were given the job was completed in less than one year. Assuming that cars were repainted into the second scheme in 1956-57, the cars would have been repainted into the third scheme circa 1963-64. These dates are only estimates. 

NATION-WIDE SERVICE

WFEX cars operated nation-wide for two reasons.

First, carloads of potatoes, and of tree fruit, predominately apples and pears, originating on the Great Northern Railway moved to major population centers and to consignees of two types; fruit markets where buyers purchased the items they needed directly off the cars, and grocery chain distribution centers.

Second, WFEX cars were pooled with Burlington Refrigerator Express and Fruit Growers Express cars. Fruit Growers Express managed the combined BREX, FGEX, WFEX fleet. WFEX cars unloaded east of Chicago and north of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers, Official Territory, were not necessarily reverse routed back to the GN, but in the spring and summer were sent to fruit and vegetable origin locations in Southern Territory. As this traffic waned due to seasonal factors, WFEX empties were returned to the Great Northern. In addition, Fruit Growers Express cars, marked FGEX were also sent to the GN in the late summer and early fall to protect fall and winter apple and potato loading.

WFEX cars also transported apples into California and Arizona points served by the ATSF and Southern Pacific, so one or two would not be out of place on a layout featuring these carriers. If there was perishable traffic moving to Washington State, the ATSF and SP would often load a WFEX car to GN served customers. If no load back was available, WFEX cars would be reverse routed to the GN.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Ice cooled refrigerator cars of 40-foot nominal length dominated the Great Northern’s fleet for a decade, and that of subsidiary Western Fruit Express for another thirty years. They were used to haul tree fruit, predominately apples, from the Wenatchee District centered on Wenatchee and Appleyard Washington, and potatoes and onions from the Red River valley of Minnesota and North Dakota.

Fruit, potatoes, and onions not only had to be protected from the weather, but the temperature inside the car had to be controlled. Refrigerator cars were much more complicated, and significantly more expensive to own, than box cars. Almost all the fruit transported by the Great Northern moved eastward to Minneapolis and beyond to Chicago and eastern population centers. While it was seasonal, fruit was high volume, long haul, very good revenue traffic. Potatoes transported by the Great Northern moved eastward to Minneapolis and beyond to Chicago and eastern population centers. While potatoes were seasonal, they moved in high volume, and generated good revenue.

Great Northern’s fruit traffic from the Wenatchee District first exceeded 1,000 car loads in 1907, and in 1909 the railway purchased 500 cars of 40 feet outside length and 1968 cubic feet capacity, the company’s first nominal 40-foot refrigerator cars. By November of 1917 the GN had about 4,200 40-foot-long refrigerator cars in service.

During the 1919 crop year, with the railway under the management of the USRA, Wenatchee experienced a bumper crop and an unprecedented car shortage. The USRA provided box cars for loading in the depth of winter and the taxpayers bought hundreds of carloads of frozen apples as a result. After the railway was returned to its owners and managers in 1920, and being blamed for the USRAs mismanagement of the 1919 crop, GN bought 145 used and 1,000 new cars for the 1922 crop year.

The strong seasonality of the fruit business, combined with very long car cycle times, driven by the truly transcontinental hauls involved, meant that any individual car made about three or four loaded trips per year and then sat idle for several months. Eastern and southern railroads contracted with Fruit Growers Express, created in 1920, to provide refrigerator cars to transport their perishable traffic, and leased or sold their cars to FGE. FGE also had the problem of seasonal demand and went looking for one or more railroads, hopefully with a different peak season, to pool cars with. FGE’s peak demand was in the summer which was complimentary to WFE’s fall apple and winter potato seasons.

After talks with FGE, in June of 1923 Great Northern created the wholly owned subsidiary Western Fruit Express as a private car line, leased its cars to WFE, and WFE agreed to a pooling arrangement with FGE, with the pool managed by FGE. WFE began operations on September 1, 1923. By pooling their cars freely and under single management the FGE-WFE consortium was able to operate with a smaller combined fleet than they would have required as separate organizations.

Fruit Growers’ disparate fleet included many small and obsolete cars, so it immediately designed a new steel underframe car for itself. Between 1921 and 1928, FGE used four separate underframe designs for its new car construction.  In 1924 WFE acquired steel underframe cars 65000 to 65999, and in 1925 steel underframe cars 66000 to 66346, all built by FGE.

For further information about WFE, see GNRHS Reference Sheet 407.