Jim: This is a great point for us all to keep in mind when building our car fleets -- older, obsolete cars were sometimes cascaded down to specific services, usually involving contaminating commodities.
The "worst" example of this on the Southern Railway (where I worked in the 1970's and 1980's) were the 40 foot boxcars that were assigned to haul animal hides from rendering plants to other processing plants. I have talked to yard crewmen who said they would scan each track inventory looking for the hide cars, and they would avoid walking past those cars, especially in the summer! An obsolete car, with special stenciling or other modifications for a specific service, would be a great conversation piece for our layouts, and would help to establish the time period for our layouts. Dan Vandermause --- In [email protected], "raisinone" <raisinone@...> wrote: > > One aspect sometimes missed was use of older cars for the "back side" of food > processing.... 40' Milwaukee Road Rib Side box cars lasted into the late > 80's (maybe beyond?) hauling spent grains from breweries and processing > plants in the upper Midwest. Milwaukee Road's "Beer Line" in their home city > was trafficked predominantly by ancient 40' box cars with Kraft paper grain > doors hauling spent malt, corn and other grains from the Schlitz and Pabst > breweries to a location about 90 miles west for blending into animal feed. > > Those cars were about ready to fall apart but the bankrupt railroad kept > squeezing the miles out of them. Since the route did not require interchange > many were well beyond the interchange age limit. > > Another bankrupt railroad trick was to "create" larger cars without buying > them. The Milwaukee Road split some of the 40 rib side cars in the middle > and added a 10' section with a larger door. Presto a 50' box car! See the > last page of the article in the link below... Now there is a modeler's > project!! > > Jim Kindraka ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
