10/01/2022
October 1, 1907
On this day in 1907, the Pacific Fruit Express (PFE), formed by the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad companies, began operation with a fleet of 6,600 refrigerator cars built by the American Car and Foundry Company. The PFE was established to provide a faster and more efficient transportation of perishable fruits and vegetables across the United States. Within a year, the PFE purchased all Armour Lines owned ice making facilities in California and in 1908 the company built a giant ice making and car icing facility in Roseville.
Ice was stored on each end of the train cars. In 1908, the Roseville ice making plant had the storage capacity of 11,000 tons of ice. By the spring of 1909, the completed $250,000 ice making plant had the capacity to make 300 tons of ice per day and a storage capacity of 17,000 tons. It had the distinction of being the largest ice manufacturing facility in the world.
In 1908, its first full year of operation, the PFE transported 40,000 carloads of fruit, vegetables, and other perishable foods from California to eastern states. At its height in the 1930s, the PFE had over 41,000 ice refrigerator cars and was the largest refrigerator car operator in the world.
The number of cars owned by the company declined after the Second World War and the joint ownership of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific dissolved in March 1978. The Southern Pacific was able to keep the PFE name. The Roseville ice plant was shut down in 1973 as self-refrigerated boxcars made the ice cars obsolete. The structures were removed in 1974.
View of the Roseville yards in 1922 taken from the top of the Pacific Fruit Express icing and loading platforms from the Southern Pacific Bulletin December 1922 publication.
