Boxcars were plentiful before containerization

On my 1940s era model railroad, freight trains consist of an engine, a caboose, and only boxcars.

MELGAR

MELGAR posted:

On my 1940s era model railroad, freight trains consist of an engine, a caboose, and only boxcars.

MELGAR

No fruit, vegetables, meat (processed and unprocessed,) coal, oil, chemicals, steel, heavy machinery shipments?

Rusty

The OP photo looks like only boxcars to me.

MELGAR

At one time boxcars were the most often used freight car and actually greatly outnumbered all other kinds of freight cars .... according to my late uncle who was a traffic manager for Kennecott Copper Corp. 

trumptrain posted:

At one time boxcars were the most often used freight car and actually greatly outnumbered all other kinds of freight cars ....

That is my recollection too.

MELGAR

In the 1950s, there was a lot more movement of goods by rail.  It wasn't until 1956 that the "The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956" was passed establishing the creation of our Interstate road system.  Coupled to this was the state regulation of trucking, which could make it very expensive to move product through an individual state.

Its pretty time consuming to load and unload boxcars.  Once the idea of trailer on flatcars (TOFC) took off, there was no going back.

Jim

If boxcars were the most common type of car, I would have to think that the open-top hopper would have been #2?

Mark in Oregon

Needs more gi-raffe cars.  ;-) 

Mitch

Recall that until the 60's  most grain was hauled from the rural elevators to cities in conventional 40' box cars.  The sliding doors openings were partially covered over on the inside with rows of horizontal wood boards nailed in place and covered with paper to seal the cracks.  The grain was blown in above the top board.  Purpose built high cube covered hoppers displaced box cars for hauling grain - having far higher volume and being faster to load and unload.   

Keystoned Ed posted:

Recall that until the 60's  most grain was hauled from the rural elevators to cities in conventional 40' box cars.  The sliding doors openings were partially covered over on the inside with rows of horizontal wood boards nailed in place and covered with paper to seal the cracks.  The grain was blown in above the top board.  Purpose built high cube covered hoppers displaced box cars for hauling grain - having far higher volume and being faster to load and unload.   

My dad bought a business that had stacks of grain doors stored in an abandoned storage silo. They were stenciled for every major western road.

P.S.  It is easy to tell what's going on in this photo.  The guy in the boxcar doorway has a grain-tester in his hand, and he will take a sample to analyze the moisture content of the grain.  If the moisture content is too high the shipment will be rejected.

It is not just well cars and flat cars for intermodal containers and trailers, the Center Beam Flat Cars or Center Partition Flat Cars replaced both older flat cars and box car that transported lumber and metal loads. 

Andrew

You want thing-a-ma-boxcars? I've got 20.

By the time I came into this world.Most freight trains where half boxcars that had still had the roof walks on them.And you could see more of the older railroad cars.Such as sooline  cnw dmi great northern cotton belt and many more.I even seen a few wooden boxcars.The next type was at least in my area was the pulpwood car.To day you still see boxcars but mostly it jumbo covered hoppers and tank cars.And double stack containers I see a lot of fec containers.

In the OP photo at top of thread......between the third box car and the black automobile parked backwards, there appears to be some 4' x 8' sized frame or fence gate across the empty tracks????  What am I looking at?

Notice how tight the parking is?

Tom,  I think the camera angle makes the item in question appear to be across the tracks.  Could it be a dark sign with white letters(about the parking in that area?) which is supported about eight feet off the ground by a vertical pipe at each end of the sign?  John in Lansing, ILL

rattler21 posted:

Tom,  I think the camera angle makes the item in question appear to be across the tracks.  Could it be an dark sign with white letters(about the parking in that area?) which is supported about eight feet off the ground by a vertical pipe at each end of the sign?  John in Lansing, ILL

I agree, it seems to be just an optical illusion and not actually across the tracks.

Am I the only one that goes looking for these locations (via internet) when an old photo is posted??  I found this location the other day when it was originally posted.