I am planning a layout during the early 50’s in New England. I would like to know how/where I can find the types of freight cars used for specific industries during that time and locale? Obviously creameries would use milk cars and reefers (which I have). I will have a farmers co-op and grain elevator, coal/oil distribrutor. Industries such as tool and tie, leather, furniture making and others I am not so sure what types of cars they would receive/send.
Chris
Start with a boxcar and then specialize from there. Grain = boxcars. Coal = hoppers, gons and boxcars. Oil = tank cars or boxcars. Everything else you listed would be boxcars.
double door boxcars were used to deliver automobiles from the 1920s into the 1960s, quite often autos would be unloaded onto freight house platforms and then rolled down a ramp of heavy beams.
another industry would be bulk pickling of produce. special cars with brine vats were used to “process in transit.”
and then there were potato warehouses and potato cars, special “refrigerators” with stoves to keep the cargo from freezing. (i could tell you stories about them.) the potato warehouses were similar to conventional freight houses, but underneath the platform was boarded in for insulation, and of course the multiple stovepipes.
Common in New York area during that era were gondolas (NYC and Erie come immediately to mind) carrying four or five cylindrical cement containers. Covered hoppers with cement-tight doors were just beginning to appear, but the bulk containers were ubiquitous. The dedicated gons frequently had holes cut in the sides for access to the bottom unloading ports on the containers, and both gons and containers were usually crusted with spilled cement that had gotten wet and then set up in place.
If you have a block manufacturor or a batch (ready-mix) plant, they would receive their bulk cement in those containers.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
The main thing about the 1950s is that such an interesting variety of steel and wood cars (boxcars, reefers, gons, hoppers, cabooses) were still in use, so the relative lack of variety of types of cars is more than made up for with the huge variation in styles of car. Boxcar heights alone varied hugely as you quickly see in any good photo of a 1950s rail yard.
Some covered hoppers were in use in the early 1950s, but they were short and not for grain. Cement and other powders mostly. But some loose materials came bagged. Even kaolin used for paper making often came in modified boxcars (I have seen boxcars with roof hatches added for kaolin service).
More gondolas had bottoms that could open back then - even coal was often shipped by gon, as well as other loose loads.
The above poster is correct that boxcars were used for just about everything, even to the point where they were inefficient and railroads were losing traffic – automobile boxcars being an example, until the autorack cars came into being. But that does not mean the boxcars were not modified or specialized. Cars for hauling lumber often had end doors. Veneer cars often had the side doors removed and wood stakes to maintain the load went right through openings in the roof.
Hide cars for the leather business would have been the oldest operable cars around. Even in the late 1960s I saw a wood single sheathed car in hide service with a 1919 build date, so in the early 1950s I’d think a hide car would be among the oldest with a steel underframe, probably double sheathed cars.
There were some rarities, such as wood tank cars for hauling vinegar. Pickle cars were unique (and rare).
Getting a car builder’s cyclopedia from your chosen era, or just before it, could be invaluable. Y
Thanks everyone for your help and anyone else who offers suggestions in the future.