Lionel's 1981 catalog introduces the Favorite Food Freight collection. A Burger King GP-20 is the power for this set with a Wendy's Caboose. The cars are Lionel's reefer tooling. Three cars are listed in '81: Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Red Lobster. Note the catalog illustration includes a pre-production example of the KFC car; production models are a red car with more modern KFC artwork. The Wendy's Caboose is listed in the 1981 catalog as 6424, but production examples are 6449.

The 1982 Lionel Collector Series catalog also features The Fast Food Freight with the three addition reefers: Bonanza, Arthur Treacher and Taco Bell.