Inquiring minds want to know,
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
I do believe a Tannery of hides.
I need to look through some books for the picture.
PC101 I do believe a Tannery of hides.
Nice one.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Kerosene, molasses, lube oil.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I seem to recall somewhere in the history of J.D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Co. that he had cornered the market on tank cars as part of a ploy to squeeze his competitors that also needed tank cars.
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2884.html
From Train Collectors Association:
John D. Rockefeller called rail tank cars his “secret weapon” in developing Standard Oil, his small oil company, into a monopolistic force in the industry by controlling transportation. At the turn of the century, Standard’s Union Tank Line subsidiary built tank cars to serve only Standard Oil refineries. Rockefeller avoided Congressional pressure on his monopoly by making Union Tank Line a separate, independent company. It still served only Standard Oil. After the Supreme Court broke up the monopoly in 1911, Union Tank Line began to serve other oil markets.
https://www.tcatrains.org/etrain/history-of-the-rail-tank-car/
Interesting stuff.
Regards, Ed
Late 1880s and early 1920s.
At a chemical plant. NATIONAL CHEMICAL COMPANY LYMAM RUN, PA. and GAFFNEY WOOD PRODUCTS COMPANY WALTON,PA ''Chemical wood''?. A picture shows a tank car waiting for minor repairs before being loaded with alcohol.
Welcome back Space mouse.
Cooked in retorts to create Metanol (Wood Alcohol), Acetic Acid and Acetone.
Get your library to do an interlibrary loan on the "Logging Railroad Era of Lumbering in Pennsylvania" - it was my "light reading" when I was in grad school at Penn State - specifically Volume 10
Introduction -- No. 1. "Pitch pine and prop timber" / by B.F.G. Kline -- No. 2. "Wild catting" on the mountain / by B.F.G. Kline -- No. 3. Ghost lumber towns of central Pennsylvania / by T.T. Taber, III -- No. 4. Sunset along Susquehanna waters / by T.T. Taber, III -- No. 5. The Goodyears : an empire in the hemlocks / by T.T. Taber, III -- No. 6. Whining saws and squealing flanges / by T.T. Taber, III -- No. 7. Sawmills among the derricks / by T.T. Taber, III -- No. 8. Tionesta Valley / by W.C. Casler -- No. 9. Teddy Collins' empire / by Walter C. Casler -- No. 10. Tanbark, alcohol and lumber / by T.T. Taber, III -- No. 11. Allegheny Valley logging railroads -- No. 12. Dinkies, dams and sawdust / by B.F.G. Kline -- No. 13. "Stemwinders" in the Laurel Highlands / by B.F.G. Kline -- [No. 14] Addenda and index.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtxtPErUXho
Hello All,
Vinegar and whale oil come to mind too.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
These must be close to your time frame.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
There used to be a very good site that covered the significant inventions of the Union Tank Car Line in the period from the turn of the century up to 1911. Rockefeller's 'secret weapon' wasn't so much monopolizing of the cars as having effective patent and design lock on the important features that were then modern -- the use of a spine underframe riveted to the tank, for example, and internal bulkheads instead of horizontal tanks on a flat car. This had much the same importance at the time that GM's development of the diesel angle-drive monocoque Yellow Coach did in the early Thirties.
PC101At a chemical plant. NATIONAL CHEMICAL COMPANY LYMAM RUN, PA. and GAFFNEY WOOD PRODUCTS COMPANY WALTON,PA ''Chemical wood''?
Not only alcohol, but turpentine was a common wood byproduct from mills in northern Pennsylvania.
And while on a paint theme, linseed and cottonseed oils were very commonly shipped by rail.