Freeport Milk Products Billboard Reefer - Questions

Classic Trains General Discussion
1

I’ve posted this question elsewhere but, so far, no one has responded.

Question 1: Which city of Freeport did this car call home? I know there is a Freeport in Florida, Texas, Illinois, Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania. Given that the car was (I think) supposed to be an express billboard reefer my guess would be New York but I would like to know for certain.

Question 2: Does anyone know the paint scheme for this car? The only thing I’ve been able to find on the web was a picture of a Lionel car lettered for this company. Since Lionel oftentimes makes up paint schemes I don’t know that I could count on the accuracy of their rendition.

I realize I’ve made reference to a toy train in this post but since this is a question about real railroad history it seems more appropriate to the Classic Trains section.

2

Can you post a picture? It would help greatly in tyring to answer your question. I fear Freeport might be as plentiful as Springfield and Middletown as a town name. But there may be a symbol or something that would give a hint. My leaning, sight unseen, is Freeport, ME but it is just a WAG!

3

City of Freeport, Illinois website says,

“The largest dairy producing county in Illinois, Stephenson County has 23,000 dairy cows producing 346,344,000 pounds of milk annually.”

http://www.ci.freeport.il.us/business/

Illinois Central had a milk run from Freeport to Chicago in the 1880s.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ggk7AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA303

4

Wanswheel, the modern day Sherlock Holmes!!

Great sleuthing.

5

Thanks very much for the information. I was able to combine your information with a few other things I found and the end result is over on page 47 of the Pre-war American Flyer thread on the Classic Toy Trains form.

6

Another good and important source of information is a series of books about Milk Cars by Bob Bahrs…check hobby stores, Trains/Kalmbach ads, R&RF ads, and Ebay. Google or Bing Bob Bahrs and/or Milk Cars and see what’s available.

7

Following ar a couple of links to some previous discussions referencing some things ‘MIlk’.

First, is the term ‘Milk Run’ :http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/110168/1269986.aspx#1269986

Second, The topic is Milk Car Questions: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/186977/2043166.aspx#2043166

The second has som photo links which may be of interest to your search.

From the Amazon.com site:

Billboard Refrigerator Cars [Hardcover]Richard H.; Kaminski, Edward S. Hendrickson (Author)

FTL: [this bit of historical info]: "…The practice of painting advertisements on the freight cars of shippers and car owners dates well back into the 19th century. But in the 1920s, leasing companies realized they could contract with shippers to pass back usage payments beyond some agreed minimum. This led to an explosion of car leasing and, as this book amply demonstrates, a corresponding explosion of billboard decoration of refrigerator cars. Railroad objections, especially to the usage payment rebates, led to hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission, which, taking effect in 1937, banned most of the leasing practices which had generated the car leasing bonanza. After World War II, a restrained billboard style made a modest comeback.Car-side advertising was only a detail of that ICC decision. But because it was

8

Sam:

Thanks a lot for the link to the story about the load of oranges moving across the country. That sort of thing is what has held my fascination with railroading for nearly 70 years. I put a link to the sdrm.org/stories page so I can enjoy the other stories at a later date.

Thanks again.