On Jun 11, 2008, at 3:06 PM, rickstern845215 wrote:

Atlas has in their HO line a meat reefer decorated for Swift and the
lettering for "Brookfield Butter". I'm aware that Swift owned a
dairy/breakfast (eggs, milk, butter, etc.) products firm called
Brookfield, but I don't know if they had any special cars for
transporting dairy prodcuts.

See the forthcoming Signature Press book on billboard reefers (out
in July, unless Tony Thompson speaks with forked tongue). As it
happens, I'm doing a final review/copyread at this very moment, It
includes a photo of a Swift car with Brookfield Butter stenciling.

Can anyone tell me ...

* Were these cars used for transporting meat, or dairy products?


E.g., was this just another of Swift's many advertising "sides"
used on
their meat cars? *

Whatever Swift wanted to ship in them. Though the cars were RSMs,
their meat rails didn't prevent them from being used for dairy
products as well.

What was the time period when these cars were
active. I have found collectibles on the web for Swift's Brookfield
subsidiary from before WWII, but not after.

As the book explains, billboard reefers were banned by the ICC
effective in 1934, with all cars having such stenciling to be
repainted by 1938.

* What parts of the
country might these cars have operated?

Any place where Swift had packing plants or wholesale warehouses -
which is to say, just about anywhere except on remote branch lines.

Richard Hendrickson