Feather River Rail Society

The refrigerator car moved to the restoration site on Saturday, February 23!!  Thanks to everyone who donated, we paid the housemovers and are now raising funds to pay the trucker!  We have 30 days to get that amount.  Move went smoothly with no problems.  THANK YOU!!!


An opportunity has arrived to save a rare, well-preserved railroad car with an interesting story to tell.

In 1923, the Western Pacific Railroad was looking for better ways to compete with its larger and more powerful rival, the Southern Pacific.  One area that was important to both railroads was the movement of fruits and vegetables grown in California.  Special ice cooled Refrigerator Cars were used for this service.  And the major supplier of such cars in the Western United States was the Pacific Fruit Express, co-owned by the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads.

The WP used cars from PFE just like other western railroads, but it wanted a better deal.  So the WP announced that it was founding its own competing refrigerator car line.  The little underdog railroad even went so far as to order a fleet of cars painted for its new company.

In the face of possible competition, PFE reached an agreement with the WP to lease its cars and make WP part of the PFE family.  The little railroad received preferred use rates and access to over 40,000 refrigerator cars, rather than just the 2,775 cars it had built.  This shrewd and nervy strategy paid off in decades of rate savings.

WP's fleet of refrigerator cars were retired by the early 1960s and very few survive today.  However, for the last 38 years, a well preserved example, Western Pacific PFE 55069, has been waiting next to a home in San Jose, California.  

We have a chance to preserve and restore this historic railcar.  A plan is in place to move it to a restoration facility in San Jose in cooperation with the California Trolley and Rail Corporation.  At this restoration site, volunteers of the Feather River Rail Society will restore this rare car.  Following restoration, it will move to its permanent home at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, California.

We only have two weeks before construction will require this car be demolished.  Lifting and moving it will be tricky and expensive, plus we need to set up the restoration site to protect the car during restoration work.  UPDATE: The car moves on Saturday, February 23!  

UPDATE!  Thanks to work by the housemoving company, we have managed to lower the cost to move the car.  Our target is now $9,000 that we need to raise!

UPDATE!  We have received many donations aside from the GoFundMe and are now right on the edge of covering the housemover charges!  We still need to pay for the trucking, and we have 30 days to do that following the move on February 23.  Also, check out the San Jose Mercury News for February 22 where the story of this historic railroad car is front page of the Local Section.  Also there is an online article: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/21/how-do-you-move-a-95-year-old-rail-car-from-a-san-jose-yard-very-carefully/

Refrigerator cars like this were vital for moving the agriculture of California across the county.  Such cars were regular sights in San Jose, Portola and across the United States.  When complete, it will be a tribute to California and to the men and women of the Western Pacific Railroad and their drive to succeed.

PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN!  All the plans are in place, we just need your help to fund it.  Please help us save the 55069!


More information about Feather River Rail Society:

The Feather River Rail Society is a California 501(c)3 Non-Profit Educational & Historical Corporation headquartered in Portola, California, at the headwaters of the Feather River.

Located 50 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada, the primary mission statement of the Western Pacific is to preserve the Western Pacific Railroad with a secondary mission to preserve subsidiary and interchange railroads within the territories WP served.
www.WPLives.org 

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