In the modern day, plastic pellets are shipped out in covered hoppers. If they were even made in pellet form back then, how were they shipped from the factories in the 1950s?
First plastic pellets can be shipped in gaylords(a large box) by boxcar or truck.
In the 50's from my research pellets was shipped in gaylords in boxcars or two or three bay covered hoppers.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
BRAKIE First plastic pellets can be shipped in gaylords(a large box) by boxcar or truck. In the 50's from my research pellets was shipped in gaylords in boxcars or two or three bay covered hoppers.
So using 2 bay covered hoppers (say those that Kato makes) would be prototypical for a small plastics factory, and boxcars could be used at the same time. Did the destination determine the type of car used?
In my home town of South Milwaukee WI there was, and still is, a company called Luetzow which started as a dry cleaning business but morphed into a company that supplies the plastic bags that dry cleaners put the clothes in (and other uses for plastic bags as well). Their website has a wonderful page of corporate history including a photo, circa 1956, showing them being congratulated as being the first customer for Dow's plastic resin freight car (it looks like an Airslide car).
http://www.luetzowind.com/aHistory.html
The first Airslides were built in 1953, and they were in regular production by 1954. Those were single bay Airslides - of the sort ConCor makes, not the big Airslides of the 1960s and beyond.
They still get their plastic pellets in covered hoppers, but not Airslides at least not that I see. In the late 1960s I remember seeing CenterFlow cars at their siding.
Dave Nelson
Plastic was very expensive then. I remember my junior high shop teacher telling me to pick a project from a book. I picked a letter opener of about 3 or 4 laminated colors and he said, "do you know expensive that would cost?" Not all that much was plastic then.