Hi all -- WIthout really meaning to, I've acquired a pretty good collection of express reefers and boxcars -- mostly Athearn, Roundhouse and Walthers, with several wood-sided cars (Dairyman's League, Sheffield Milk, Standard Fruit, GARE Modern Milk, etc). At my club, we tend to run them as express trains, sometimes with rider coaches I know the steel cars would have made it well into the diesel era, but what about those wood-sided cars? Would they have lasted long enough to be pulled by diesel power, or would they have been gone by the late 40s/early 50s? Would these cars only have been pulled by steamers or would early diesels be appropriate?
Thanks!Aaron
I'm sure that many of the wooden express reefers lasted well into the '50s, and maybe a few into the '60s, too, but with the appearance of mechanical reefers, their days would have been limited.
That's one of the reasons why I backdated my layout to the late '30s...the older stuff was more appealing to me.
I have two of these Roundhouse express cars (click on the photos for a bigger picture)...
...and two of these Athearn express cars...
...and while they're insulated, they're not reefers. Some, however, are used in short-haul service carrying milk (for processing) or fresh fish (top-iced).
This one, a modified Athearn car, is an express reefer...
...as is this somewhat re-worked Train Miniature reefer...
I do have quite a few regular reefers, in both wood and steel, including 11 "home-road" cars, and another 26, again in wood & steel versions, representing real cars from roads in both the U.S. and Canada.
Wayne
I've got my Color Guide to NYC Equipment in front of me. In it are two photos of wood-sheathed Milk car 6651 built in 1931 still in service in March of 1962. Another photo shows NYC 9672, a former milk car converted to Baggage Express still in service in December of 1961.
Volume II of the same book shows three photos, all taken in the early 1960s of NYC wood sheathed express cars, some former milk cars.
So there you have at least five examples of wood-sheathed cars still running in the early '60s. One photo of the NYC 9898 shows the car in fairly fresh paint and the caption states that these milk cars were rebuilt in Beech Grove in 1954 and reassigned to express service.
New York Central / Indiana Harbor Belt - Hammond, IN by d.w.davidson, on Flickr
The second car here is wood-sheathed in 1962:
Thomas Underwood Coll B&O430 by John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
Great pics Ed! (And BTW I ave some 645 pics to show you - I'll email.) Better question might be, how long did these cars carry their milk/dairy paint scemes?
As highways improved, railroads started losing much of their milk business to the trucking industry in the 1950s, maybe even earlier. Some milk still moved by rail into the 1960s but it was diminishing rapidly. Those wood sided milk cars might have been seen into the 1960s but not in great quanity.
My railroad is set in 1956 and I still run a daily milk train. A great source of information on the milk industry is Kalmbach's book which you can order through them or Amazon:
Milk Trains and Traffic (Guide to Industries): Jeff Wilson: 0644651600846: Amazon.com: Books
The railroads did not give up the milk traffic without trying. In 1957, the Boston and Maine received thirty five new steel cars from General American numbered 1900-1934. The first fifteen were unique in having two plug doors per side, and being mechanically refrigerated. They were for the transportation of bottled milk, while the remainder transported it in top iced cans.
Boston's largest milk processors, H.P. Hood and Sons and, Whitings were located on Rutherford Avenue in the Charlestown section of town and, served out of B&Ms Yard 19. This whole area is now buried under a UMass campus and I-93.
Hey all, thanks for the additional information -- it sounds like diesel milk trains would be plausible.
John, thanks for the tip on that book -- I bought a copy. For the cost of a couple of old Athearn milk cars, it seems like a reasonable investment! :) Plus milk delivery on our 28-scale-mile club layout could be an interesting activity.
Aaron
Autonerd Hey all, thanks for the additional information -- it sounds like diesel milk trains would be plausible. John, thanks for the tip on that book -- I bought a copy. For the cost of a couple of old Athearn milk cars, it seems like a reasonable investment! :) Plus milk delivery on our 28-scale-mile club layout could be an interesting activity. Aaron
What makes milk train operations so interesting is that on the way to the processing plant, they would make pick ups at creameries along the way. I only have 3 towns on my mainline and only the first one for eastbound milk trains has a creamery but that town also has an interchange with a shortline that has a creamery at the far end plus it picks up milk cans along the way. I learned from the Jeff Wilson book that canned milk would sometimes be gathered in baggage/express cars and top iced. My milk train picks up three milk tank cars at that location plus theoretically transfers milk cans from a shortline combine into a baggage/express car at the front of the milk train.
Another thing I learned from the book is that typically the milk trains would arrive at the processing plants early evening or night and be processed overnight so they could deliver fresh milk in the morning. Prior to reading that, I was under the impression that milk cars made the runs in the morning. It forced me to rework my schedule.
PS. Jeff Wilson has authored a number of industry specific books for railroad operations. I also have the ones relating to mail and express handling and produce handling. All very informative.
Thx again John! Yes, the mail and express book caught my eye -- might be my next purchase after the milk book.
The Jan 2022 issue of RMC has several articles on milk trains / dairy operations. It notes that scheduled dedicated milk trains ran on the B&M until 1972.
Wood was seen as a better insulator than steel, so wood reefers were some of the last wooden cars to run.
wjstixThe Jan 2022 issue of RMC has several articles on milk trains / dairy operations. It notes that scheduled dedicated milk trains ran on the B&M until 1972.
Well, the timing of that RmC issue couldn't be any better for me! Hopefully it's still on the shelf at my LHS. Great news about B&M as well -- Besides my NYC express trains, I was thinking I could haul milk behind some early B&M Fs I have, then realized they have McGuinness paint schemes -- but it looks like they'd be appropriate for later milk trains.
Again, thank you everyone for the information and please keep it coming!
I'm an RMC subscriber and just got the Jan 2022 issue early last week, so it should be the current one in stock at a hobby shop or magazine shop.
B&M's McGinnis era began in 1957 and, he later went from the B&M to prison for shady sales of their streamlined sleepers. The McGinnis paint was standard until the new minuteman paint of the 1970s.