--- In STMFC@..., Benjamin Hom <b.hom@...> wrote:

Paul Catapano asked:
"GENERALLY did railroads assign cars to LCL service semi-permanently?"


Ben Hom answered:
Yes, but the numbers were never as large as the railroad marketing

departments

have led many to believe. Those specially equipped cars with the

fancy paint

were certainly assigned to LCL service, but far greater numbers of

clean general

service boxcars spent part of their time moving LCL.

The B&O for one did not. Their LCL service was the "Time-Saver Service"
and they did have a limited number of box cars painted in the famous
blue with orange comet stenciling with a silver roof. In the late 1950s
the B&O adopted a stenciling on their freight car red box cars
advertising both their "Sentinel Service" and "Time-Saver Service".
(see: http://borhs.org/ModelerMag/index.html). Scroll to the bottom of
the page and download the box stenciling 1920-1960 PDF for examples.

Their box cars suitable for LCL loading or "clean" loads received a
letter "T" inside a circle stenciled to the left of the road number. In
the mid-1960s I recall seeing recently shopped class M-26 box cars,
originally built in the mid to late 1920s, with new paint and stenciling
with a circle T and a "Class A" card from the car inspector. Only box
cars with a circle T were suitable for Time-Saver Service no matter what
logo was stenciled on the car.

Regards,

Bob Witt