Con-Cor - 0001-008850 (4) - Reefer, Ice, Steel - Santa Fe - 35216

Model Information: These cars were made for Con-Cor by Kato for the initial run. Later releases were manufactured in Con-Cor's Chicago facility.

Prototype History: Not all steel reefers contained mechanical refrigeration units. Although today we expect that a modern reefer contain an air conditioning unit to be integral to the car design, this was not always true. There was a period following the second world war when the cost of steel was cheap but the cost of a refrigeration unit was high. Early mechanical refrigeration units were unreliable, noisy, expensive and costly to maintain, and for the early post-war years many railroads continued to use ice for refrigeration even though the technology for mechanical refrigeration was possible.

In the post-WWII period, steel once again became readily available and the railroads rapidly replaced their aging fleets of wood reefers with newly constructed steel cars. Among the more common steel reefers for meat and other perishable commodities were those built by URTX. These cars had a horizontal rivet strip along the middle of each side, improved Dreadnaught ends and diagonal-panel roofs.

From Wikipedia and other sources

Road Name History: The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (reporting mark ATSF), often abbreviated as Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. Chartered in February 1859, the railroad reached the Kansas-Colorado border in 1873 and Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876. To create a demand for its services, the railroad set up real estate offices and sold farm land from the land grants that it was awarded by Congress. Despite the name, its main line never served Santa Fe, New Mexico, as the terrain was too difficult; the town ultimately was reached by a branch line from Lamy.

The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport, an enterprise that (at one time or another) included a tugboat fleet and an airline (the short-lived Santa Fe Skyway). Its bus line extended passenger transportation to areas not accessible by rail, and ferryboats on the San Francisco Bay allowed travelers to complete their westward journeys to the Pacific Ocean. The ATSF was the subject of a popular song, Harry Warren & Johnny Mercer's "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", written for the film, The Harvey Girls (1946).

The railroad officially ceased operations on December 31, 1996, when it merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to form the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Con-Cor has been in business since 1962. Many things have changed over time as originally they were a complete manufacturing operation in the USA and at one time had upwards of 45 employees. They not only designed the models,but they also built their own molds, did injection molding, painting, printing and packaging on their models.

Currently, most of their manufacturing has been moved overseas and now they import 90% of their products as totally finished goods, or in finished components. They only do some incidental manufacturing today within the USA.

Important Note: The Con-Cor product numbering can be very confusing. Please see here in the article how to properly enter Con-Cor stock numbers in the TroveStar database.