Undelivered Oranges & Rare Crate Labels
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My grandfather was a boilermaker foreman at L&N's South Louisville Shops. I was a small boy when he came home in a hurry one day, gathered up all of us in the car along with boxes and buckets. As we arrived at the shops a wreck train pulled in with a damaged engine. A large amount of coal had been displaced by strawberries. What was in the cab had mostly been cooked but there was a LOT of berries on that tender and damaged crates on both the tender and a flat car behind it. There was a free for all with folks loading lunch boxes, burlap bags, every sort of thing with berries to take home. Grandmother, my mom and aunt worked late into the night cleaning berries we took home. The next day there was shortcake and lots of jam being made. A memorable day for a boy who got all the strawberries he could hold for two days. Plus breakfast jam for a couple of years on grammas biscuits. Of course we were doing the RR a favor. Otherwise the cleaners would have needed to remove all that fruit before the engine moved in to the shop. Chuck Peck in FL On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 10:12 AM, Jon Miller atsfus@... [STMFC] <STMFC@...> wrote:
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Jon Miller <atsfus@...>
On 2/18/2017 6:47 AM,
ron.merrick@... [STMFC] wrote:
Even in those days, they probably were not legally available for resale to a local grocery store, right? Or would they have been left to rot in place? Depending on the location and date I bet the
full crates might have gone to a local market and the rest
would have been gone to local folks overnight. It kind of looks
like cabbage (I deleted most of this thread) so maybe a lot of
pickling for the next few days [grin]! -- Jon Miller For me time stopped in 1941 Digitrax Chief/Zephyr systems, JMRI User NMRA Life member #2623 Member SFRH&MS |
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Charlie Vlk
The other day my wife and I were at Jo-Ann Fabrics and I turned to her and asked, "Do you remember these?".......they now sell orange crates as decorator items!!!
We used to go to the back of a grocery store get them for free and build things using them; all today's kids do is order something from Amazon using their parents credit card! Charlie Vlk |
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mopacfirst
I believe we can see half of the end of the deceased reefer, the end that would have been to the right of the viewer who was watching the train, and a portion of the adjacent side that would have been on the opposite side of the track from the viewer. Chances are that would have been the B end, since there seems to be a brake wheel just about dead center in the rubble. It might be possible to make an educated guess as to whose reefer it was, based on the construction. If I was interested in taking a break from layout construction, I might.
While both the B&O box and the Southern gon are clearly destroyed, the advantages of steel are abundantly clear. The load in that gon isn't even spilled. If I had to guess, though, I'll bet the wrecking crew would have dumped it over the side before or while they were in the process of picking up the car. Now, an actual question. Who owns those crates of oranges at that point, after they've gone into the ditch? Aside from the bystanders, who probably have snagged a handful or a bucketful of them, would they have gone to a railroad salvage entity? Even in those days, they probably were not legally available for resale to a local grocery store, right? Or would they have been left to rot in place? One has to assume that the B&O claims agent has already been on the scene by the time this photo was taken. I know we have some actual traffic experts on this list. Ron Merrick |
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rwitt_2000
Eric,
The road number makes it a class M-8b as you stated and it seems definite that it has the replacement steel center sills otherwise the car would have collapse as the reefer did. Bob Witt |
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Eric Hansmann
The box car looks to be B&O 93554, a member of the M-8b class. Many M-8 box cars retained the truss rods after being upgrade with straight steel centersills.
About the time of this 1918 photo, the M-8 class (and subclasses) was the most numerous B&O box car class. 9988 M-8 and subclass cars were listed in the October 1926 ORER.
Eric Hansmann El Paso, TX
From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...]
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2017 11:40 AM To: STMFC@... Subject: [STMFC] Undelivered Oranges & Rare Crate Labels
This is a link to a photo from the Miami (Ohio) Conservancy District's Construction Photos Archive:
http://www.miamiconservancy.org/resources/ConstructionPhotos-WM.asp?ID=2710
This photo was taken on the B & O Railroad at Taylorsville on 7/26/1918. It shows a rather messy wreck with orange crates scattered in the foreground.
Being interested in the citrus industry as well as railroads, I shared the photo with Tom Spellman, President of the Citrus Label Society (http://citruslabelsociety.com/), hoping that he could recognize the difficult to identify crate labels. He did.
These are very rare labels from McPherson Brothers in McPherson, CA. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries the community of McPherson was on the northeast side of Orange, CA.
SaddleBack is the label on the two main boxes and Golden Beaver is the label with the box laying on its side. SaddleBack is very, very rare and to date only two known examples survive. The Golden Beaver label is survived by probably less than ten examples.
It's amazing what treasures are found in these old photos. Now if Tony Thompson can identify the destroyed refrigerator car from the splintered remains that would really be something.
Bob Chaparro Hemet, CA
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John Barry
I don't know about the reefer, but from the background, it was truly a Corn Field Meet! John Barry ATSF North Bay Lines Golden Gates & Fast Freights 707-490-9696 PO Box 44736 Washington, DC 20026-4736 From: "thecitrusbelt@... [STMFC]" To: STMFC@... Sent: Friday, February 17, 2017 1:39 PM Subject: [STMFC] Undelivered Oranges & Rare Crate Labels This is a link to a photo from the Miami
(Ohio)
Conservancy District's Construction Photos Archive: This photo was taken on the B & O Railroad at Taylorsville on 7/26/1918. It shows a rather messy wreck
with orange crates scattered in the foreground. Being interested in the citrus industry as well as
railroads, I shared the photo with Tom Spellman, President of the Citrus Label
Society (http://citruslabelsociety.com/),
hoping that he could recognize the difficult to identify crate labels. He did. These are very rare labels from McPherson Brothers in McPherson, CA.
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries the community of McPherson was on the
northeast side of Orange, CA. SaddleBack is the label on the two main boxes and Golden
Beaver is the label with the box laying on its side. SaddleBack is very, very
rare and to date only two known examples survive. The Golden Beaver label is
survived by probably less than ten examples. It's amazing what treasures are found in these old photos. Now
if Tony Thompson can identify the destroyed refrigerator car from the
splintered remains that would really be something. Bob Chaparro Hemet, CA |
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thecitrusbelt@...
This is a link to a photo from the Miami (Ohio) Conservancy District's Construction Photos Archive:
http://www.miamiconservancy.org/resources/ConstructionPhotos-WM.asp?ID=2710
This photo was taken on the B & O Railroad at Taylorsville on 7/26/1918. It shows a rather messy wreck with orange crates scattered in the foreground.
Being interested in the citrus industry as well as railroads, I shared the photo with Tom Spellman, President of the Citrus Label Society (http://citruslabelsociety.com/), hoping that he could recognize the difficult to identify crate labels. He did.
These are very rare labels from McPherson Brothers in McPherson, CA. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries the community of McPherson was on the northeast side of Orange, CA.
SaddleBack is the label on the two main boxes and Golden Beaver is the label with the box laying on its side. SaddleBack is very, very rare and to date only two known examples survive. The Golden Beaver label is survived by probably less than ten examples.
It's amazing what treasures are found in these old photos. Now if Tony Thompson can identify the destroyed refrigerator car from the splintered remains that would really be something.
Bob Chaparro
Hemet, CA
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