On my previous layout, I accumulated a lot of rolling stock just because it looked interesting without giving it much thought about how it fit in my operational scheme, primarily because I just liked running trains with very little in the way of operations. Naturally I am trying to use most of those cars on my current layout but there is one that seems rather odd. It is a billboard reefer for Van Camp's and I started to wonder why a canned food company would need a reefer. It apparently is supposed to represent a company owned car since it's road number is prefaced by VCIX.
I did some research and learned that Van Camp's began in Indianapolis in 1861 as a canner of summertime fruits and vegetables for winter consumption. It got a jump start when it was contracted to supply the Union army and when the war was over, those soldiers continued to want their products. Throughout its history it has always been a canned food company through numerous mergers and breakups. It is now exclusively in the canned beans business. Does anyone know why a canned food company would need the use of reefers.
It was a rolling billboard, there were many. Also not all carried what was on their sides all the time.
rrebell It was a rolling billboard, there were many. Also not all carried what was on their sides all the time.
I considered that but that doesn't explain the VCIX prefacing the road number. I'm guessing the VC stands for Van Camp which indicates to me it is a company owned reefer. Why would Van Camp need to own a reefer?
It's probably just a "fantasy" thing, and no prototype actually existed, or, it's what rrebell says.
And besides, if it did exist, it could make sense, as maybe there weren't any insulated box cars and the product needed some type of temp. control.
Who made the car you have?
Mike.
My You Tube
I checked the historical car reporting marks website and VCIX was assigned to Van Camps back in 1935 and is still valid for use by Van Camps along with 3 other reporting marks.
I don't know how Van Camps operated but I know Campbell's in Napoleon received raw materials to make soup in various kinds of cars so I would assume Van Camps would also.
Rick Jesionowski
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
dti406 I checked the historical car reporting marks website and VCIX was assigned to Van Camps back in 1935 and is still valid for use by Van Camps along with 3 other reporting marks. I don't know how Van Camps operated but I know Campbell's in Napoleon received raw materials to make soup in various kinds of cars so I would assume Van Camps would also. Rick Jesionowski
So what you are telling me is this car might be used to bring fruits and vegetables to the cannery cooled by the ice bunkers. I think I've read that reefers could be used as boxcars without icing them as needed. At least that's what I've read about the REA reefers.
dti406I checked the historical car reporting marks website
Rick, do you have a link for that site?
Tomatoes, pork could have been shipped by reefer.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
One possible explanation is that before the invention of insulated boxcars, temperature sensitive products still needed protection from temperature extremes. Reefers were insulated and in the summer often ran in ventilated service with the hatches open, un-iced, but carrying things like potatoes, beer and -- just maybe -- canned foods that would spoil (or have their shelf life shortened) if they got too hot. In winter closing up the car would keep out extremes of cold far better than a boxcar could.
I suppose another possible use was to ship refrigerated produce TO Van Camps for canning. I suspect they had a cold storage warehouse.
Still a third explanation is that the reefers were used to ship the pork that Van Camps needed.
And even if that Van Camp's reefer rarely hauled Van Camp's own products or raw materials, if they owned it or leased it it was making money for them, with the "traveling billboard" advertisement being a nice bonus.
By the way one of Jeff Wilson's Industries Beside the Tracks books has a chapter on railroads, the canning business, and the rolling stock that served it.
Dave Nelson
Vegetables would need to be refrigerated going into the plant and in the winter "canned" goods in glass jars would need to be kept warm to prevent freezing.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
mbinsewi It's probably just a "fantasy" thing, and no prototype actually existed, or, it's what rrebell says. And besides, if it did exist, it could make sense, as maybe there weren't any insulated box cars and the product needed some type of temp. control. Who made the car you have? Mike.
I wish I could tell you but it was probably a either a flea market find or from my LHS second hand shelf. Turning it over doesn't give me a clue. Having built lots of Athearn and Roundhouse kits early on and more recently Accurail, its not one of them. I've also accumulated lots of Atlas RTR and it doesn't look like that either. Just don't know.
EDIT: Out of curiosity I went out to ebay and found this for sale:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/183763925006
It's a Van Camp milk reefer. It's looks to be the same style as my reefer. My research hadn't indicated the were ever in the dairy business but a few more google searches indicates they were in the early 20th century.
Searched a little more on ebay and found another one that indicates it is a Walthers kit built car.
VCMX is not a valid reporting mark according to the 1943 ORER.
VCMX was assigned to the Van Camps Milk Co in 1935 as part of Merchants Despatch Inc.
I use this site as it keeps track of old reporting marks and when they might have been reassigned.
http://www.nakina.net/other/report/report.html
Van Camp Milk
More on Gilbert Van Camp and evaporated milk
And that is the rest of the story
Thanks for link Rick.
Just to add, since there's always been some confusion about "billboard" reefers....
The "billboard" name was because early versions of privately owned reefers were painted with large letters and slogans of the owner's products - like a rolling advertising billboard. It was NOT a situation where a company paid a railroad or someone else to paint advertising on a regular freight car.
If it's correct that VCIX reporting marks indicates the car was owned (or more likely, leased) by Van Camps, it would only be used to haul their products. A railroad could not put anything else in the car. The company that owned or leased the car wouldn't allow it, and other companies would not want to use it anyway. There's no way Oscar Mayer would allow it's products to be loaded into a Swift or Cudahy reefer and then pay a railroad to haul their competitor's rolling advertisement across the country. That meant railroads often had to haul empty cars back to their owner, meaning the railroad got less money than they would have earned hauling a full car.
That's a large part of the reason billboard reefers were effectively outlawed in the 1930's. It gets kinda complicated, but basically if you wanted to use lettering over a certain size on your car, you had to either have something to load into the car and send it back to where it started, or pay to have the empty car shipped back to the starting poing at the higher loaded-car rate. However, cars with smaller lettering had to be accepted by other companies if the car was not specifically in some sort of captive or limited service.
f course, this didn't apply to railroad owned cars, and about the time the billboard reefers were outlawed railroads began changing their freight cars to have larger lettering, slogans, and graphics.
wjstix Just to add, since there's always been some confusion about "billboard" reefers.... The "billboard" name was because early versions of privately owned reefers were painted with large letters and slogans of the owner's products - like a rolling advertising billboard. It was NOT a situation where a company paid a railroad or someone else to paint advertising on a regular freight car. If it's correct that VCIX reporting marks indicates the car was owned (or more likely, leased) by Van Camps, it would only be used to haul their products. A railroad could not put anything else in the car. The company that owned or leased the car wouldn't allow it, and other companies would not want to use it anyway. There's no way Oscar Mayer would allow it's products to be loaded into a Swift or Cudahy reefer and then pay a railroad to haul their competitor's rolling advertisement across the country. That meant railroads often had to haul empty cars back to their owner, meaning the railroad got less money than they would have earned hauling a full car. That's a large part of the reason billboard reefers were effectively outlawed in the 1930's. It gets kinda complicated, but basically if you wanted to use lettering over a certain size on your car, you had to either have something to load into the car and send it back to where it started, or pay to have the empty car shipped back to the starting poing at the higher loaded-car rate. However, cars with smaller lettering had to be accepted by other companies if the car was not specifically in some sort of captive or limited service. f course, this didn't apply to railroad owned cars, and about the time the billboard reefers were outlawed railroads began changing their freight cars to have larger lettering, slogans, and graphics.
So are you telling me my billboard reefers would not be appropriate for my layout set in 1956? I have quite a few of these including several meat packing companies and A&P. If that is true, I'm glad I'm a free lancer and can rewrite history. In my world, that law was never passed.
As for the Van Camp reefer, it makes it seem even less likely to me they would need a reefer to ship their canned goods. It's possible they might receive raw produce at their canneries in reefers but would they have had their own reefers for that purpose?
John-NYBWSo are you telling me my billboard reefers would not be appropriate for my layout set in 1956?
Also depends on what you mean by "billboard reefer."
A car with advertising on the side of it was not banned per se. Meat packing plants, chemical companies and other private owners continued to put product names and slogans on their cars to this day. Think Tropicana orange juice train.
Or a chemical car:
What was banned was the use of advertising on railroad owned cars.
If the reporting marks are a private owner then the car could be owned by or leased by the company whose advertising is on the car. If the reporting marks are private and owned/leased by the company doing the advertising then it could be valid :
If its railroad owned/controlled reporting marks or reporting marks not owned by the company advertising stuff, then its probably not valid.
dehusman John-NYBW So are you telling me my billboard reefers would not be appropriate for my layout set in 1956? Also depends on what you mean by "billboard reefer." A car with advertising on the side of it was not banned per se. Meat packing plants, chemical companies and other private owners continued to put product names and slogans on their cars to this day. Think Tropicana orange juice train. Or a chemical car: What was banned was the use of advertising on railroad owned cars. If the reporting marks are a private owner then the car could be owned by or leased by the company whose advertising is on the car. If the reporting marks are private and owned/leased by the company doing the advertising then it could be valid : If its railroad owned/controlled reporting marks or reporting marks not owned by the company advertising stuff, then its probably not valid.
John-NYBW So are you telling me my billboard reefers would not be appropriate for my layout set in 1956?
That seems a good enough reason to keep my billboard reefers. Two of them are Swift meat reefers although they are red with white lettering, not like the example you show.
I think the reason billboard reefers may have been outlawed is that companies didn't want competitors products carried in their cars Think Miller Beer in Budweiser car. But if Budweiser owned the car it would only carry Bud products. This of course restricts where the car goes and what it used for.
Joe Staten Island West
As I understand it the basis for the famous Billboard reefer decision was as enforcement of the anti-rebate rules in place at the time - the same rules that made adjusting rates for different circumstances such a challenge for the railroad industry (such as when Southern wanted, and was finally allowed, to charge a more favorate rate for shipments in its then-huge "Big John" covered hopper).
Anyway the concept was that if the car had "advertising" for a shipper, then that advertising had monetary value, meaning that the shipper was effectively being charged a "lower rate" than similarly situated others. It was really kind of a technical argument, but shippers who grated their teeth at the idea of having to ship their stuff in a car that advertised a competitor had no recourse just based on being unhappy about it.
A shipper that owned or leased a car was permitted to put its name and logo on - hence the big red "Swift" reefers were fine, as are the Tropicana cars, the Wonder Bread covered hoppers, and so on. The classic 1920s type Billboard reefers went way beyond a mere logo. There were lists of products, boastful claims, all sorts of verbiage.
By the way just a few years ago the Wisconsin & Southern painted up an insulated boxcar to run behind a special Christmas train to and from Plymouth, Wisconsin, pulled by Soo Line 1003, a 2-8-2. Santa was in the caboose. The special boxcar was painted to honor Sargento Cheese which had helped pay for the train and the celebration, and it was a yellow paint scheme seen on Sargento's own trailers: a huge "Sargento" on a diagonal stripe and painted on "holes" like you see in Swiss cheese. It was a stunning looking car. I believe Athearn made an HO model for a while. But WSOR was reminded of the anti-billboard reefer ruling and thus had to paint out the "Sargento." The car was neither leased to nor in captive service to Sargento. So there is now just a diagonal black stripe. I think that version too has been offered in HO.
To my knowledge the Swiss cheese hole boxcar is still out there in revenue service. Unless you know what a Sargento trailer looks like, I suspect those painted on holes leave people scratching their heads.
joe323I think the reason billboard reefers may have been outlawed is that companies didn't want competitors products carried in their cars Think Miller Beer in Budweiser car. But if Budweiser owned the car it would only carry Bud products.
Actually Miller did not want their products carried in a BUD car. Thus advertising a competor.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Billboard reefers were never made "illegal" by a "law". It was I believe an ICC rule relating (as noted above) to rates. If you had lettering over I think 16" on the car, you had to be willing to pay the higher rate to return the car back to you empty - basically making up the difference of what the railroad could have earned by hauling a full car. For some companies that was no problem, as their cars were only used for their products.
I think the rules were changed / relaxed at some point in the 1950's-60's.
Keep in mind too that true "billboard reefers" were generally cars in service in the 1890's-1930's. It was a style of decoration as much as anything. Reefers from later with large lettering aren't necessarily "billboard" reefers.