Amazing brochure.
http://kc.pennsyrr.com/freightops/downloads/container_service.pdf
What might have been except for misguided government economic regulation.
What’s cool is that you can still find those containers in some ex-PRR yards. They were/are used as shanties or for storage.
Definitely interesting reading! While not the first stab at containers on rail, the size of the PRR would have gone a long ways in making their design a de facto standard. If in this alternative history, the PRR made an effort to provide fast and reliable schedules for the container trains (erhaps dedicated?), long distance trucking in the PRR service are may have evolved slower than i did. This is assuming that the infrastructure for container handling became common.
I’d also wonder how much success the PRR would have had in getting connecting lines to go along, having more potential destinations for the containers would have increased the incentives for using them. The EBT might have liked them as well, the “Timber Transfer” crane would have been dieal for transloading containers between narrow gauge and standard gauge cars.
- Erik
P.S. In response to Zug’s comment, the containers did seem a bit overbuilt.
But that was the era: things were built to be used, perhaps forever if need be! PRR was especially noted for their infrasturcture for instance…look from Montauk and Greenport west to Chicago and St. Louis and see some of the magnificent bridges, fills, tunnels, buildings, rights of way, whatever they built, that are not only still standing today, but still under full load today. A container for moving things was just one of those items. So if it just sat alongside the right of way or in the back of some yard to shelter crews instead of being out on cars and trucks and knocked around loading docks, I’m sure they would survive.
This one is still here (at a non-disclosed location). Starting to rust out at the bottom, though.
That container represents a very important turning point in the history of US railroads. It belongs in a museum after restoration. It doesn’t look like it would take much to do that. Anybody have any ideas on how to get the ball rolling before the box deteriorates further?
Well here are the Pennsy freight schedules from 1931. They look pretty good to me. (That Keystone Crossings website is fantastic!)
http://kc.pennsyrr.com/freightops/downloads/310501_gn_234b.pdf
It wasn’t the railroads’ failure to provide good service that doomed the early development of intermodal/containerization, it was the Federal economic regulators (who didn’t understand the situation).
In 1931 the ICC ordered the railroads to increase the rates on container movements to a level that was non competitive. (173 ICC 377). The railroads then steadily lost the high revenue LCL (A.K.A. “merchandise”) business to the truckers. They would have lost an undetermine amount in any event, but the dang government exacerbated the diversion of revenue by preventing the development of intermodal movement. (Restrictions on intermodal were not substanti
Agreed. About a year or so ago zug and I swapped some e-mails about doing just that. As I recall, our consensus was that the RR Museum of Pennsylvania would be the most appropriate, especially since it’s not too far away from where the container now is . . . [:-^] After that, maybe the Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona, NRHS Harrisburg Chapter to go with their GG1, caboose, and HARRIS tower, the Smithsonian Institute, Steamtown, and so on.
I have some more time on my hands most of these days. Once I get past a couple of pending projects/ assignments in a couple of weeks, maybe I’ll drop a line to the RRMusPA folks and suggest that. zug, if you care to do that before then, go right ahead - it’s more important to get started and get it done, than who gets the credit, etc.
greyhounds, thanks much for posting the link to that brochure, too ! [bow] I hadn’t seen or known about it before.
- Paul North.
I’m quite aware of the unfortunate regulatory history of containers - but wasn’t really sure what kind of service the PRR had provided.
- Erik