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 wood-sided reefer with ice bunkers at each end — enabled local brewers, dairies, meat processors, and other food businesses to become players on a national scale. Among other things, the reefer enabled Chicago to become "Hog Butcher for the World"; in pre-reefer days, livestock had been transported to local markets and butchered as close as possible to the final consumer.

In the 19th Century, ice for reefers was harvested from frozen ponds each winter and stored as well as possible in insulated icehouses. The advent of mechanical ice making around 1900 greatly increased the capacity of the reefer fleet, which at its height consumed over one million tons of ice annually. Since loaded cars needed to be re-iced about once per day, icing stations were erected around the country on shipping routes that could be as long as coast-to-coast.

Famed railroad historian John H. White referred to reefers as "the most conservative of all American freight cars," as reefers retained wood frames and sides long after other types of cars had converted to steel construction. Steel reefers like this RailKing model became common only after 1940, and many wood reefers ran well into the 1960s. Mechanical reefers, with self-powered refrigeration units in each car, became the norm in the second half of the 20th century, and the practice of stopping a train to re-ice during shipment gradually disappeared.

Cataloged from 1954 through 1966, the SW1200 was the immediate successor to Electro-Motive’s SW9 switcher featured elsewhere in this catalog. Externally, the SW1200 was nearly identical to its older sibling. It also delivered the same 1200 horsepower from a Roots-blower-equipped V-12 model 567 diesel — so named because each cylinder displaced 567 cubic inches, more than an entire Corvette V-8. The SW1200, however, featured the latest generation 567C, with upgrades to the crankcase and cooling system. The 567C would prove to be the last hurrah of the motor that had powered almost the entire first generation of EMD diesels, as the model 645 motor would debut in 1966.

Like the SW9, the rugged SW1200 would prove popular with railroads large and small. U.S. production totaled 737 units, and EMD’s Canadian division sold another 287 engines. Brazil, Chile, and the Panama Canal Railway rostered units overseas. Thanks to the legendary durability of the 567 motor, a number of SW1200s still haul freight and tourists on US and Canadian roads today.

For 2018, the SW1200 returns to the RailKing lineup in four prototypical short line schemes. Each delivers everything you need in a hard-working switcher. Throttle down as low as three scale miles per hour to muscle a heavy cut of freight or passenger cars around your terminal — and maintain that speed as long as you wish, thanks to Proto-Speed Control and twin flywheel-equipped motors. Negotiate crowded industrial areas with curves as tight as O-27. Listen to the authentic chant of a first-generation EMD 567 motor. And pick up and drop off cars wherever you like, with remotely activated front and rear Proto-Couplers.

2018 Volume 2 Catalog

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It's Easy To Add WiFi To Your DCS Layout

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