Eastern Seaboard Models - 2803 - Reefer, Ice, 40 Foot, Wood - Grand Union Food Markets - 90013, 90019

Specific Item Information: This model is based on an early 20th Century ice reefer for the Grand Union Company food market chain, circa 1930. The car is painted green with plastic green vertical brakewheel. The 1990 releases have yellow lettering on the sides, black stirrups and black Bettendorf trucks. The 2002 releases have cream-yellow lettering on sides and ends, green stirrups and ice hatch latches, black door hardware and black Andrews trucks with brown low-profile wheels. These runs were extremely limited due to the local appeal in the New York / New Jersey / Pennsylvania area, where Grand Union predominately operated. Made in United States.

Model Information: Micro-Trains introduced this body style in July of 1982. It features opening roof hatches - an innovation for N Scale at the time. The detail of the body combined with the high quality printing makes this tooling an excellent choice for modeling early-20th century billboard reefers. It is particularly well suited for modeling the cars used by pre-war meat packers. The prototype is a 40 Foot Wood-Sheathed Ice Reefer with vertical brake wheel (the wheel itself is horizontal).

Prototype History: In 1924 and 1926, the D&RGW shops in Alamosa built one last class of refrigerator cars, still made mostly of wood: twenty "long" reefers, with a length of 40ft and a capacity of 25 tons (#150 to 169). They rode on Andrews trucks and were designed to have the same capacity as a small standard gauge refrigerator car, to facilitate transhipments at the gauge changing points. In 1967, 12 of these refrigerator cars were still active on the Rio Grande. Today, four long reefers are conserved on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad (#157, 163, 166 and 169), two at the Colorado Railroad Museum (#159 and 167), one on the Georgetown Loop Railroad (#153) and #168 is part of the Sumpter Valley Railway collection.

Road Name History: Grand Union Supermarkets, later known as Grand Union Family Markets and often referred to simply as Grand Union, was the name of a chain of grocery stores that did business primarily in the northeastern United States but also operated stores in other areas of the country including the midwestern and southeastern states, as well as internationally in the Caribbean and Canada. The company was originally founded and headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, eventually moving to Brooklyn, New York in the early 20th century. Grand Union moved again to Elmwood Park, New Jersey and finally to Wayne, New Jersey before the original company was forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2001 and sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers.

After C&S bought Grand Union it down-scaled most of its operations and exited its primary marketplace, choosing to keep only a number of stores in upstate New York and New England open. The chain was sold to Tops Friendly Markets in 2012, and in 2013 Tops rebranded the remaining stores with their logo and the Grand Union name ceased to exist.

Brand/Importer Information: Eastern Seaboard Models was founded in 1987. They are a manufacturer of N scale reproductions of North American eastern railroad prototypes. The have both decorated other manufacturers' models as well as designed body styles of their own. They are located at PO Box 301, Waldwick, New Jersey 07463-0301 U.S.A.

Their 2016 lineup includes ready-to-run gondolas, well cars, hoppers, tank cars and boxcars. They also produce craftsman quality kits in their "Made in America" series. ESM products may be purchased directly from their website.

Manufacturer Information: Micro-Trains Line split off from Kadee Quality Products in 1990. Kadee Quality Products originally got involved in N-Scale by producing a scaled-down version of their successful HO Magne-Matic knuckle coupler system. This coupler was superior to the ubiquitous 'Rapido' style coupler due to two primary factors: superior realistic appearance and the ability to automatically uncouple when stopped over a magnet embedded in a section of track. The success of these couplers in N-Scale quickly translated to the production of trucks, wheels and in 1972 a release of ready-to-run box cars.

Micro-Trains Line Co. split off from Kadee in 1990 to form a completely independent company. For this reason, products from this company can appear with labels from both enterprises. Due to the nature of production idiosyncrasies and various random factors, the rolling stock from Micro-Trains can have all sorts of interesting variations in both their packaging as well as the products themselves. When acquiring an MTL product it is very important to understand these important production variations that can greatly enhance (or decrease) the value of your purchase.

Please consult our Micro-Trains Collector's Guide