Western Fruit Express

[erdnay]

Obviously this generated quite a bit of traffic on the Cascadian route.

Where did these come from and where did they go to? I can find a lot about Western Fruit Express on the Internet, what it is, lots of pictures of the reefer cars. But very little about the trains themselves. Which yard(s) they were made up in, where is the source and where is the destination.

Can someone help me?

Alex

[MaineLines]

Apple Yard in Wenatchee is probably a good bet as a start.

[erdnay]

Thanks -- that makes sense. Loads west to the docks for export, empties east?

[GreatNortherner]

Thanks -- that makes sense. Loads west to the docks for export, empties east?

Hi, as far as I remember from my (limited) research into this a while ago, it was mainly the other way around: loaded trains eastbound, empties west. That doesn't mean that Wenatchee apples didn't find their way to the Seattle area or docks, but the main direction of the Fruit Express was to inland markets. Back in the day, Appleyard had its own icing platform and ice house for the reefers, the next one was in Whitefish if I'm not mistaken.

There's a wonderful b/w picture of a loooong Fruit Express rounding Blacktail curve on the GNGoat website:
http://www.gngoat.org/gn_archives.htm (around halfways down, caption "GN 410 A-B-C-D EMD FT Diesel Freight Units, Built 5/44, Blacktail, MT. GNR photo")

Cheers,
Michael