List of boxcar loads 1930s into the 1970s


D

DougC

Member
ALL:

Boxcar loads don't get much attentions because, well, we can't see them. However, over time I've compiled quite a list of items that were or still are shipped in boxcars. I think you'll find them interesting.

DougC


RAILROAD BOXCAR LOADS - ABOUT 1930 INTO THE 1970's

1. Ammunition

1A. Automobiles - shipped in Auto XAR boxcars

1B. Automobile parts – from parts manufacturers to auto assembly plants

1C. Automobiles - shipped LCL (Less Than Carload - railcars are setout at two or more receivers)

2. Appliances

3. Bags (loose or palletized)

3A Commodities: Flour, Rice, Beans etc etc stacked or palletized

3B Boxes (with or without pallets) of hardware items

4. Barrels, Drums or Kegs

5. Batteries - Storage

5A. Beverages

6. Bricks and Hollow Building Tile

7. Brick - Hop Top (I don't know what this is; do you?)

8. Bulk loose items like grain, ore and coal by puting temporary wood “doors” inside the railcar doorways

9. Cable on Reels and Wire Commodities

10. Car Doors

11. Car Wheels - Loose

11A. Coil steel products

12. Cylinders - Empty, With or Without Caps

13. Fiberboard Containers

14. Freight – general (including mail-order items from Sears, etc. for such things as washing machines, etc.)

15. Furniture - Car Load

16. Furniture – LCL (Less Than Carload)

16A Georgia kaolin clay, loose, loaded through hatches on the roofs or thru the doors in bags on pallets

17. Grain and grain products in fiberboard containers or sacks or loose (with or without grain doors added)

17A Hoboes and migrant workers

18. Ink and like commodities in six-gallon pails

19. Livestock (in boxcars with slats for sides - i.e. stock cars)

20. Lumber

21. Machinery

22. Marble Slabs

23. Sheet Steel, Tin Plate and other steel products

24. Mixed Loads of Commodities in Wooden Cases, Cartons

25. Paper (rolls or stacked) and Similar Commodities on Skids/pallets; plus pulp, scrap paper, newsprint paper

25A People & troops - Troops: particularly during wars. People: such as Stalin in the 30s and 40s relocating 1.5 million people to Sibera and other areas

26. Plasterboard, Wallboard etc in Solid Loads or Bagged Commodities as Mixed Loads

27. Projectiles, Bombs and Cartridge Cases (Empty)

28. Radiators - Cast Iron

29. Vegetables, fruit, and butter in tubs – moved in boxcars cooled by ice or mechanical refrigerator – known as refrigerator cars

30. Roofing Materials-Prepared

31. Soda Ash and many other mined items mostly in large sacks

32. Stones - Pulp Grinder

33. Stoves and Ranges

34. Empty tanks

35. Untreated Cross Ties

36. Bulk Grain

37. Pig Lead, Copper Bars and Similar

38. Unsaturated Roofing Felt and Pulpboard Paper

39. Newsprint

40. Vitrified Clay Sewer Pipe

41. Rolled and Plate Glass

42. General LCL Less-Than-Carload freight

43. Loose rocks with value from mines - moving rough, highly valuable rocks (like silver from Colorado) to a processing plant

44. Other uses for boxcars - if wore out enough, turned into homes, home-extensions, motel lodging structures, and livestock shelters

Can any of you add to this list? Wachya think? Comments?

P.S. You know, a lot of these commodities could be made partially visible if the railcar doors weren't totally shut (this IS prototypical). I have a few cars like this in a couple of my freight trains - adds interest and sometimes questions.
 
I disagree with your last comment. Most loads will fall out if the door isn't locked. You have a security issue too if the door is unlocked.

Several of your loads are listed multiple times, like ammunition and shells - basically the same thing. Most ammunition plants did everything at the same facility I believe. Grain was also listed 3 times. Almost everything was shipped in boxcars that wasn't liquid until the 1930's when specialized cars really were invested in by railroads and shippers. Shippers and small railroads were being squeezed by methods of shipping everything in boxcars. The specialized cars previously were mostly hoppers or drop gons. Tank cars and flatcars were relatively rare unless the railroad was financially related to the shippers.

Privately owned cars became common during the 1920's and then many new designs came out customized to specific products. Asbestos was also a common manufacturing ingredient. As far as I can tell it would have moved in boxcars. Locally the largest producer of cork plugs was here. So that also would arrive in boxcars.

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RBMNfan:

Thank you for your comments.

I agree that, "Most loads will fall out if the door isn't locked. You have a security issue too if the door is unlocked." However, being a rail fan all my life, and having worked on 5 different railroads in many different positions, I have seen some loaded boxcars in transit with their doors partly open.

Thank you for your other comments.

DougC
 
I too have seen loads through open doors. It was 40 years or so ago, and I don't know if the RR left the doors open or hobos opened them to gain access. I distinctly remember banded loads of plywood. Back then a lot of doors on empty boxcars seemed to be intentionally left open.

Willie
 
I remember the open doors as well. Maybe there was a bad smell in there?

A friend of mine rode the freight cars and they would open both doors while riding. Safety reasons.
 
I bought a couple of packs of people mooning. They're supposed to be used at trackside, so they're mooning the trains, but I'm going to put some of them into boxcars, mooning bystanders. I'm thinking of doing the same with a couple of the Noch Sexy Scenes sets.

But then, I'm not even pretending to be prototypical.

Oh crap!
 
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Hey Willie - regarding your, "Back then a lot of doors on empty boxcars seemed to be intentionally left open."

I agree. I'm guessing that when boxcar loads were unloaded, the customers just didn't want to bother closing the doors - extra work - and which some times were extremely difficult to close. And as I recall the railroads wanted the customers' business and didn't want to "rock the boat" by ragging on their customers about the doors on empty boxcars. So the result was ---- open door boxcars.

Also, I think the railroad men often didn't close them either because (1) there was nothing inside to protect, (2) some of the doors were bent and needed a fork lift or something else to close them, and (3) it was just unnecessary extra work.

This make sense?

DougC
 
Doug - Another thing that came into play was if a boxcar was unloaded from a door that had no outside dock, there wasn't any room between the building and the rail car to get into to close it. I'm also not too sure that there wasn't a union rule that only allowed certain employees, car-men I believe they were called, to close and lock the doors. That I am not sure of. Maybe an ex-railroader can shed light on that.
Willie
 
Dave - Regarding both doors being open, I also remember that many hobos, at least around here, carried a wooden wedge to keep the door from sliding closed on grades or sudden stops.
Willie
 
Hey Willie, if you can be "santafewillie" maybe I can be "mopacdoug." :)

Anyway, regarding limiting carmen to opening/closing boxcar doors, I know that back then (at least in the mid-1970s when I was braking) the unions were (and still are?) very particular about who can and can't do such-and-such a job. I imagine that in some localities the rules were very strict, and out in the country they were probably, uh, less strict. Heck, as a brakeman I might have helped close a boxcar door or two (after I first checked to see who was around.)

Re hobos and wedges, I'll bet that their life-styles and experiences taught them many things. Riding boxcars = hard life.

DougC
 
I wouldn't forget about those fully painted advert cars, advert coffee , bier, automobile cars etc.. I know that Brooklyn Locomotive Works -- Your N Scale Source had some in the past. and ROUNDHOUSE had the BATH and HAMMONDSPORT RR HO RTR 50' FMC 5347 Box, Bath & Hammondsport RR #1 (ATH91405): Athearn Trains also offered in N-SCALE at one time .
ATH91405-450.jpg

BCK RR
 
BCK RR

You know, it never occurred to me that painted advertising on the sides of railcars could be considered "loads." The advertising paint couldn't weigh much (comparatively speaking), BUT advertising is still moved about by primarily boxcars.

Interesting addition to boxcar "loads." Thanks.

DougC
 
Most real advertising is on privately owned cars. Since xyz Corp is paying for the car it's a way to get every possible return out of it. Railroads learned by 1930 that customers would not accept boxcars with a competitors name on it. It was more cost effective to keep the cars railroad marked. By the late 1960's railroad leased cars with a large customers logo started showing up again. Of course most of these boxcars where in captive service between specific manufacturing plants. Auto plants in particular would do that.

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Companies used to put their logos and names on cars, but when their were wrecks and the TV started showing the leaking, burning cars, attitudes changed. For a while all you saw were reporting marks.
 
Well, sounds like advertising on privately owned railcars has over time (100 years?) been a "sine wave" - i.e. up and down, probably depending on the "formula" from the top - new vice-president says great idea/next vice-president says ouch, don't paint any images on our fleet and paint over the old ones.

DougC
 
Some depended on the view of railroads with the general population. Also the railroads changed as they realized passenger traffic was a money loser and focused on freight.

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Advertising on the side of a boxcar in not a "load". A car stopping at two places is not necessarily LCL.

Advertising could not be placed on a general service car. Privately owned cars could have advertising. However the trend toward leased cars where the company using the cars doesn't own them made advertising problematic. Its not as much a whim of the VP, its the changing laws, taxes and business models on leasing vs. owning cars. Companies also found that theft was an issue if you advertised the contents of a car.

Most auto parts are not in privately owned cars, its in railroad owned cars they have no markings other than the railroad markings. In the 1930's thru 1950's cars equipped with auto loaders would have "AUTOMOBILE" on the side of the car to indicate the car was equipped with auto loading equipment. That doesn't mean it was carrying autos, just that it was equipped to do so. It could just as easily been carrying lumber.

As far as commodities in boxcars its a list of tens of thousands of commodities. Pretty much any commodity you can name that can fit through an 8 ft square opening can be carried in a boxcar. Pretty much anything.
 
Thank you all for your insights,details and additional info. I'm still learning. And Dave H., sharp info.

DougC
 
Basic boxcar load is something that needs to be kept clean and dry, doesn't care about temperature and can be palletized. Exceptions are bulk commodities that don't flow, but need to be kept clean and dry. For example raw sugar, baggasse or cotton seed hulls, cotton seed lint.

Back in the day before covered hoppers almost any bulk commodity that didn't have to be bagged, but needed to stay dry was moved in a boxcar. Grain was VERY common, precious ores, coal (esp. in winter) and finish lumber/plywood/drywall were all boxcar loads.
 
dave1905 said:
Basic boxcar load is something that needs to be kept clean and dry, doesn't care about temperature and can be palletized. Exceptions are bulk commodities that don't flow, but need to be kept clean and dry. For example raw sugar, baggasse or cotton seed hulls, cotton seed lint.

Back in the day before covered hoppers almost any bulk commodity that didn't have to be bagged, but needed to stay dry was moved in a boxcar. Grain was VERY common, precious ores, coal (esp. in winter) and finish lumber/plywood/drywall were all boxcar loads.
Click to expand...
Remember that the BCK RR - The BUFFALO CREEK RAILROAD- in my Hometown City which was BUFFALO, NY had shipped Flour in boxcars and later it was CR -Conrail- with those boxcars with those Yellow Doors!
Trainman A - Atlas Trainman(R) 40' PS-1 Boxcar - Buffalo Creek #2092 (brown, black, white) (751-34597) - Walthers Model Railroading -N-SCALE

and for those in O-SCALE Buffalo Creek Railway, Limited Edition, 2nd Run Buffalo Creek Graphics - Custom decorated O scale model trains

BCK RR

08034389222688.gif < N-SCALE

BCK1064600.gif< o-SCALE


An fyi here...
Here's a bit more on the BUFFALO CREEK RAILROAD:


The BUFFALO CREEK RAILROAD was a terminal and switching line in at the edge of the Buffalo River and around an area called SOUTH BUFFALO. The BUFFALO CREEK RAILROAD served ADM, General Mills, ConAgra, Pilsbury Flour,Freezer Queen and Penn Dixie cement on the waterfront of LAKE ERIE at one time it connected with the SOUTH BUFFALO RAILWAY. The BUFFALO CREEK RAILROAD was all ALCO it had one EMD No. 40though it didn’t lat long on the BCK. the rail Line ended up in the fold of Contrail in 1978 It eventually ended up as a CONRAIL property and it's now part of CSX .


My friends dad worked for the BCK RR,I grew up during the N&W -NKP, WABASH merger "the ALPHABET ROUTE merger", including the most famous ill-fated merger PENN CENTRAL!


I hope this helps a bit .
I grew up in ERIE county HAMBURG,NY is south of BUFFALO, NY ...


Tom S.
Formerly of HAMBURG , NY
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