Modeling PFE cars
Pacific Fruit Express, part two
I
n Part One of my column on modeling Pacific Fruit Express,
I addressed prototype facilities and how they operated.
This month I describe modeling PFE cars and accompany-
ing facilities. Because of the size of the PFE fleet, modeling a
thorough representation of it is a large challenge, but for those
wishing to have just a few PFE cars, the fleet size is an advan-
tage in some ways, as it permits flexibility in choices of car
classes to model.
Naturally one can simply model by “targets of opportunity,”
and just take PFE cars that are handy, as kits or ready-to-run.
Alternatively, one can choose to be systematic. One such ap-
proach to choices of PFE cars to model is to choose some pro-
portion of the entire fleet to model. That is what I am doing.
To illustrate how this might work, I include Table 2, showing
the PFE car fleet as listed in the January 1953 issue of the Of-
ficial Railway Equipment Register, or ORER. I show each num-
ber group for the PFE fleet, and how many cars were in it at
Getting Real column
by Tony Thompson
PFE paint schemes, car classes, and more
Getting Real Column - 1
MRH-Oct 2013
