Metra wrapped some of its bi-levels a few years back to advertise an international football tournament at Soldier Field featuring top European clubs. CTA also wraps some rapid transit cars with ads.
The original billboard advertising on reefers was ruled an illegal rebate by the ICC. After 1937 such cars couldn’t be accepted in interchange.
https://www.signaturepress.com/kaminski/BLBD.html
Car owners/lessors could have their name and company logo on their cars, but couldn’t advertise specific products.
Jeff
Yep, that’s the one I was talkin’ about! And what a colorful time it was!
Warren Buffet is “hands off” in regards to running of the day to day business operations of the businesses his company owns or aquires. Very rare for him to step in and replace an Executive of an acquired company. He does have a say on new replacement Executives since he owns the vast majority or all the stock in a good portion of his companies…not sure if he exercises that power a lot or just rubber stamps what the board goes with. So I don’t see him getting involved in Locomotive or Rolling Stock wraps of any kind.
Since the ICC and their non cognitive reasoning no longer exists, maybe it is time to revisit the issue. Add a rule, if shipper refuses car over paint job, they pay the empty move. Problem (mostly) solved.
- 1934: The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) regulation #201 came into effect banning billboard advertisements on freight cars. I haven’t research this but as I recall this proceeded from a Supreme Court Antitrust ruling. With advertising being what it is today the rule needs to be revisited.
On the other hand, who’s going to pay for advertising on a medium the many people don’t even know exists any more? If someone is stopped at a crossing, they’ve got their nose buried in a phone…
And angry at having to wait for the stupid train to get out of the way… I don’t think it would be good use of the advertising dollar to put your brand name on an agrivation. “WHAT? BRAND X… I’ll never buy their product!”
Graphics salesman here, primarily to the trucking industry but I have also had good success to the rail industry, primarily as a supplier to an OEM of tank cars.
The billboards will probably never return to box cars, covered hoppers, etc. Too much information on the cars in specific locations such as reporting marks and numbers, LD/LT Weights, etc. There is a large amount of graphics already on the cars.
The private fleets recognize the value of marketing their products (primarily consumer goods, such as food, furniture, etc) while the trucking industry branding is fairly basic with logo and a basic message. However, more and more trucking companies are using their fleets as a recruiting tool for drivers. It is a realitively cost effective channel.
Everything is on “hold” right now as we are dealing with this mess.
Ed
Someone mentioned the basic problem: The taggers would likely quickly ruin any advertising applied to the side of frt cars.
Hopefully the companies with reefer containers and trailers can get that freight back on the rails. CR England, Tiger Cool, Marten, Alliance, Clipper, etc . I bet the calls have already been made. and there are ramps not far from Rotterdam NY to handle the business.
I spent the last 21 years of my career in rail logistics with a chemical company. When I first joined them, we had the name of the company stenciled on the sides of all our tank cars and covered hoppers. Following a derailment involving one of our covered hoppers that was prominently shown in television news footage, we were quickly named in several lawsuits despite the fact our car had not caused the accident nor been breached as a result of the accident.
After that experience, when a car was shopped, one of my standing instructions was removal of the company name.
I had always heard billboard cars went away, at least for cars carrying consumer goods like meat or beer, because they were an invitation to theives good stuff was located therein.
Never remember seeing ads on any cars, if they went away in 40’s, I would not have been train watching with Dad, that started in 50’s. I do remember seeing Herby on cars, but that is about it. Probably would be too much commotion today over competing companies and whose ad was better. And as many mentioned, taggers all over the place, so ads would be a good target for that.
RE: Cold Connect. I read the story and have a suspicion that going from three trains a week to five may have been the problem. As in business enough for three trains, but not enough for five making it a losing proposition. Just a hunch. Reminds me of a bio I once read on Franklin Gowen of the Reading. When the Reading went into anthracite in a big way in the late 1870’s he heavily promoted coal dealers’ having mega coal yards; there were economies of scale to be achieved with 100,000 tons a year, Gowen said. The problem turned out to be selling 100,000 tons a year–the anthracite market wasn’t big enough yet for that volume. The Mega Yards got shut down with heavy losses.