Prototypical use of boxcars

You sort of have to decided on what industries you want to model first.

Boxcars handle anything that would fit through the doors: automobiles, appliances, grain, lumber, machinery, bulk goods, newsprint rolls etc. 

Some of it could go industry to industry without ever seeing a truck.  For example, newsprint could go from the paper mill directly to a big city newspaper print shop unloading dock.  The same could be said for lumber. I used to live near a medium sized suburban lumber yard, the IC would deliver both flat cars and boxcars full of lumber directly into the yard.

Big retailers of the day (Sears, Wards) also had their own huge distribution warehouses that would receive goods by rail and then disperse the products with their own fleet of trucks to the stores.

Rusty

Will

Great posts start with great questions and you have asked one that will take you many volumes and many many hours to answer.  If you decide to answer it thoroughly you will find your self deep into the industrial, economic and political history of the United States of America.

"I want to model everything from industry contracts with the railroad to waybills, to the reconsignment of freight at the depot to final arrival and delivery by truck to its local destination. "

From the early 20th century until President Carter signed the Staggers Act in 1980 railroads were prohibited from entering into contracts with shippers.  Railroads could only charge a publicly published rate by the car load or a higher rate for less than carload shipments.  If a business shipped one car load a month or 10 car loads in a day the railroads were only allowed to charge one rate.  Investment in new, larger more efficient plants was retarded since there were no transportation cost reductions that the railroads could legally offer.  That is one of the reasons why, from the 1930s on, more an more traffic moved to less regulated or unregulated trucks. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staggers_Rail_Act

Less than car load shipments, lots or single items between a car load and express packages handled by REA were an area where railroads engaged in retail shipping services to be able to charge a premium price.  After WWII many railroads advertised their LCL services with colorful boxcars like the New York Central's Pacemaker service between NYC and Buffalo.  These shipments began and were terminated at railroad freight houses were shipments were picked up my customers or delivered in the railway's own delivery trucks. 

https://ogrforum.com/t...yc-pacemaker-boxcars

Here is a tour of the former Northern Pacific Terry Avenue line in Seattle.  The NP's Terry Avenue freight house provided car load and LCL service to Seattle businesses on the north end of downtown.

http://coastdaylight.com/seattle/terry_avenue_1.html

Since railroads were stuck offering one rate they could offer premium cars tailored to meet specific customer needs.  Automobile boxcars were among the earliest specialty boxcars.   Four or even five autos could be loaded inside 40 and 50 foot double door boxcars equipped with auto loading devices that hoisted some of the autos off of the floor.  When the autos were unloaded at their destination the auto loaders were folded up and our of the way so other freight could be carried on the return trip.

 Claims from shippers of damage to high class lading helped to lead to railroads equipping more and more boxcars in the post war era with load protecting devices.  This Santa Fe film shows how things could go wrong with items shipped in standard boxcars.

Again, railroads often applied colorful paint schemes to advertise cars designed to protect merchandise.

This car was designed with extra volume and equipped with load protecting devices to ship appliances from the Admiral factory in Galesburg Illinois.  The letting below the Santa Fe herald instructs railroaders that when empty it is to be returned to Galesburg. 

In your era boxcars were commonly used for bulk shipments.  The most common bulk commodity carried by boxcars was grain.  Here is an interior view of a boxcar with the door coopered for grain service with the load being sampled.  Loads of grain would originate at country elevators and terminate at flour or feed mills or export terminals.

For color from the 1940s be sure to look at the work of Jack Delano.

http://www.shorpy.com/jack-delano-photos?page=9

Will,

Another good source is do a web general search for topics like American Railroads in the 1930's video thru the late 1950's, also industries served by these railroads. I also model the transition era from the late 1940's through the early 1960's(1960-1963). Kalmbach Publishing's Model Railroader has a publication for modeling the 1950's plus references for many trackside industries that are representative of this era.

John 

Ted, I really enjoyed that video!  Thanks for posting it.