Lowe’s and Sears are major companies in which they received appliances, hardware and lumber and other commodities respectively for their company. Both of these companies started very small after World War II say in the early 1950’s. My question is did these two companies recieve any of these commodities like new appilances, hardware supplies or lumber via transport by rail during their early formative years or was all of these items transferred by truck from each company’s conception?
I was wondering any of our bulletin board members would have worked for either one of these companies and would know if they used train freights via rail for inbound and out bound loads during their early years. The reason I was asking this question was that it might have some model potential if they did use freight cars for their needed items.
Sears started in the late 1800S and was one of the first if not the first catalog that you could buy everything from clothing to houses. the did ship by rail as late as the 1960S to a local warehouse in Syracuse NY. i am not sure of Lowe’s or Home Depot et al but i would think that at least into the 1960S there would be some rail shipment of goods. a couple of flats with a wide variety of lumber banded down would be a nice addition.
Sears actually started in the 19th century, and was the largest retailer in the world in the early 20th century. It was based in Chicago, where it maintained a massive catalog warehouse, served by all the railroads that connect there.
Not sure about Lowe’s origins, but currently most retailers operate on a system of regional distribution warehouses. Most retail merchandise is handled in containers now, so there aren’t many that are served by rail, but commodities like lumber and drywall are shipped by rail to a facility called a “Reload” where materials are unloaded from rail cars and then put on trucks to fill orders at the local stores.
Sears, and I imagine Lowe’s and other appliance distributors would receive shipments of appliances directly by rail from the manufacturer, again to a regional warehouse where they are turned around by truck to the local store branches.
Smaller appliance stores get their shipments from a distributor’s warehouse in a similar fashion.
Some lumber dealers that sell in larger quantities do still have active rail sidings. When I worked for 84 Lumber in Baltimore, our rail reload was in Joppatown on the B&O.
It’s pretty fascinating stuff when you start to really look at how the things you use every day get to you from the manufacturer.
I don’t know about Lowes, but Sears started out way before 1950. If you go back to the early 1900’s, Sears sold houses in kit form that were shipped via boxcar to the purchaser. There’s some information on this topic at the following Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Catalog_Home.
At one time, everything was shipped by rail. But I think it would be very unlikely that a particular store would have a siding, if that is what you’re getting at. I suspect that most items were shipped to some kind of warehouse, and then trucked to individual stores.
I would imagine Sears would receive inbound shipments of foreign made items as well as appliances by rail. These shipments would have to be received at several large warehouse facilities. As far as outbound items, with Sears’ web ordering, they wouldn’t directly ship anything by rail. If they shipped via UPS or any other carrier, then those carriers would more than likely go by rail if the distance is long enough.
As far as Lowes and Home Depot, it would probably be the same as Sears except they would receive lumber and shingles by rail and distribute them via truck to stores.
About 25 mile from where I live there is a team track where a flat car of lumber is left and several smaller lumberyards (not Lowes or Home Depot) pick up their respective orders and take them to their respective stores.
Sears had a distribution center in Wauwatosa, WI (near Milwaukee), served by the MILW. An old agent told me they had spots for 12 box cars at their facility. Usually it was enough, except when about 30-some cars showed up at once, at some point in the late 1960s. The crew of the patrol had to find places to stuff the excess, and give them 2 switches a day until the backlog was cleared up. Regular traffic was still showing up as well.
I would figure a store like Sears would have mostly inbound loads. There may have been transfers made to other distributions centers, even a load of defects returning to a vendor, but I think that would have been rare. Maybe a load of dunnage returning for re-use.
Was the distribution center that handled the inbound loads of appliances, hardware and lumber called Sears or did the distribution center have a different name totally from Sears? Do you mind sharing the name of the distribution center in Wisconsin that served Sears.
How were the disitribution centers arranged geographically and could use the distribution center say, Lowes as a modeling idea for a industry? With appliances, hardware and lumber coming to Lowes it would seem that the boxcars and flatcars could take up a large amount of trackage(at least two tracks, maybe)
Could I make a distribution center idea to deliver to Lowes as a modeling idea? That was why I am asking about the name of the distribution center.
My local Sears warehouse was huge and use to have a lot of boxcar capacity. It was a very steep grade up to the warehouse but I am sure that siding saw a lot of traffic. The contents use to get unloaded from the boxcar on to platforms with wheels that were pulled through the warehouse to the right area using a track in the floor. Once shipping containers came into being the rail traffic quickly disappeared.[:(]
That sounds like an awesome idea! You could have your dist. warehouses with Lowe’s and Sears signs and then you could even make some store’s (if you have the room) that would connect the dist. warehouse’s by road.
sears had a large distributition/mail order/retail store complex in Memphis at North Parkway and Watkins. there were rail sidings on the north side of the complex served by L&N/NCSt.L ???
track is pretty much abandoned now but you can see it on the Bing Maps birdseye view if you rotate the picture.
In the early 1970s I worked at the Sears retail store that was attached to the Sears Catalog Distribution Center in Kansas City Mo. The facility was adjacent to the four tack Kansas City Terminal Main line a few miles east of Union Station. There was a spur from this track to the back of the catalog center which usually had several box cars, This facility is now closed and most of the building has been torn down.
In eastern Kansas City Sears still operates a parts distribution center on Front Street just north of the KCS-MILW Joint Agency Terminal. The Sears facilty is serviced by the KCS and has a spur on the north side of the building to receive rail shipments from Box Cars.
In the same industrial park as the Sears Parts Center was a Montgomery Ward Warehouse with two tracks down the center of the facility for Box Cars,
I work part-time for Lowe’s and currently most of our merchandise comes from a regional distribution center (RDC) in Rockford, IL. All of the appliances come in on that truck and there is not a spur into the RDC in Rockford. All of our lumber and drywall comes out of somewhere in Iowa. I do not know anything about that place so the lumber and drywall may come in by rail to that facility.
I know Lowe’s still gets lumber and plywood by rail they built a new distribution center in Maryland with increased rail capacity over the old facility. They are supposed to get rail service at a new distribution center in North East , PA. Home Depot gets lots of railcars at it’s New Jersey distribution center, mostly lumber. I know there are some lumber and construction supply places in Jersey that get bricks by rail.
There is a Sears distribution center in Delano, CA. It is next to the UP mainline, however it never had a rail spur. As a matter of fact, they dug a huge ponding basin between it and the tracks.
Richard Sears was a railroad station agent here in Minnesota in the late 1800’s. When someone refused to accept a shipment of high-quality pocket watches, he paid for them himself and sold them to fellow railroaders at a profit. He eventually went into the mail-order business (helped by the advent of Rural Free Delivery of mail by the Post Office) and became a huge company by the early part of the 20th century.
I think it’s the large old Sears Lake St. store in south Minneapolis that’s built over the Milwaukee Road mainline. The tracks ran below street level paralleling Lake Street to eliminate grade crossings. The store was built over the tracks, creating sort of like a tunnel. Not sure if they had a spur/siding set up to receive merchandise or not??
Here’s the old Sears distribution warehouse in Baltimore. It sits in the Jones Falls Valley next to I-83. It had a rail siding off of the Northern Central (PRR, PC and finally CR).
Pretty easy to model, a long, low brick warehouse, with white lettering declaring “SEARS WAREHOUSE”. In later years it served as their appliance service center, too, where you would take your errant Kenmore to be repaired.
Here’s the current Lowe’s regional reload in Hagerstown. There’s a large warehouse for storage of merchandise, which appears to arrive mostly in containers by truck, and the paved yard is where lumber and building materials are stored aft