On Jul 31, 2020, at 8:59 PM, James SANDIFER <steve.sandifer@...> wrote:



You need to distinguish between express box cars and LCL service.

An express box car or express reefer would be in passenger service. So a train like a “fast mail” could have express cars from several railroads in its consist. PRR and B&O express cars ended up in Los Angeles.

LCL cars were in freight service. With the exception of some cars that were painted for company advertising, LCL cars were just cars. Those specially painted cars ended up being a pain in the neck to railroads when they came to an LCL transload facility, as the home railroad wanted to keep them on their own rails, which was not very practical. In the days before UPS and FedX, as many as 20% of the box cars on the railroads contained LCL shipments. These could be in anyone’s cars.

 

 

J. Stephen Sandifer

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Allen Cain
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2020 5:46 PM
To: main@realstmfc.groups.io
Subject: [RealSTMFC] Express Car Movements

 

Would express freight such as"LCL, Overnight, reefers, etc" roam off of their home roads and if so, how far might they travel?

 

I am modeling a Southern layout c1955 and have some SAL Express Freight and Reefers  L&N express refers and NC&Stl express refers and some MONON express boxcar and trying to determine if they are appropriate on this layout.

 

Thanks

 

Allen Csin

On Jul 31, 2020, at 8:59 PM, James SANDIFER <steve.sandifer@...> wrote:



You need to distinguish between express box cars and LCL service.

An express box car or express reefer would be in passenger service. So a train like a “fast mail” could have express cars from several railroads in its consist. PRR and B&O express cars ended up in Los Angeles.

LCL cars were in freight service. With the exception of some cars that were painted for company advertising, LCL cars were just cars. Those specially painted cars ended up being a pain in the neck to railroads when they came to an LCL transload facility, as the home railroad wanted to keep them on their own rails, which was not very practical. In the days before UPS and FedX, as many as 20% of the box cars on the railroads contained LCL shipments. These could be in anyone’s cars.

 

 

J. Stephen Sandifer

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Allen Cain
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2020 5:46 PM
To: main@realstmfc.groups.io
Subject: [RealSTMFC] Express Car Movements

 

Would express freight such as"LCL, Overnight, reefers, etc" roam off of their home roads and if so, how far might they travel?

 

I am modeling a Southern layout c1955 and have some SAL Express Freight and Reefers  L&N express refers and NC&Stl express refers and some MONON express boxcar and trying to determine if they are appropriate on this layout.

 

Thanks

 

Allen Csin

Allen,

 And to add to this excellent summary ... there was a fad of painting up some 
regular box cars for "expedited" service.  The SP Overnight, B&O Sentinel,
GN Orange and Green, etc., etc., etc.
  All of the RRs actually started out using those particular cars in some
special service (usually on their own rails) ... and in about 2 years time
those cars became "any box car - any load" cars and the paint on them
was merely an advertisement.  And, frequently, they didn't actually
provide better service than any other even in their earliest years!
  Think "marketing that doesn't actually mean anything" and you have it.
A few RRs actually put considerable extra effort to provide the advertised
service ... but the realities were that it was too costly and there were so
many reasons why it wasn't really happening that they quickly 
abandoned the attempts. 
  It was quite common for one of these cars to find its way into a
regular freight - and when that happened the "special service" they
were meant to be providing was out the window.  Likewise, it was
likely that they would not be loaded with the 'right stuff' to justify
special handling and again the use of these "special" cars was
controverted.  Finally, as soon as one of those cars left the home
road's rails there was zero guarantee they'd get any kind of 
special handling.
  I am not talking about "express cars" - I'm talking about the 
regular box cars with special paint.  So if you are modeling the
correct year(s) and you want to use these cars - go for it - or
you can just use them in your regular service as "bright
shiny objects".  If you are into "era correctness" then you need
to consider the year that those cars were painted in that scheme
(even/especially if they aren't for "your" railroad).
                                                                                      - Jim 

A MoPac Eagle LCL car could have made it to SoCal, but it's not very likely, only because these were mostly 40' and 36' low-cube cars rebuilt from single-sheathed cars without changing the roof height.  

An NYC Pacemaker definitely made it to Oklahoma or Texas, because I have a (poor, but identifiable) photo of one southbound through Kansas on the RI in 1969.

Ron Merrick

[Edited Message Follows]

When the NYC Pacemaker b ox cars first went into service, they did not have the full AAR data on them required for interchange.  Only the Load Limit and Light Weight were shown below the car number. The were in captive, on-line service.  Within a few years the red and gray Pacemakers were released for interchange. In so doing, they usually got black (instead of the original white) reporting marks with full data for capacity, weigh station, date, cubic footage and car dimensions.  In that form, a NYC Pacemaker box car could show up in SoCal, as could a B&O blue and sliver Sentinel car, which had full data on them when new. 

The B&O blue with the orange comet "Time Saver" service cars were very few in number. The B&O Group when on Yahoo could only identify nine such cars from photos. None had sequential numbers and some sported a different roof color. These cars did not seem to last long in that livery, suggesting B&O did them up for advertising at special events such as state fairs in its service territory. When shopped, they were repainted in the standard freight livery.   Sentinels were maintained with blue and silver until the early 1950's, when B&O ordered that this paint job was no longer to be used and such cars when shopped were to be repainted in standard oxide red. A few cars not needing heavy repairs kept their Sentinel blue and silver into the late 1950's.     
Ed Bommer

On Aug 1, 2020, at 6:30 AM, Jim Betz <jimbetz@...> wrote:

Allen,

 And to add to this excellent summary ... there was a fad of painting up some 
regular box cars for "expedited" service.  The SP Overnight, B&O Sentinel,
GN Orange and Green, etc., etc., etc.
  All of the RRs actually started out using those particular cars in some
special service (usually on their own rails) ... and in about 2 years time
those cars became "any box car - any load" cars and the paint on them
was merely an advertisement.  And, frequently, they didn't actually
provide better service than any other even in their earliest years!
  Think "marketing that doesn't actually mean anything" and you have it.
A few RRs actually put considerable extra effort to provide the advertised
service ... but the realities were that it was too costly and there were so
many reasons why it wasn't really happening that they quickly 
abandoned the attempts. 
  It was quite common for one of these cars to find its way into a
regular freight - and when that happened the "special service" they
were meant to be providing was out the window.  Likewise, it was
likely that they would not be loaded with the 'right stuff' to justify
special handling and again the use of these "special" cars was
controverted.  Finally, as soon as one of those cars left the home
road's rails there was zero guarantee they'd get any kind of 
special handling.
  I am not talking about "express cars" - I'm talking about the 
regular box cars with special paint.  So if you are modeling the
correct year(s) and you want to use these cars - go for it - or
you can just use them in your regular service as "bright
shiny objects".  If you are into "era correctness" then you need
to consider the year that those cars were painted in that scheme
(even/especially if they aren't for "your" railroad).
                                                                                      - Jim 

Friends,

This has nothing to do with freight cars, but Toad Suck, Arkansas, that Jim mentioned is a real place (sort of). The minister who married Sally and myself was from there, and his mother still lived in nearby Booger Hollow. Toad Suck is noted for the Toad Suck Dam and Locks. 

Yours Aye,

Garth Groff 🦆

On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 12:19 PM James SANDIFER <steve.sandifer@...> wrote:

LCL freight cars would roam the country just like any other freight car. Let’s say you are a mfg. in New Jersey. You take your stuff to the freight house. The freight house has enough stuff from various senders to ship to Los Angeles to fill two cars, so they do.  Another car may head to Atlanta, another to Memphis, another to Houston. Those cars will be put in trains and interchanged until they get to the freight houses in those cities, sealed all the way. Cars for that use can be pulled from the local empties using car interchange rules.

However, they also have a package headed to Dime Box Texas and Toad Suck Arkansas. Those will be consolidated into cars headed to the Houston and Little Rock areas. Branch line trains or coordinated rail-truck freight will finally deliver those packages. If those cars are not full, they may stop in St. Louis and/or Kansas City to be further sorted and consolidated. The package which left New Jersey in a Union Pacific box car might be carried by 3 different box cars before it arrived at its destination. Most transload facilities received cars all day, swapped packages from one car to another, then were pulled around 6-7:00p to head to their next destination hopefully to arrive by 6:00a for delivery the next day. At a freight or transload house, every spot on every track had a designated destination, and everyone on the dock knew that system – it was the same every day. If a box car loaded with mixed destination freight arrived from Chicago and was spotted at the New Orleans spot, it will be unloaded and then reloaded with packages headed to New Orleans. No one cared who the home road was for that car – it was in the New Orleans spot, to New Orleans it would go. Had it come in 30 minutes later, it might be in the Chicago spot headed back to Chicago. About 5p the freight house will close to new freight shipments, all the cars will be finished up, loads braced, and then the house will be pulled pretty much at one time, the cars taken to the yard and put on trains. Crews would not normally pull one car, then come back and pull another, etc. Remember the cars were often spotted 4-5 cars wide with their doors lined up and bridges placed between the cars to facilitate  movement from one car to another. You did not come and pull a car from the middle of that.  The freight house tracks would sit empty most of the night as new arrivals came on the overnight trains.  

Look at the photos sent yesterday of Chicago. Freight houses were everywhere in the downtown area.

 

 

J. Stephen Sandifer

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Allen Cain
Sent: Saturday, August 1, 2020 8:42 AM
To: main@realstmfc.groups.io
Subject: Re: [RealSTMFC] Express Car Movements

 

Thanks for all who contributed.

 

I am clear on the "Express" cars traveling around about anywhere but not so clear on the LCL cars.

 

Am I to understand that LCL FREIGHT cars would have TYPICALLY stayed on the home roads but COULD have strayed to other roads?

 

Thanks again,

 

Allen Cain