Available Items

20-94655

36’ Woodsided Reefer Car
  • West India Fruit

20-94656

36’ Woodsided Reefer Car
  • Ballantine Beer

20-94657

36’ Woodsided Reefer Car
  • New York Central

20-94658

36’ Woodsided Reefer Car
  • Canadian Pacific

2023 Premier O Scale 36' Woodside Reefers Announced

January 31, 2023 - M.T.H. Electric Trains will be releasing a series of 2023 Premier O Scale 36' Woodside Reefers in four exciting liveries beginning next Summer. Each of these unique schemes will be available in unique car numbers and will be in very limited production quantities. The cars are expected to begin shipping to M.T.H. Authorized Retailers in September 2023.

Check out each of the offerings in the list on the left.

CUSTOM RUN 36' WOODSIDE REEFER CAR OFFERINGS OFFERINGS

In addition to the M.T.H. releases, you can find all the 2023 Custom Run models of the Premier 36' Woodside Reefer Car offerings that M.T.H. is producing for M.T.H. Authorized Retailers by going HERE.

PROTOTYPE HISTORY

The coming of the railroad changed the way America ate and drank. Before the iron horse connected every town of any importance to the outside world, most food was grown or produced locally. The arrival of cheap, fast, refrigerated transport — in the form of the woodsided reefer with ice bunkers at each end — enabled local brewers, diaries, meat processors, and other food businesses to become players on a national scale.

Until 1934, shippers could advertise their wares on leased billboard reefers, each a hand-painted traveling work of art. That year, the Interstate Commerce Commission outlawed the flamboyant paint schemes because the cars often hauled shipments from other companies — whose freight bills thus unfairly paid to advertise the lessee’s products.

What doomed the billboard cars was truth in labeling. Depending on shipping needs, billboard cars often carried loads for customers other than the company named on the car sides. A beer company requesting an empty reefer for loading, for example, might find a cheese maker’s delivered to its door. Shippers were not happy when their product was carried in a car bearing a large ad for someone else’s product — they complained that their freight bill had in part paid for another company’s advertising.

Responding to these complaints, the Interstate Commerce Commission in July 1934 mandated the phasing out of billboard reefers and ruled that thereafter, the lessee’s name on a car could be no more than 12” high. By law, all billboard reefers were removed from service by January, 1937, although many soldiered on in drabber paint schemes as late as the 1960s.

Check out each of the offerings in the list on the left.

Product Features

  • Intricately Detailed Durable ABS Body
  • Metal Wheels and Axles
  • Die-Cast 4-Wheel Trucks
  • Operating Die-Cast Metal Couplers
  • Colorful, Attractive Paint Schemes
  • Decorative Brake Wheels
  • Separate Metal Handrails
  • Fast-Angle Wheel Sets
  • Needle-Point Axles
  • 1:48 Scale Dimensions
  • Opening Car Doors
  • O Scale Kadee Compatible Coupler Mounting Pads
  • Opening Roof Hatches
  • Unit Measures: 10 3/4” x 2 3/8” x 3 9/16”
  • Operates On O-31 Curves