Date
1 - 6 of 6
C&NW "X" cars
|
Charlie Vlk
All-
I know this has been discussed before but in browsing the Library of Congress photo collection I found an intriguingly captioned photo of a C&NW captive service package car being loaded. The caption reads " Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad runs a special service in these freight cars marked "X" between Chicago and Milwaukee. The cars are loaded with goods in proper order on these hand trucks. The cars are sent on to Milwaukee, trucks and all, are unloaded there, trucks reloaded, and shipped in the freight cars back to specified tracks. By setting aside special tracks at both ends, and keeping the goods in proper order for unloading, a great deal of time is saved ". At first I thought that the caption should read "The cars are sent on to Proviso...." as the picture was taken of a car being loaded in Chicago (likely in the freight terminal under the Merchandise Mart). "X" marked cars were loaded, hand trucks and all, to be forwarded to the large covered freight terminal LCL operation at the west end of the Proviso Yard. But note that the car is lettered "MILWAUKEE" so there must have been a similar operation between Chicago and Milwaukee, not just Chicago and Proviso. Any C&NW experts can fill in details of these cars that are often mislabeled as "explosives cars"!! Charlie Vlk |
|
|
|
Eric Hansmann
I wonder if the small Milwaukee lettering is a destination tag.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Eric Hansmann Murfreesboro, TN On Feb 13, 2022, at 4:51 PM, Charlie Vlk <cvlk@...> wrote: |
|
|
|
Dave Nelson
Just noticed this....
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
I rather doubt the loading point in Chicago was the Merchandise Mart. The mart was for display purposes only. The idea was that manufacturer's could send their new products to one location and buyers could send their people to the same one location to see all of the product lines. Think new cars from every manufacturer as one example. Time and money saved by everyone. More likely the car was loaded at Proviso. Freight car question: The photos of I've seen of these X cars are from the early to mid 40's. Anyone know when this special marking was dropped? Dave Nelson -----Original Message-----
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Charlie Vlk Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2022 2:52 PM To: RealSTMFC@groups.io Subject: [RealSTMFC] C&NW "X" cars All- I know this has been discussed before but in browsing the Library of Congress photo collection I found an intriguingly captioned photo of a C&NW captive service package car being loaded. The caption reads " Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad runs a special service in these freight cars marked "X" between Chicago and Milwaukee. The cars are loaded with goods in proper order on these hand trucks. The cars are sent on to Milwaukee, trucks and all, are unloaded there, trucks reloaded, and shipped in the freight cars back to specified tracks. By setting aside special tracks at both ends, and keeping the goods in proper order for unloading, a great deal of time is saved ". At first I thought that the caption should read "The cars are sent on to Proviso...." as the picture was taken of a car being loaded in Chicago (likely in the freight terminal under the Merchandise Mart). "X" marked cars were loaded, hand trucks and all, to be forwarded to the large covered freight terminal LCL operation at the west end of the Proviso Yard. But note that the car is lettered "MILWAUKEE" so there must have been a similar operation between Chicago and Milwaukee, not just Chicago and Proviso. Any C&NW experts can fill in details of these cars that are often mislabeled as "explosives cars"!! Charlie Vlk |
|
|
|
I asked all these questions at a younger age after stumbling onto a very faded car myself at Proviso in the 1960's.
Here is a pictorial discussion of Proviso Yard including the LCL house: https://www.cnwhs.org/faq.pl And this below from the CNWHS FAQ pages (Lloyd is Lloyd Keyser a bedrock of CNW information): Chris Rooney Q: What did the large x on the door of CNW box cars mean? Ron A: The large X on the wood box car doors were used in LCL service from various Chicago freight houses to the huge LCL facility at Proviso Yard. They were called "Dolly Cars" as the freighthouses used movable wire cages on casters loaded with the LCL packages. These were easily rolled out of the cars at Proviso for sorting into overnight box cars to various cities. The westbound trains were called the Roundup. This was of course replaced with the overnight piggy back 26 foot trailers in 1954. NWL has had a pix or two showing these cars being pulled from the Merchandise Mart. Lloyd |
|
|
|
Dennis Storzek <dennis@...>
On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 11:49 AM, Dave Nelson wrote:
More likely the car was loaded at Proviso.Yeah, but once loaded, the car had to go somewhere. And, with the amount of display samples going into and coming out of the Mart (samples of last seasons product didn't simply disappear) given the fact that C&NW had track right under the building, I would be very surprised if the road didn't make some accommodation to allow all those big shippers an easy way to move their product. Dennis Storzek |
|
|
|
Dennis Storzek <dennis@...>
On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 03:26 PM, Dennis Storzek wrote:
I would be very surprised if the road didn't make some accommodation to allow all those big shippers an easy way to move their product.Clicked send too soon. This article has a good photo of the C&NW freight house in the shadow of the Mart: http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2017/01/c-wells-street-yard-and-freight-house.html Dennis Storzek |
|
|
