I have a couple of questions concerning “billboard” reefers.
I know that the ICC prohibited these cars from interchange service sometime in the mid-'30s; January, 1937 is a date which comes readily to mind. It is only a matter of simple curiousity but can someone confirm or deny that date?
The 1920s and 1930s were the heyday of 36 foot reefers and I have always associate them with that length car; yet I see that most (model) manufacturers who put these out utilize 40 foot cars for this purpose perhaps, when it is said and done because they are marketing that length car with other paint schemes. I do not for a moment suppose that there were not 40 foot “billboard” cars but am I wrong in my presumption that most “billboard” reefers were 36 footers?
Looking at the reefers owned by Merchants Despatch and General American, cars with an overall length in the range of 40’ to 41’5" had inside lengths of about 33’.
Cars with an overall length in the range of 36’ to 37’5" had inside lengths of about 30’.
Bill, I appreciate your taking time to respond; I answered your response before I answered the one from IRONROOSTER but my response got hoodooed somehow or another.
The railroads have never been keen on owning ‘specialty’ cars. They will own boxcars, flats, gons and hoppers but anything more exotic is usually left to leasing companies. Shippers lease cars to ensure a sufficient supply of cars when they needed them. If the shipper leased a large enough group of cars, for a long enough period, the leasing company allowed the cars to be painted for the shipper. The shipper loaded the car for its outbound trip, but the railroads could load the cars for the back haul. Reefers might be used to carry food, canned goods, magazines, any clean freight. Some companies didnt like the idea of putting their loads in a car painted for somebody else, so the ‘billboard’ cars were banned. The ban wasnt total, though. Cars can still be painted in a ‘billboard’ scheme, but they cannot carry any freight other than the owner/lessor’s.
36 ft reefers in the 1920’s and 1930’s were on there way out, the 36 ft car was a 1900-1920 era car. By WW1 40 ft cars were becoming the norm. A lot of the 36 ft cars were meat reefers and the 40 ft cars were produce cars.
Yes by about 1915 all new reefers (except those used in the meat industry) were 40’ cars, normally with steel underframes.
BTW be aware that many “billboard” reefer models you see are actually carrying lettering dating back to the 1890’s-1900’s, which was probably really the peak of the “billboard” era. If modelling the steam era you have to do a little research to be sure which paint schemes were in use at the time you’re modelling.
p.s. just to expand on something mentioned earlier…private owners could still put their name on their reefers, the ICC ruling mainly limited the size of the lettering and the artwork etc. they could use. It didn’t allow them to use the huge 3’-4’+ lettering of the company name as had happened before on some cars. I think it had to be 15" or less, or something like that??