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"Dumpsters" was we know them now were not around in the 1940s and 50s. They are basically a 1960s item as would be the trucks with specialized lifts and bodies for unloading dumpsters. Everything back then was put into steel trash cans.
Even as dumpsters came into being, ashes could not be put into them or loaded into a dumpster truck. Dumpster trucks pickup a number of loads and the prospect of any ashes possibly containing some live coals could easily start a fire.

During the 1940s WW II years, nothing went to waste. Paper, cardboard, tin cans, glass, tinfoil from cigarette packs, any worn cloth items (rags) - all went to the war effort. Table scraps became pet food, fruit and vegetable food waste, coffee grounds and egg shells too became compost for a home or a community garden for apartment dwellers. Food was scarce and rationed. Very little ended up in the trash then.

The ashes in question for a 1940s/50s scene could be left in a pile. Later some men would shovel them up into a dump truck. That's how I worked for two summers (1955 and 1956) digging locomoitve ashes out of what was left of the CNJ Communipaw Engine Terminal with my neighbor. He stockpiled them in an empty lot behind his backyard on Staten Island. The CNJ let you have the ashes for free but you had to be on a list of approved 'takers' and dig them out yourself.

He would sell the ashes as bedding to contractors putting in concrete cellar floors and sidewalks for new houses under construction. The two of us could fill his '48 Ford 2 ton dump truck in about an hour, using two big locomotive coal scoops.

I guess for that modeling scene, if there were enough ashes being generated it could warrant the cost of an expensive conveyor to load ashes into dump trucks.

Ashes from my father's coal fired bakery oven and our apartment above had to be kept separate form any other trash or garbage. There was a separate collection for them by the Department of Sanitation, who then dumped them into the city's
street and road maintenance yards. We usually spread our ashes over the dirt and gravel parking area behind the bakery. Roughly a large trashcan full per day. Never seemed to fill it up even after some 40 years of doing that.

Home onwers and businesses burning coal had ashes to dispose of. Their ashes would be picked up spearately by the City Department of Sanitation. Still, it was handy stuff to use on icy sidewalks in winter.

Ed Bommer
This would be a neat truck to model. Here is what I found on ClassicRefuseTrucks.com site.

quote:
The firm's first true refuse truck was a bottom-dumping, short-haul lugger called the Liftainer, introduced in 1958. Very similar to the Dempster Dumpster System, it marks the first time the Cobey name would appear on truck equipment, having heretofore been applied only to the farm implement line. Litfainer would remain in production through the late 1970s.




Here is another from 1957

quote:
Originally posted by CSX Al:
Murph, I really like the look of your dumpster. ...

CSX Al, Roy Baker (website: bakersrailroadshop.com ,and his phone: 845-887-4596 ) carries them. You may have seen or met him at York, in the Orange Hall; he's just down one of the aisles close to your turntable display. The dumpsters are made of brass. I do the grime part Big Grin. - glad you liked it. Frank
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