Re: PM Box loading with ground corn cobs.
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The photo shows a portable corn sheller mounted on the back of a truck. The farmer is shoveling corn into the sheller, which is blowing the shelled corn into the boxcar and dumping the cobs on the ground.
Corn cobs were a valuable commodity well after WWII. The CNW built a cob unloading device in Colo IA in 1956, (drawing attached) And I have people who remember the cob pile in town. I also know Belle Plaine IA had a large cob pile and shipped out cobs on the CNW well into the 60s & 70s. I understood they went to a cosmetics company.
Cobs were also used as a biodegradable sand blasting material, animal bedding, and today for ethanol production.
Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io [mailto:main@RealSTMFC.groups.io] On Behalf Of Matt Smith
Nice pic of car loading with ground corn cobs. I read that corn cobs used during the war effort I believe it had something to do with plastics manufacturing??? Several articles indicated local elevators shipping corn cobs for the war effort.
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