So the fork lift and the wood pallet doomed most barrel use?

Tim O'


-----Original Message-----

From: destorzek@...
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Sent: 2020-03-17 11:16:56 PM
Subject: Re: [RealSTMFC] Photo: Barrels in A Boxcar (Cement)

Lots of things used to be shipped in barrels at one time. Another example would be nails, which used to come in small size barrels called kegs. Last time I saw a nail keg was in the sixties while in high school. The wood shop instructor and I were down in the basement under the shops looking for some hardwood planks for a project, and off to the side was a row of kegs with different size nails. The typical high school wood shop doesn't use many nails, and now I'm wondering if these were still from the original stock-up order from when the school was built in the thirties.

Railroad spikes and track bolts still come in kegs, although the modern version are short steel drums. For that matter, a lot of smaller foundry product was shipped in barrels at one time; barrels are stronger than crates, and easier to move by hand.

Strangest one I remember was receiving several factory type lunchroom tables manufactured by the Chicago Hardware Foundry back about 1975, and the leg castings and swing arms for the seats were packed in fiberboard drums, which are also a modern derivative of the barrel. Traditional practices die hard.

Dennis Storzek


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Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts