I’m doing more research on the New York Central’s intermodal container service in the 1920s. They did operate dedicated intermodal trains of friction bearing container cars pulled by steam locomotives. The container service was basically ordered shut down by the government for no good reason.
I’d like to know some examples of the 1920s intermodal train schedules, origins, destinations, etc. I’m not having success finding the exact data I need. So, can any of you point me in the right direction?
Would such schedules have been carried in the Official Guides of the era?
I just looked through my copy of the reprinted January, 1930, issue, and the only freight schedules were on the Kankakee Belt page–and there was no mention of any intermodal service.
Railway Age from back then - articles and/ or ads ?
NYC System Historical Society ? See: http://nycshs.org/central-headlight/
NRHS: http://www.nrhs.com/publications
R&LS: http://www.rlhs.org/Publications/RailHistoryIndex/
Do you have - or have access to - a copy of Dave DeBoers “Piggyback and Containers: A History of Rail Intermodal on America’s Steel Highway” (Golden West Books, 1992) ? There might be something in there, or at least a bibliographic reference.
Thank you all. I will run down your leads.
Ken
Ken,
Paul is right about the DeBoer book. The book “Intermodal Freight Transportation” published by the Eno Transportation Foundation also has a bit about the early railroad efforts. I can not recommend purchase since 99.9% of it is not relevant to your subject. If you want the info, contact me privately.
The phone number you have is no good, but the PNWR… email address is still good.
Mac McCulloch
A couple years back, “wanswheel” here (Mike) found and posted some great photos and articles in threads about those early containerization efforts. For example:
“About less than carload freight” - page 4 of 5, from March 2013: http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/188052/2058586.aspx#2058586
“Question about Gondola Load”, page 2 of 2, from February 2011:
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/156787/2053893.aspx#2053893
If these links, references, and copies, etc., aren’t quite informative enough, perhaps you could contact him directly and see if he could help you out ?