On Oct 19, 2019, at 9:58 AM, Garth Groff <sarahsan@...> wrote:

 Tom and Guy,

Somewhere I've seen a photo taken in the 1950s of used cars being delivered to a team track for a small local auto dealer, I think on the C&O. The cars shipped were in a double-door boxcar without auto racks, or the racks were not used if present. I'm sure this was no longer done for new cars shipped by the major manufacturers, but non-rack shipping was apparently still possible.

Yours Aye,


Garth Groff

On 10/18/2019 10:37 PM, Guy Wilber via Groups.Io wrote:


Tom in Texas asked:

“When would they have quit loading cars in box cars this way?”

Tom,

The caption states these photos were taken in 1932.  Within a year Evans would introduce ‘The Auto~Loader’ and NYC followed closely thereafter with their own permanently mounted racking system.  Installation of these loading systems would eventually supplant the larger percentage of such methods used for tilting and decking vehicles within auto cars.  The transition was rapid with 34,973 auto cars equipped with loaders by September of 1937.

Despite the totals of cars equipped, the original Evans racks (A and B) could not accommodate smaller trucks such as these GMC models, or some larger automobile models.  Dual wheels and longer chassis made loading onto the racks nearly impossible.  Many railroads owning auto cars did modify the racks to appease the auto industry.  Evans would later (9-‘37) introduce racks with wider wheel pans and sliding frame components allowing multiple adjustments to accommodate larger automobiles and light trucks.   The same early restrictions held true for The NYC design; that, and the fact that manufacturers did not like their “tire chain” tie downs is likely why the road eventually purchased Evans loaders exclusively.

It would be hard to answer your question precisely, but I would guess it would be somewhat rare to see automobiles or light trucks loaded by these methods much past the 1937-38 model years.

Guy Wilber
Reno, Nevada


Tom in Texas asked:

“When would they have quit loading cars in box cars this way?”

Tom,

The caption states these photos were taken in 1932.  Within a year Evans would introduce ‘The Auto~Loader’ and NYC followed closely thereafter with their own permanently mounted racking system.  Installation of these loading systems would eventually supplant the larger percentage of such methods used for tilting and decking vehicles within auto cars.  The transition was rapid with 34,973 auto cars equipped with loaders by September of 1937.

Despite the totals of cars equipped, the original Evans racks (A and B) could not accommodate smaller trucks such as these GMC models, or some larger automobile models.  Dual wheels and longer chassis made loading onto the racks nearly impossible.  Many railroads owning auto cars did modify the racks to appease the auto industry.  Evans would later (9-‘37) introduce racks with wider wheel pans and sliding frame components allowing multiple adjustments to accommodate larger automobiles and light trucks.   The same early restrictions held true for The NYC design; that, and the fact that manufacturers did not like their “tire chain” tie downs is likely why the road eventually purchased Evans loaders exclusively.

It would be hard to answer your question precisely, but I would guess it would be somewhat rare to see automobiles or light trucks loaded by these methods much past the 1937-38 model years.

Guy Wilber
Reno, Nevada

These are very small. I leave a small section of sprue on to help me handle it, then trim it off after glue has cured. Needs a #77 hole for mounting on an end in my experience.

Bill Welch

If you think the plastic is ABS, methylene chloride should work fine.  If it is a plastic more like delrin, I would suggest the primer-glue combination of LocTite 770 primer and 401 cyanoacrylic cement.  The primer gives the delrin a chemical level "tooth" that allows the CA to grab, so it only needs to go on the delrin part.  I've used it to glue broken delrin trucks and similar parts together.

--John

Thank you Fenton!
regards
Fred Jansz

On October 18, 2019 at 5:15 PM Jack Mullen <jack.f.mullen@...> wrote:

This shows the way it was done before development of Evans loaders . One end of the vehicle is lifted, with wheels removed, and the axle is supported with wooden A-frames. Wood blocking and wire tie-downs are used to prevent shifting.

At first I thought the load was three GM trucks, but there's another tall A-frame in the background, indicating that an  unseen fourth truck is loaded in the rear of the car, with its hood to the B end, and the rear elevated above the  chassis of the next which faces the camera.

Jack Mullen

I am probably stretching the limits of this group but do not caboose come under freight cars?  To push things further I am completing the conversion of a Harriman Southern Pacific coach to a caboose.

I have encountered a problem with the American Limited diaphrams.  I have used their gray diaphrams in the past with great success.  First this project I have black units.  The plastic parts seem th be a very slick plastic that is resistant to Testors liquid plastic cement.  Has anyone has a similar experience and what was the solution?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Hope to see many of you in Lysle.

Bill Pardie

Hi List Members,

 

Another good search is to type in SHIPPING CRATE in the search box... lots of color photos of wooded shipping crates, good for a wide range of era. I suspect these could be printed on a color printer and they would make nice loads for boxcar interiors.

 

https://www.si.edu/search/collection-images?edan_q=shipping%2Bcrate

 

Claus Schlund

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

From: Claus Schlund &#92;(HGM&#92;)

To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io

Sent: Friday, October 18, 2019 10:29 AM

Subject: [RealSTMFC] PRR 50626, a 80,000 lb capacity boxcar reweighed in 1915

Hi Bob,

 

This site has a few nice freight car images, thanks for setting our attention to it.

 

One example can be seen below. PRR 50626, a 80,000 lb capacity boxcar reweighed in 1915. There is an obvious paint-out panel on the car, I wonder what text was origionally in that location.

 

Also in the image we see a composite gon, no road name discernable, but perhaps someome on the list will recognize the car construction and can tell us whose gon this is.

 

You can use the various on-screen controls to zoom and do a few other things to the image.

 

https://www.si.edu/object/siris_arc_392215?width=85%25&height=85%25&iframe=true&destination=edan_searchtab/collection_images%3Fpage%3D10%26edan_q%3Drailroad%26edan_fq%255B0%255D%3Dobject_type%253A%2522Photographs%2522

 

Enjoy!

 

Claus Schlund

 

 

 

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

From: Bob Chaparro via Groups.Io

To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io

Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2019 4:06 PM

Subject: [RealSTMFC] L. C. L. Corporation (Revised)

L. C. L. Corporation

This 1930s photo of an early containers on a flat car led me to look into the L. C. L. Corporation:

http://lists.railfan.net/erielackphoto.cgi?erielack-09-27-19/DLW_container_use_RailwayMotorTrucking_MechAdCommittee_FedCoordTrans_12-27-1935_2.jpg

The notes next to the individual container photo indicate the company provided containers to the railroads dating to the early 1920s with nearly 1,600 eventually in service on the New York Central, Lehigh Valley and B&O Railroads.

Here are two additional (but poor quality) photos from the Smithsonian Institution showing the containers in use:

https://ids.si.edu/ids/dynamic?container.fullpage&id=NMAH-AC1170-0000001

https://ids.si.edu/ids/dynamic?container.fullpage&id=NMAH-AC1170-0000002

A 1936 report of Mechanical Advisory Committee to the Office of Federal Coordinator of Transportation indicated the L.C.L. Corporation had both merchandise and bulk containers in service.

A post on the on-line Train Magazine website quoted this text from the 1940 book, Transpiration:

"A railroad freight container is a metal weather-proof, theft-proof box in which two to seven tons of freight (depending on the kind of freight) can be placed. The container is of such size as to form a definite sub-division of the surface area and the capacity of a railroad flat car. It can be transported upon a motor truck chassis. The container being a sub-division of a car's loaded capacity, the contents of the container can be given freight rates that are less than the standard l.c.l. rates per hundred pounds, but higher than carload rates. The container provides an improved service by simplifying the transfer and handling of package freight and by reducing the packing requirements. For those shippers who can make regular shipment of l.c.l. freight of considerable volume, and for freight forwarders who can combine several shippers' packages consigned to a common destination, the container has real advantage.

The use of freight car containers is not rapidly increasing, because satisfactory arrangements have not been made for the interchange of containers among connecting railroads, and a standard type of container has not been adopted by the railroads. The general inauguration of container car facilities and services and the interchange of containers by connecting carriers would require a larger investment in equipment than present traffic conditions seem to warrant.

Some railroads, the New York Central, the Lehigh Valley, the Reading, the Baltimore and Ohio, lease containers from the L.C.L. Corporation which designs, builds and leases equipment. The largest user of containers is the Pennsylvania Railroad, which has between four and five thousand of the approximately eleven thousand containers used by all railroads. While all of the Pennsylvania Railroad's freight containers can be employed in coordinated rail and motor service only one-eighth are so used, the other seven-eighths being loaded and unloaded at station platform. This station-to-station use of containers eliminates the sending of l.c.l. freight from the receiving stations to a transfer freight house for classification and consolidation by stations of destination. Freight not carried in containers may sometimes also be rehandled at transfer freight houses en route, with the consequent delays....

Originally rates upon freight shipped in containers were made upon a straight line rate per container per mile transported. These rates were found to disrupt the class rates upon goods shipped in regular services and were held to be unjustly discriminatory by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1931. The freight rates established by the railroads upon merchandise shipments transported in containers are based upon the third class rates applicable upon the net weight of the freight in the containers subject to a minimum charge equal to the third class rate upon 4000 pounds.

In no case, however, may the rates applicable to shipments in containers be less than: (1) the highest carload class rates applicable to any article in the container; (2) the class rate next lower than that specified for any article in the container as an any quantity rate; or (3) the rate applicable to the highest rated commodity in the container applied to the entire contents of the container, when articles referred to in the first two alternatives are loaded in the same container."

This information is from a 2013 University of Michigan doctorial dissertation, "The Shipping Container and the Globalization of American Infrastructure" by Matthew W. Heins:

"The New York Central’s containers were smaller than those Fitch had put into use, being 7’-2½” wide, 9’-3½” long and 8’-2½” high. (Some other sizes were also built, for more specialized purposes.) Hence two or three containers could be carried on a flatbed truck, or on a truck’s flatbed trailer, though probably in some cases only one was actually hauled. Evidently the container’s dimensions were not oriented to the truck (as was the case with Fitch’s container and later with the postwar container), but to the ideal volume for LCL cargo. The container was of steel construction, weighed 2,600 pounds, and could hold 7,000 pounds of freight. When traveling by rail the containers were carried in low side gondola cars whose walls, along with various attachments, kept them in place. The New York Central initiated the operation in 1921, and soon founded the L.C.L. Corporation to take charge of the containers. Over the 1920s the business expanded as several other railroads—especially those that interchanged with the New York Central—began using the containers, as did many freight forwarders and consolidators. While the container was most commonly used for general merchandise, it also found a niche in carrying mail shipments. Special containers were designed for certain types of bulk goods like bricks, cement, lime and coal, as well as milk, produce and meat. Originally transfers between modes were done by crane, but later versions of the container had short legs attached so they could be handled by lift trucks. By the mid-1930s nearly 4,000 containers were in use.

The New York Central’s great rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad, was taking note of these events, and started using containers of its own in 1928. In the following year the Pennsylvania Railroad created the Keystone Container Car Company to manage its containers, and by the mid-1930s over 3,000 containers were circulating through its system. These containers had almost the same capacity as those of the New York Central, but the dimensions and fittings differed slightly and so the two systems were incompatible. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s containers were held on flatcars rather than gondola cars, and in fact generally only moved by train, rarely being transferred to trucks. At depots they were loaded and unloaded more or less as a boxcar would be. So the system actually was not intermodal—its goal was essentially to convert a railcar into a series of modules amenable to LCL cargo and protected from damage or theft. However, the containers were shifted between flatcars in the course of being routed to their destinations. This was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the operation: containers were routed through a central hub, a terminal in Enola, Pennsylvania, where each was switched from its incoming train to the appropriate outgoing train to its destination.

The New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad were the most important users of containers in this period, but others also adopted and used containers of roughly comparable size. The future of containerization however did not lie with these small containers, but rather with larger units of the type pioneered by Benjamin Fitch, containers of a design and size tied principally to the truck. Essentially such a container was like a truck body with the wheels, cab and engine stripped away. The spatial character of trucking during this period determined that this type of container would be about fifteen to twenty feet long."

More can be found in this article by William T. Hoops: “The L. C. L. Merchandise Container,” Railway Age, Vol. 84, No. 8 (February 25, 1928):

https://tinyurl.com/yy68dlos (Go To Page 499)

Bob Chaparro

Hemet, CA