Carling Breweries, Canadian brewery founded in London, Ontario 1818 now part of Molson-Coors
So what is going on here?
Carling Breweries Ltd.
GPEX 723 tank car leased to Carling Breweries and equipped for use on passenger trains.
Purpose of central housing unknown nor any imnformation on where it was used.
Do you know anything about this car? If so, CONTACT US
Supplying a ‘Tap Car’ in the wilds of the Canadian shield.
Ahhhhh…mmmm…NO!
Ahhhhh…mmmm…NO!
But…on the String Lining thread Firelock pointed out a great party car built by CPR, then there is the wide open observation car, and the first domes ever. Also we now have a doughnut car… so we need this beer car and start assembling the greatest train ever.
Hey Mable
Black Label
Carling Black Label Beer
It was sold on Peoria TV stations and I remember the commercials from when I was way too young to drink it.
I’m guessing that’s some sort of a heating system to keep the suds from freezing. Beer will freeze and that takes it off taste.
Carling had a brewery immediately adjacent to the Baltimore Beltway (I-695) that was serviced by rail. After changing hands several times it was closed and demolished in the 1990’s. It was also about a mile from what became CSX’s Baltimore Dispatching Center.
After the Baltimore Dispatching Center was opened a ‘craft’ brewer, ‘Heavy Seas Brewery’ opened in warehouse space about 1/2 mile from the center.
Some years back, there was a batch of tank cars with distinctive reporting marks (Carl might know them) that were used to ship Coors beer[B]
A tasting room, what a great idea!! Maybe it was sent out to offer SAMPLES??
If you look carefully, you can see that this is not one tank car, but “two”, and the seams in the tank construction strongly indicate to me that they are not welded but insulated under a light ‘cleading.’ The paraphernalia visible very low down under the center of the car are heating traps, no? So strongly indicates that yes, this car is run in passenger service for steam heating (and not silk-like high speed transit)
Now I would have to wonder how much brewed beer was actually moved, like some wine was, in bulk tanks; if I remember correctly the Coors tanks were used for some constituents of the brewing process, not ‘finished’ beer, and these might be too. How was wort transported in the mid-to-late '30s, so shortly after Prohibition in the United States was terminated?
IIRC, these were used to ship water from Golden to their new eastern brewery…
Jim
Tank cars were/are used to transport wort (unfinished beer) from one brewery to another.
The Coor’s Plant{then, a new start-up} in Northern {Harrisonburg, area] Virginia, was the recipient of frequent tankcar moves from the Brewery in Golden, Co. I think they moved ‘wort’ [An ingredient used to brew finished beer products(?)]; possibly water, as wel(?)] Apparently, these ingredient moves were a common practice, among the brewerys of the same ownership.
In the 1990’s Schlitz opened a brewery in Memphis,Tn. one of their products was a line of ‘cooler’ beverages. The company I was with, at the time, had a number of ‘team operated’ trucks, pulling tank trailers. They were employed moving water out of Memphis, and bringing back blended ingredients for their line of ‘coolers’.
Since I was called into the discussion about reporting marks, the Coors cars were CORX 5001-5262. There are only 67 of the original cars left; I can account for only 100 of the missing 195 cars. I was under the impression that these cars, equipped with mechanical temperature controls, actually shipped finished product, but wort seems far more feasible. (I’m not a beer drinker, so I know about nothing inside the tank. They weren’t shipped via UP or CNW.)
At about the same time, Fruit Growers Express modified a number (100?) of mechanical reefers with two large tanks in each, for what I presume was the same commodity, different brewer. They had two large tanks on the inside, a large roof hatch toward one end, and a FGE paint scheme that labeled them “The Chiller”. They weren’t in service long before being rebuilt to ordinary reefers, and many of them are now in the ARMN 933900 series (the roof hatch still distinguishes them).
As for the original car, GPEX was the reporting mark of the General American-Pfaudler Corporation, the same company that was responsible for a number of steel milk cars, including the famous Borden milk tank cars. There were 95 cars with identical dimensions in 1931 (tanks could hold 6000 gallons); the series was GPEX 700-800. I have a 1941 ORER that shows the series but not the quantity; in 1949 only five of these were left. The cars were apparently built before steam was used for air-conditioning as well as heat, but they may have been retrofitted for this as well.
There’s also the possibility that not all of the cars in the series were designed like this…this is pretty much the interior design of an ordinary GPEX reefe
Carl,
You have a wealth of information that we would hate to see that lost if not saved in perpetuity.
Have you made any provisions for their availability at a later date? I am asking because I think they would make a great addition to Trains Magazine’s library.
Pretty good idea, NORM(Norm48327)! [tup][tup]
Over time, Carl S. (CShaveRR) has been a wealth of really good information concerning information about various cars Identification,types,etc; not to mention the UMLER ID system. His knowledge, and research has been a source of some real,timely information here on this Forum for a lot of us. [bow]
My will has already named the organization that gets to clean out the dungeon when I meet my demise. It’s a non-profit that can make use of a lot of it. What they can’t use they can sell off…I won’t care!
I’m pretty sure, having visited Kalmbach’s library, that they have a decent collection of Equipment Registers at their disposal (I mean, they have one or two of my books, so they must have everything, right?). A lot of the expertise comes with knowing how to use what one has at one’s disposal.
What nobody else has is my sightings logs and information garnered to support them. When I’m gone, these will have to be harvested from whatever I’m using at that time (it’s all on this laptop at the moment). I never feel I’m far enough along to transfer my stuff to a stick to send out to the other freight-car freaks. They get my current information in emails I send them. It’s pretty well arranged so it’s a matter of putting just one massive folder onto the stick…said folder contains literally thousands of files from a lifetime of record-keeping. The problem comes from the fact that I’m also still (sloooowly) adding to these files from my old typewritten notes.
Carl: most of your missing Wort cars are probably rusting to the rails on SLC and SLRG in the San Luis Valley along with Amboxes. (Whole herds down there looking for a new use)
Carl,
MC and I am on the same page regarding the information you have collected over the years and I still think Trains Magazine would be a good repository for such valuable information.
After you’re gone it will be too late to recapture the data you have accumulated. Please send an email to Jim Wrinn offering that data.
None of us wants to exit this earth but it could happen to any of us tomorrow. Please take that into consideration. Your choice to share could be of benefit to all.
I only hope that the laptop is also backed up periodically, so if it gets stolen or crashes beyond recovery the information does not vanish into electronic oblivion. I regularly back-up my digital images to a couple of external hard drives, one of which is kept at a friend’s house as insurance against burglary or fire at mine. Makes it easy for an executor to pass the data on. Some sites offer on-line storage, although I haven’t had any experience with them.
John
No they weren’t! The eastern water was mixed with “mash” from Golden to make the finished beer.