Does anyone know if 3M boxcars would have been billboard cars, or did 3M have corporate boxcars?
Thanks for the link.
So is it a billboard or industrial car?
The cars pictured in the linked article are quite clearly lettered for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, with their own reporting marks for 3M ownership.
That was a neat link/article; I would have had no idea they actually owned their own small collection of boxcars.
Thanks. I plan to read it, but it wasn’t loading on my phone for some reason.
A “billboard reefer” was a refrigerator car owned by, or more commonly leased by, a company, that was decorated by that company with large lettering and graphics to draw attention to the company’s products - basically similar to a rolling billboard for the company. Due to changes in regulations, these cars with large letters and graphics generally disappeared by the end of the 1930’s.
Not sure what you mean when you say “industrial car”?? Some industries owned cars that they used to ship their products in, they would be subject to the usual interchange regulations of any other cars used in interstate commerce.
Since maybe the 1920’s or 30’s, cars not owned by railroads but owned by or leased to private companies have had an “X” at the end of their reporting marks, like UTLX for Union Tank Car Lines or WFEX for Western Fruit Express, etc.
You are correct, sir!
I mean a car owned by a company and used for work related to its respective industry. Given that one of the 3 Ms stands for “mining,” I very cleverly inferred that 3M perhaps had a fleet of cars.
Yes, this jibes with my general understanding. [Y]
What an interesting document. Thank you Bear for sharing and thanks to the author Bob Lucas for producing it. I was particularly intringued by the narrow gauge tram line. I wonder what was used to pull the containers.
Simon
I can’t open the linked document either…
Just to add to my earlier post, a “billboard” car is just a car with oversized lettering. It doesn’t mean a privately owned car per se. The regulation change really only changed things for privately owned cars. Railroads thru the 1960’s used large lettering on some boxcars and reefers, and often had graphics and slogans advertising their top passenger trains and such.
Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing started in Two Harbors, MN, a town probably best known as being the other town (Duluth being the other) to have Missabe Road ore docks. As far as I know, however, 3M was never actually involved in mining. I suppose at some point they may have worked on some machinery or devices designed to be used in mining?
Sorry, but no ideas about getting the link to work for everyone excepting that it maybe (??) accessed through the Akron, Canton & Youngstown RR Historical Society website.
Further information; the 3M reporting mark MINX was active from 1/41 to 10/66, eliminated 4/68.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
The link doesn’t open a new window, it downloads a pdf life to your download folder.
Depends on your browser, I’m using Google Chrome and it opened it in a tab. But other browsers will just download the file and you open it from your downloads.
I think that, conversationally, when someone says “billboard car,” they typically think about Baby Ruth, Heinz, Schlitz, etc., at least in my experience.
True, the term “Billboard Reefer” would usually be the first thing to come to mind. I was making the point that the 1930’s regulation changes essentially only affected private (non-railroad owned) cars. Railroads could still decorate cars with oversized lettering - think Soo Line cars with huge “SOO” on one side of the door and “LINE” on the other, or Northern Pacific cars with a 6’ diameter monad herald with similarly oversided “NP” letters. I have on occassion heard these referred to as having ‘billboard lettering’ as opposed to the earlier, more conservative lettering used by the railroad.