Railway Express Agency - Volkswagen Delivery Trucks

[sswcharlie]

On this group is a photo of a VW bus in use by Railway Express Agency. Do you know if there are any more photos about of these bus ?   Especially side view.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/165207947167556/

Anyone  able to advise model in this photo and approx year of production ?

Is there a list of REA trucks in about this era ?

Thanks

Charles Harris

[BaltACD]

sswcharlie

On this group is a photo of a VW bus in use by Railway Express Agency. Do you know if there are any more photos about of these bus ?   Especially side view.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/165207947167556/

Anyone  able to advise model in this photo and approx year of production ?

Is there a list of REA trucks in about this era ?

Thanks

Charles Harris

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[wanswheel]

http://www.germanaircooled.com/brekina-vw-kastenwagen-t1b-railway-express-agency

[samfp1943]

sswcharlie

On this group is a photo of a VW bus in use by Railway Express Agency. Do you know if there are any more photos about of these bus ?   Especially side view.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/165207947167556/

Anyone  able to advise model in this photo and approx year of production ?

Is there a list of REA trucks in about this era ?

Thanks

Charles Harris

 

Charles:      The VW 'Van' model was designated by VW as a Type2 ( The VW car, or 'Beetle', was the Type1. The type 2 was knows as a 'kombi' in its windowed versions, the Commercial version, was exactly that, without the windows.        Production was started in 1949, on a very limited basis.  They continued into the late 1960's.  There was also a pick-up version added to the line in the early 1950's.            The type2 seemed to have a wide variety of names, microbus, van, hippy bus(1960's!!) and my personal favorite was the Westphalia Camper version.

Probably, more info that you wanted to know...

I would doubt there was ever a type 2 owned by Railway Express Agency, maybe in a later iteration of REA, but that remains to be seen.

Most Raiway Express trucks were built on a variety of chassis (International Harvester, Chevrolet, Ford, maybe GMC?)  They were a very 'boxey' style, and were the UPS of their day, only mostly green...

Here is a photo of one.

 

[sswcharlie]

Hi Wanswheel and Sam

 

Thanks for the great info.  Exactly what I wanted. I am ordering an HO model today.  Did not know that it existed already in model form.

Regards

Charles

[RME]

samfp1943

I would doubt there was ever a type 2 owned by Railway Express Agency, maybe in a later iteration of REA, but that remains to be seen.

1) Did he not say in the initial post that the Facebook page for a group had a picture of one?  (I don't 'do' Facebook unless absolutely necessary so I didn't independently check).

2) According to a couple of contemporary sources in the late '50s, there was something of a 'craze' for Kombis in various industrial uses, going along with the same craze for little cars (following the recession in '58) that was said to have killed the Edsel brand.  I would not at all have been surprised to see REA cutting some of its considerable local 'last-mile' delivery expenses by using a lightweight, almost monocoque box with small air-cooled engine: many other people tried it.  When I first went to college, they still used one of these things as the campus ambulance.  Perhaps the most unstable excuse for a vehicle I've yet driven, with the forward-control driving position only adding to the bobbing, weaving, and tipping.  I can easily see why one of those laden with typical LCL express packages to even further corrupt the effective roll-center position would have constituted a Very Short Experiment.