For it's time(late 1950's vintage), the Ambroid car is a pretty good model of
CP's
early 8 hatch reefers. I also have one, and wondered when I got it if indeed
they did
exist. In short YES!
In the late 1930's there was a growing fish market trade in London England's
fish
market. As mechanical refgrigeration for railway cars was yet to come into
being (an
offshoot of the war?) icing with brine was the only way to keep meat and fish
frozen.
Thus by mixing salt with crushed ice, reefers could have temperatures below 32
fahrenheit. Initially the CP converted 10 wood sheathed reefers to overhead 8
hatch
ones for test runs (in conjunction with CN also and the National Research
Council -
read government). Frozen BC salmon was run from Vancouver to Halifax in these
cars with
monitoring being done all the way. Once at Halifax, the fish was shipped via
boat to
London and their fish market.It obviously passed the test as initially CP then
converted 50 more wood reefers to 8 hatch versions. I suspect the brine was
particluarly harsh on the wood construction, and thus all following orders were
of
steel construction. I have heard the brine was rusting out truck journals
badly, and
thus CP's sprung 'cup' to hold the runoff and discharge a cupful at a time!
Incidentally CP's reefers were the first cars of the fleet to get steel roof
walks -
probably for safety with the ice and salt, as the open grid would be safer than
wood
walks. Boxcars followed about two years after the reefers.
Back to the kit - while I can't vouch for #289987 having a plug door, I do know
for a
fact there was one or more in the initial group of 10 which did have plug
doors. This
was a test group, so naturally CP was looking at different options available at
the
time. I was fortunate enough to peruse through CP's freight car file of 8x10's
in
Windsor Sation in the early 90's before they moved to Calgary, and saw the
photos of
these cars. I do have a picture of CP 289941 (second group) and it has hinged
doors as
I believe the majority of the wooden 8 hatch cars did. These photos were
published also
in my article in CP Tracks Vol. 7 No. 1 This car also had a propane heater
underslung
on the floor. (Back are issues still available) Heaters were used on Canadian
cars as
quite often canned goods were back shipped to the prairies in winter months and
the
goods had to be kept unfrozen to prevent spoilage.
The decals in the kit are remarkably accurate also for the cars. The kit was I
believe
initially made from an article which appeared in 1948 in a magazine called 'The
Model
Craftsman" - a forerunner to today's Railroad Model Craftsman. It had photos and
drawings of the car 289987.
Following the initial success of cars 289990-289999, the batch of 50 cars were
built in
1938-39 (289940-289989).
Hope this helps clear up the gray ares.
Jim Little
Freight Cars Editor, CP SIG
Bob Sanford wrote:
Thanks to Peter for helping to unravel the mystery of the Ambroid kit
#K-14
/ CP 8 hatch wood reefer. This all begs some new questions:
1. If in fact this car was built or rebuilt with a plug door per the
kit,
would it have been the first and possibly only wood car with such a door?
2. When was plug door technology introduced and what was the first
car so
built?
3. If this was the only 8-hatch wood reefer built and it survived
until
1957 as number 289962, was that also the original number of the car? As
Andreas points out, the decals supplied with the car indicate number 289987.
4. What type of door did 289962 have?
5. Dorin's picture of the steel 289988 shows swing type doors. Is that
representative of the all other cars in the original 289940-289989 series
with the exception of our mystery car? Riddell's photos and info on page 59
of his book mention only steel construction for 8-hatch reefers.
6. Does anyone have a photo of this one-of-a-kind car (either as
289962 or
as 289987)?
I know that we're getting pretty fine here, but I am intrigued with
the
concept of wood cars with modern plug doors.
Bob Sanford
