Micro-Trains - 49110 - Reefer, Ice, 40 Foot, Wood - Kohrs Meat Packing Company - 2601

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: Hog slaughtering has been a part of the Davenport scene ever since sausage-craving Germans began settling in the mid-19th century. Kohrs was founded in 1872 by Henry Kohrs, one of the many Germans who found freedom from the political upheaval of his homeland on the broad prairies of Scott County. For generations, the five-story, 120,000-square foot structure that loomed over west Davenport was the final destination for hogs in a meat processing operation that made the city one of the largest hog slaughtering centers in the nation.

Until it was phased out in the 1980s, the hog kill operation — under Oscar Mayer and its predecessor, Kohrs Packing Co. — had been a vital part of the city’s economy. Other packing plants such as Armour Packing Co. brought an overpowering odor to the west end, but residents didn’t seem to mind.

Brand/Importer Information: Micro-Trains is the brand name used by both Kadee Quality Products and Micro-Trains Line. For a history of the relationship between the brand and the two companies, please consult our Micro-Trains Collector's Guide.

Manufacturer Information: 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.
In October 1990 Kadee separated in two companies, with the newly created Micro-Trains® Line Co. continuing the Z, Nn3, and N Scale product ranges, with Kadee retaining the HO range.