I am aware that billboard cars were banned on the interchange in the 1930s. But I am curious about freight cars that were owned by corporations, and the degree to which they would have shown up on the interchange.
For example, did oil and chemical companies own tank cars with their logos? And did meat or produce distributors have reefer cars?
I assume that box cars for Baby Ruth and Purina Cat Chow were perverse creations of a Tyco employee and not based on prototypes, but I have been surprised by this kind of thing before. ;)
Currently, there is a high percentage of non-railroad owned freight cars. Private owned freight cars pay for transport over common carriers both ways(including returning empty).
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Shock ControlI assume that box cars for Baby Ruth and Purina Cat Chow were perverse creations of a Tyco employee and not based on prototypes, but I have been surprised by this kind of thing before. ;)
Actually, the Baby Ruth billboard reefer did exist in more than one version. There was even a Baby Ruth tank car. See Billboard Refrigerator Cars by Hendrickson and Kaminski.
Enjoy
Paul
Shock ControlI am aware that billboard cars were banned on the interchange in the 1930s.
Actually no. They weren't banned because they still exist. What happened was that the ICC said customers didn't have to ship their products in cars with advertising for a product that wasn't theirs. Budweiser didn't have to use a car lettered for Miller Beer. That made RAILROAD owned cars with billboard lettering unattractive for railroads. If a car owner wanted to put billboard lettering on one of their cars for use in moving their products, that was perfectly fine. Swift meats had billboard reefers up until the end of their rail fleets because Swift cars were owned by Swift Meats and hauled Swift products.
Similarly chemical companies that lease cars for their service will sometimes letter them for the products they carry.
But I am curious about freight cars that were owned by corporations, and the degree to which they would have shown up on the interchange. For example, did oil and chemical companies own tank cars with their logos? And did meat or produce distributors have reefer cars?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Cars not owned by railroads have reporting marks that end in "X". So any aaaX reporting marks car is owned by a company other than a railroad. If a company leased or bought a car and used it to haul only their products they could put any logo they wanted on it. As long as the car was mechanically sound it could be used in interchange service.
Private owner cars were probably less than 20% of the national fleet back in the 1920's and are probably more than half of the fleet today.
Generally yes, but Kelloggs did have its own cars for hauling cereal products (KELX) and they briefly had cereal logos on them. They were removed because people tended to like to shoot at the logos, thus damaging the cars and contaminating the contents, so the logos were removed. The last big blast of billboard lettering I remember were the 1970's when a lot of chemical companies put big logos for their products on the sides of tank and covered hopper cars.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
And then there is the Tropicana Juice train which today mostly displays graffiti but is supposed to be a rolling ad for the Juices. In fact they and GE have used itvin advertisin.
Joe Staten Island West
the 1934 icc ruling had more to do with the death of the billboard car than the 33 one , the 34 ruling stated in short that railroads no longer had to move them because they lost revenue , so they said.
The 'anti-billboard' rule was really a restriction on the size of the lettering used on privately owned or leased cars. As long as the lettering was below a certain size, it was OK. So if company A lettered a car with big 5' letters for it's products, company B could refuse to ship it's product in the car. If it was below the maximum (I think 20"?) then company B couldn't refuse it.
An interesting sidelight is this was only privately owned / leased cars. As the new streamliners came along in the 1930's, railroads realized they could use their freight cars to advertise them, so lettering got larger and new slogans and heralds came in to use on railroad owned cars.
Thanks all. The responses have generally reinforced my understanding of things. I run postwar-era trains, and try to shoot for realism without being obsessive. It sounds like I can reasonably run oil/chemical tankers and meat/dairy/produce-distributor reefers. I will leave the Purina Cat Chow and Dots Candy cars, though, for the 70s Tyco collectors. ;)
The ICC found advertising products on billboard reefers to be an illegal rebate to shippers. The prohibition applied to railroad and private owner cars. From what I can gather is that a company like Swift could put their name on the car, but couldn't advertise specific products, such has hams, etc. The order applied to reefers.
There is an AAR interchange rule 8 that covers advertising. Quoted from this site
https://www.railinc.com/rportal/aar-circulars (circular OT-10)
RULE 8 – Advertisements The placing of advertisements or banners of any kind upon any freight or passenger car or locomotive (including permanent stakes which are a part of open-top cars), is prohibited except: 1. Advertisements or banners may be placed thereon for photographic purposes only, while such equipment is at rest on private tracks, or on service tracks of the railroad and when so placed must be removed prior to movement of the equipment, the placement and removal to be by and at the expense of the shipper or consignee. 2. Advertisements may be painted upon passenger equipment used in special train movements, the expense of painting and removal to be borne by the user. This does not prohibit the placing of advertisements or banners on the lading or attaching them to temporary stakes used to secure the lading on open-top cars
Jeff
For my 1950's era operations, my private owner stock includes meat reefers, tank cars for specialized lading, and Carbon Black covered hoppers. There are also lessors such as Mather stock cars. I can imagine a few other private owner cars, but not many.
Tom
BTW, I don't think anyone mentioned this, but since about 1920 any rail car with reporting marks ending in "X" indicates that the car is not owned by a railroad. So when you see cars whose reporting marks are "UTLX" or "SHPX" etc., those cars are privately owned.
One thing that can be confusing when looking at 'the old days' is that under T. Roosevelt, railroads were requiring to spin-off their refrigerator car leasing operations. Often, the railroad set up a private company and transferred ownership of their cars to the new company, who would then lease the cars back to the railroad. So, for example, c. 1955 a Burlington reefer was owned by Burlingon Refrigerator Express, not the CB&Q. It had reporting marks BREX, although it had the "Burlington Route" herald on it.
Of course, in reality, these reefer companies often had executives who were also board members of the railroad, so there was a relationship. But it was kept separate enough to meet the "arm's length transaction" test.
1950's: private owner reefers, virtually all tank cars (railroad owned tank cars were primarily compnay service and non-revenue), specialized covered hoppers (airslides, carbon black, chemicals), Railway Express Agency cars (boxcars, reefers, express baggage cars), government owned cars (Army, Navy, Air Force, Dept of Defense, Atomeic Energy Commission, etc) and some high capacity cars.
As far as billboards in the 50/60s I recall seeing a lot of green Linde Industrial Gases in big bold lettering on a wide white stripe then who can forget those grain cars of the 70s-Lincoln Grains comes to mind or companies like Wrap's or Dupont Plastics in large lettering-isn't that considered billboard advertising? How about that big bold Hubers with smaller Clay Slurry or Englehardt? There are other examples including my favorite ADM Corn Syrup.
I often wondered about that and thought I would toss it in for feed back.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Jeff - Rule 8 isn't the issue here, that's something different. Today, when people hear "billboard reefer", they think that railroads leased space on their freight cars for companys to post advertising slogans etc. That didn't happen. What did happen is a railroad or later a freight car leasing company would lease cars to a private company, and that company would decorate it with their company information, often using large letters and pictures resembling an advertising billboard...hence the term "billboard reefer". Rule 8 has more to do with a company putting signs on a car temporarily, to advertise a special shipment ("Our 1000th shipment of apples to Chicago!") or to otherwise let people know what's being shipped. You can post those on the cars for a picture, but then have to take them off when the cars begin their journey to their destination.
The problem with billboard reefers was that company A would refuse to ship it's products in a car lettered for company B. This meant that railroads often had to ship perfectly good cars back to the shipper empty; which meant less revenue for the railroad. The 1930's ICC rules didn't technically ban billboard reefers, it just said that if you had lettering over a certain size etc. then you would have to reimburse the railroad for shipping your empty car back to you. If the lettering met the new standards, other companys couldn't choose not to use the reefer lettered for your company. (It gets more involved but that's the main idea.)
If a company had enough need for specific cars, and agreed to pay the price, they could letter their cars however they wanted. That's why Larry mentioned seeing 'billboard' lettered cars long after the ICC rules came into affect.
BTW it was only private owners that were affected by the 1930's rules. Railroads could put as big a herald or as many slogans as they wanted, as long as they met the ICC standards for the regular requirements - reporting marks, weights, build dates etc.
BRAKIE As far as billboards in the 50/60s I recall seeing a lot of green Linde Industrial Gases in big bold lettering on a wide white stripe then who can forget those grain cars of the 70s-Lincoln Grains comes to mind or companies like Wrap's or Dupont Plastics in large lettering-isn't that considered billboard advertising? How about that big bold Hubers with smaller Clay Slurry or Englehardt? There are other examples including my favorite ADM Corn Syrup. I often wondered about that and thought I would toss it in for feed back.
Yes, those Linde "boxcars" were actually tank cars in boxcar bodies. They always carried Linde products, so their lettering conformed to the law.