PFE Trust Plate

I am not normally a collector of railroadiana and such, but with an interest in PFE cars and freight cars, in general, this was something that struck me. The "buy it now" option on eBay was modest (relatively) and the seller offered a further discount after I had "watched" the item. So... I decided to treat myself. If you're not familiar with such things, you might inquire what exactly this thing is.

Many railroads financed equipment purchases via trusts. The trusts were effectively like bonds. The capital markets provided money to finance purchases, the railroads received their equipment, and the owners of these bonds ("certificates") received regular cash payments until the terms were satisfied. At that point, the railroad owned the equipment and the obligations under trust were satisfied. Once satisfied, the plate that designated that the car was owned as part of a trust could be removed as the railroad then owned the equipment outright.

Which brings us to this particular trust plate. The details of the trust are noted in the text from Moody's Analyses of Investments and Security Rating Service for Railroad Securities, 1925, Moody's Investor Service (digitized by Google Books.) The cars in question were 5,000 refrigerator cars for freight service and 300 refrigerator cars for use in express service via passenger trains. I do not have the relevant specifics for the freight reefers, but it is likely they were a mix of classes R-30-12 and -13. The express cars were those in the 500-799 series, built in 1923-1924. The plate does not have the specific information about which builder and series it was a part of, but it is a cool thing (to me) to have, both for its age (~98 years old at this writing) and because of my interest in Steam Era freight equipment.

Relevant text from Moody's

While this "investment" is purely a luxury, it will look nice adorning a spot on the wall in the room where I do my modeling.

P.S. for those who are curious, it measures 18 x 8 x approx. 3/8 inches and weighs about 25 pounds.

Wordy Wednesday - PFE R-30-12 & -13 Grab Irons

PFE 21919 with with five straight grab irons above the side sill at right edge of the car side, built Feb. 1923 straight grab irons at right edge of the car side, built Feb. 1923, reconditioned July 1938, courtesy of Bill Welch

The PFE R-30-12 and -13 reefers were incredibly numerous (11,900 -12s and 7,654 -13s plus 2,775 Western Pacific cars built to the -13 design*) and I've even written about them, but it was not until yesterday that I became aware of the fact that they had different numbers of grab irons depending upon when built. Granted, I had never looked that closely since I do not need any in my model fleet. Nonetheless, it's an interesting detail that I had not seen profiled. Credit goes primarily to Al Hoffman for spotting the trend and Ed Hawkins for digging into details with Al.

PFE (WP) 51340, also with five straight grab irons above the side sill at right edge of the car side, built July 1923, Rosedale, Kansas, Joe Collias Collection

The Western Pacific contributed 2,775 cars to the PFE fleet, including PFE 51340 shown above, with with five straight grab irons above the side sill at right edge of the car side.

PFE 36430, an R-30-13, built July 1926, with six straight grab irons above the side sill at right edge of the car side. Michael Urac Collection

Beginning with cars built ca. 1924, an extra grab iron was added at the right edge of the car side. It is an interesting change that the model manufacturers have not incorporated into their offerings. They have (understandably) hewed to one or the other number of grabs, but not both. Red Caboose, chose six, as shown below, on the factory lettered PFE 26219 as modeled by me over a decade ago. Yet another detail to be considered... informed is forewarned, especially for you 1920s to mid-1940s modelers!

*Pacific Fruit Express (Thompson, Church, Jones, Signature Press) makes reference to some number of the cars being built to the -12 design, which is certainly plausible, but to my knowledge, no photo documentation of such cars has surfaced for review.