With all the tropicana cars there are out there it deserves a layout. Does anybody no any operations those cars go through or were they go from the company. Thanks
I've seen Tropicana cars here from time to time. Never seem to have the camera with me though. Take a look using Google maps or bing maps. The Bing aerial even shows cars. Tropicana Products Inc [TABLE="width: 302"] [TR] [TD="class: basicinfo"]240 N Orange Ave Industry, CA 91744 [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]
What are they building/did they build on the tracks that parallel Valley Blvd? Looks like an elevated viaduct?
The Juice Train is Fun to watch when we are in The Tampa area. It leaves Bradenton around 1030 AM for NJ/Cincy. There is a large load out facility near Bradenton which is served by CSX and is relatively easy to railfan. The first two N Sclae cars I ever owned were Tropicana cars my Gradpa gave me when I was 7 or 8. From Wikipedia: "Juice Train" (or "Orange Juice Train") is the popular name for famous unit trains of Tropicana fresh orange juice operated by railroads in the United States.Tropicana Products was founded in 1947 in Bradenton, Florida by Anthony T. Rossi, an Italian immigrant, growing from 50 employees to over 8,000 in 2004. Early distribution of fresh orange juice was by way of hand-delivered juice jars to nearby homes, but demand grew, especially in New York City. By 1957, a ship, S.S. Tropicana was taking 1.5 million US gallons (5,700 m[SUP]3[/SUP]) of juice to New York each week. In 1970, Tropicana orange juice was shipped in bulk via insulated boxcars in one weekly round-trip from Florida to Kearny, New Jersey. By the following year, the company was operating two 60-car unit trains a week, each carrying around 1 million US gallons (3,800 m[SUP]3[/SUP]) of juice. On June 7, 1971 the "Great White Juice Train" (the first unit train in the food industry, consisting of 150 100-ton insulated boxcars fabricated in the Alexandria, Virginia shops of Fruit Growers Express) commenced service over the 1,250-mile (2,012-kilometer) route. An additional 100 cars were soon incorporated into the fleet, and small mechanical refrigeration units were installed to keep temperatures constant on hot days. Tropicana saved $40 million in fuel costs alone during the first ten years in operation. Starting out on Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (SCL) south of Tampa, Florida, the original used former Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL) and Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL) tracks. It crossed over to the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac (RF&P) in Richmond, Virginia at pier 5 of the famous concrete James River Bridge. At Potomac Yard, in Alexandria, Virginia, Penn Central Transportation (PC) took over and operated it under the overhead wire with electric locomotives most of the way to Kearny. There have been more than a few changes over the years. Tropicana, now a division of PepsiCo, became the world's leading producer of branded fruit juices. In 1976, Conrail (CR) took over from ill-fated Penn Central, with electrification discontinued in 1981. SCL became part of CSX Corporation (CSX) in 1980, and was successively merged into Seaboard System Railroad(SBD) and thenCSX Transportation, which also included RF&P by 1991. In 1997, a second Juice Train began serving Cincinnati, Ohio. When CSX acquired part of Conrail in 1999, an all-CSX train began traveling to a new larger facility in Jersey City, New Jersey on the National Docks Secondary. Former Tropicana refrigerated box car, shortly after being donated to the Florida Gulf Coast Railroad Museum — Palmetto, Florida. Rolling stock has also changed, including orange, white, and blue cars, some with innovative refrigeration. The Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) is now carrying Tropicana cars from a second processing facility in eastern Florida. A reliable and economically viable transport mode, the Juice Trains are also a powerful mode of advertising, running ten trips each week to Jersey City and Cincinnati. Additional shipments with specially-equipped refrigerated cars now travel 3,000 miles (4,800 km) by rail to California. Tropicana had its own GE 70-ton locomotive, No. 98,[1][2] to switch cars at the New Jersey destination. It has since been donated to the United Railroads Historical Society.[3] In the 21st century, the Tropicana-CSX Juice Trains have been the focus of efficiency studies and have received awards. They are considered good examples of how modern rail transportation can compete successfully with trucking and other modes to carry perishable products."
Google Maps of the loading facillity https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=...FOfTud-g&t=h&gl=us&mra=mift&mrsp=0&sz=16&z=16
If you flip to street view you can see they elevated the roadbed and eliminated the crossing for the main line.
From the look and spread of the facility to model it would take some doing. A lot of yard trackage and a complex set of structures with a lot of rooftop details. This thread prompted me to go and take a look at the former Fruit Growers Express facility in Alexandria. Sadly it has been long gone but I have some memories of ocassionally passing it. They built and serviced a lot of the older cars there used in perishable traffic.
Speaking of the Juice train, it reminded me of the CSX promo they shot a while back with time lapse photography. It films the entire route from Florida to NJ. http://tiny.cc/zdylqw A little off topic, but someone might finds it interesting.
I remember a few years back there was an article in Model Railroader about the Tropicana distribution facility in NJ. Try searching their archive to find the exact issue.
