The Freight Yard - 9950C - Reefer, 50 Foot, Mechanical - Pepsi - 7322

Specific Item Information: Pepsi Series No. 3, Circa 1970-79

Model Information: Atlas first introduced this model in 1995. It has always been manufactured in China. The early releases came equipped with Rapido couplers. Later versions come with Accumate couplers.

This is quite definitely a "2nd Generation" tooling. It does feature low-profile wheels with magnetically operated couplers (Accumate). The print quality is excellent and the mold shows great attention to detail. However, it lacks the key three features of a 3rd gen model: metal wheels, body-mount couplers and detail parts. While the tooling is very high quality, the only noticeable detail part is the brake wheel - which is nothing special. The stirrups, while not being as clunky as early Atlas and Roco designs, lack the realistic appearance of a 3rd gen model where this part is typically not part of the mold. A nice model for its time (mid 1990s) but essentially a beginner's model at the time of this review (2017).

Prototype History: The purpose of a mechanical reefer is to keep perishable items cold. Early reefers were of all wood construction and used ice for cooling. By the 1940s, new reefers were being built entirely of steel. Insulating techniques improved to the point where economical refrigeration could be accomplished using steel side plates in place of wood sheathing. Fifty foot mechanical reefers date back to at least the late 50s / early 60s.

The mechanical reefers could keep a more regular temperature, and often times colder than what the ice bunker cars were capable of. Initially mechanical reefers were used primarily in frozen food service. This would soon change as mechanical refrigeration began to replace ice-based systems. Soon after, mechanical refrigeration units replaced the “armies” of personnel required to re-ice the cars.

The first record of a 50' mechanical refrigerator car with a 6' plug door appears in the October 1954 Official Railway Equipment as with reporting marks FGEX 1000 - 1100. The January 1958 Official Railway Equipment Register lists over 600 of these cars. They appear with road numbers between 1000 and 1600. The build dates will fall between these two dates.

They were first acquired for orange juice service out of Florida. Similar cars were owned by WFEX and BREX. All were used in pool service with one another, depending upon the season. You can find a remaining prototype preserved in the NC Transportation Museum in Spencer, NC.

Road Name History: PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack and beverage corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company and Frito-Lay, Inc. PepsiCo has since expanded from its namesake product Pepsi to a broader range of food and beverage brands, the largest of which includes an acquisition of Tropicana in 1998 and of Quaker Oats in 2001, which added the Gatorade brand to its portfolio.

As of January 26, 2012, 22 of PepsiCo's brands generated retail sales of more than $1 billion apiece,[2] and the company's products were distributed across more than 200 countries, resulting in annual net revenues of $43.3 billion. Based on net revenue, PepsiCo is the second largest food and beverage business in the world. Within North America, PepsiCo is the largest food and beverage business by net revenue.

Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi has been the chief executive of PepsiCo since 2006. The company's beverage distribution and bottling is conducted by PepsiCo as well as by licensed bottlers in certain regions. Approximately 274,000 employees generated $66.415 billion in revenue as of 2013.

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: The Freight Yard was a hobby shop that did custom decoration and special runs of other manufacturers' N Scale products. It sold its custom products under several brands or collections: Premiere Editions, by The Freight Yard and Dreams Design.
It was located in Anaheim, California and then moved to 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Established in the late 1980s, it stopped business under this name by the end of the 2000s.
The Freight Yard was owned and operated by Darren J. Cohen. Darren is now operating North Valley Trains.
The Freight Yard / Premiere Editions runs are usually available in series of two to twelve different numbers (suffixed A to M, with I not used).
The first two digits of the stock number correspond to the release year (9x being 199x, and 2x being 200x).