[CrisGer]

these are wonderful keep it up and please dont worry about them being perfect when you are ready it would be great to have some in the library, you dont have to do them all...at once. just when it works for you

really nice work.

Chris

[Genma Saotome]

Coonskin, on 20 November 2017 - 03:43 AM, said:

Okay... so most of them are NOT perfect for the transition era... but they're still a welcomed addition, no?

That is correct. They are perfectly fine for (at least) the first half of 1930's, maybe earlier and so for anyone who likes steam-era-only equipment they'll be quite a catch.

More background: A lot of non-railroad companies purchased reefers in the 1920's but sold their cars to leasing companies as the depression got bad. Cash was hard to come by and the idea of grabbing a bundle by selling the cars -- and paying out a small leasing bill each month -- had considerable cash-flow appeal.

So it may be that many of these billboards predated the depression and had been proudly painted that way by their owners. Other paint jobs may have been done by the leasing company -- basically selling ad space. But as I said, once the leasing companies got hold of them and started to lease out the cars they routinely paid very little attention to who was getting which paint scheme, especially for smaller customers.

Needless to say when one meat packing outfit got their leased cars painted for a different meat packing outfit they were not happy and so in due time the legal hammer came down and that was that.

A somewhat similar story applies to tank cars -- a whole lot of those fleets were sold to leasing companies, same as reefers. What's different is no billboards, perhaps because tankcars always were pretty grubby looking.

In both cases it makes it rather hard to track the cars over their lifetime... one can find builders records and see the corresponding cars appear in the ORER and then usually lose track of them in the 30's when ownership changed. There are enough clues on tankcars to figure out who built it and about when but reefers? Fergeeeet about it.

[Railroad Librarian]

Ok...regarding my paints...

I'm doing all these cars mostly for my love for my older brother who is still an avid model railroader but whom I convinced to also play in the digital world -- with the promise I'd paint cars for him occasionally. So, while my thread has a variety of 'billboard' reefers, it wasn't intended to be solely those types -- heck my title was simply "Reefer Madness". I realize that some of the cars here are not 'technically' billboards but in my eyes any car that 'advertises' qualifies. That being said, I'm simply coloring cars in schemes my brother and I like. So, yes there are some cars that belong to railroads or companies and leasing agencies, and they represent a wider variety of era than some might feel appropriate. But they're my delight and so I'll keep plugging away and, because I was asked, I plan to share.

Just felt like I needed to express myself a wee bit. Done..

Now, back to some interesting things...

Dave, you posted "...the Hercules cars (owned by Hercules); I have a photo of a car bearing a completely different appearance..." Cool!

Does it look anything like the cars below? If not, I'd love to see a pic...

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 

[Genma Saotome]

Railroad Librarian, on 20 November 2017 - 07:02 PM, said:

Dave, you posted "...the Hercules cars (owned by Hercules); I have a photo of a car bearing a completely different appearance..." Cool!

Does it look anything like the cars below? If not, I'd love to see a pic...

Yes, they're spot on, including the car number. Perhaps I stumbled somewhere... are these the only Hercules reefers you painted? I thought for sure there were some cars with the company logo on the door. I'm not saying those are fictional, just that I've never seen that particular scheme.

WRT what folks do when making models... my approach is this: If I know what was actually done back in the day then I do it that way. If I don't then I either don't start or try to make it look plausible. I have around 4000 car photos on my PC, almost 30 years of exchanging information on the Steam Era Freight Car (STMFC) lists, and at least 100 purely reference material items in book form. For the most part I put no trust in model railroading products save from those few guys who I know from their participation on STMFC. Because I do know a bit about steam era freight cars I do follow what I've learned and I do share that information. In posting I make every attempt to stick to the facts. What anyone does w/ the information is, of course, their call.

[Railroad Librarian]

But wait! There's more...

"Oh my goodness, he's still ain't get dat reefer madness outta his system yet"?

Nope, I got several new reference books so am going after another set of cars. The first set is almost ready for shipment/delivery to those who have a "hankerin' for usin'm".

Here's a sneak peak of of a few new ones. And before someone starts yellin' fowl for making a model railroad car, YES the Gerber Products Company did indeed paint a series of cars as seen below (reference: The Yellow Fleet. by John White). Gotta love reefers!

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Railroad Librarian]

After reading through the chapter about the Merchants Despatch Transportation Car Company's cars build and painted for Bananas Distributing Company, I knew I had to create a set. So Here they are...

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[Genma Saotome]

Arcane fact of the day: Back in the steam era the vast majority of the nation's bananas arrived at the port of New Orleans and the vast majority of those were carried up the Mississippi Valley by the IC. The vast majority of those went to Chicago and believe it or not the vast majority of those stayed there to be eaten. IIRC, ports with far, far lower import quantities included Mobile and Charleston in the South, much smaller quantities to Baltimore and I think NYC for the Atlantic coast, and equally small numbers for LA, SF, and Seattle on the west coast.

All facts courtesy of the Interstate Commerce Commission's 1% Waybill survey.

I don't know anything about what sort of reefers the IC used... lettered for the IC, one of the major leasing companies, or something else.

[Jovet]

And also, back in that day, bananas were fairly different than they are today.

[Genma Saotome]

Jovet, on 02 January 2018 - 01:26 PM, said:

And also, back in that day, bananas were fairly different than they are today.

Gros Michel -- Big Mike. Done in by disease. We eat Cavendish right now and right now they're dropping like flies to disease too. Huge areas of mono-culture crops in the tropics are (apparently) a pretty unwise proposition over the long haul. Good coffee trees are dying in plenty of places too, such as Guatemala.

[timmuir]

Genma Saotome, on 01 January 2018 - 12:15 PM, said:

Arcane fact of the day: Back in the steam era the vast majority of the nation's bananas arrived at the port of New Orleans and the vast majority of those were carried up the Mississippi Valley by the IC. The vast majority of those went to Chicago and believe it or not the vast majority of those stayed there to be eaten. IIRC, ports with far, far lower import quantities included Mobile and Charleston in the South, much smaller quantities to Baltimore and I think NYC for the Atlantic coast, and equally small numbers for LA, SF, and Seattle on the west coast.

All facts courtesy of the Interstate Commerce Commission's 1% Waybill survey.

I don't know anything about what sort of reefers the IC used... lettered for the IC, one of the major leasing companies, or something else.

Two views of an NRC reefer I spotted in Portland, Ore, about 1972.





Sorry about the poor scan.