EXTERNAL: hauling milk in NC in reefers with N&W reporting marks?

Wed Aug 11 12:36:42 EDT 2021

 The July 1925 issue of Norfolk And Western Magazine has an article on N&W freight cars (pp 578-582) which includes a small photograph of the class A-25 refrigerator Car (p 579). It appears to be #504, and is outside braced. The article says: "In 1908 the N&W decided to buy 10 refrigerator cars. The cars were constructed upon scientific lines with reference to refrigeration and other details. So far, at least, the company has not apparently deemed it advisable to increase its refrigerator equipment."
Jim Nichols
    On Wednesday, August 11, 2021, 08:52:50 AM CDT, NW Modeling List via NW-Modeling-List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org> wrote:  

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Dave:

The best source for that kind of info would be the ORER (Official Railroad Equipment Register) from that time.  Westerfield used to sell ORER from various times on CDs; don’t know whether that’s still the case.  ORER paper copies are sometimes sold on eBay.

The ORER list all cars declared for tax purposes by almost all railroads in the US, one year per ORER.  The cars for each RR are listed by class, and generally the span of road numbers is given. You should have pretty good evidence as to whether N&W listed these cars as reefers or as milk cars, if they wore N&W reporting marks—though even in New England, most milk cars were chilled by ice or (later on) by ThermoKing units.  I would think that in NC, refrigeration would be mandatory for successful milk service.

My branch of the family came from Ashland, OH, though I apparently did have a great uncle who was Chief Ranger in the Rocky Mountain Forest at one time.

-Eric Bott

From: NW-Modeling-List <nw-modeling-list-bounces at nwhs.org>On Behalf Of NW Modeling List
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2021 20:55
To: NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: EXTERNAL: hauling milk in NC in reefers with N&W reporting marks?

Dear Modelers,

I was analyzing my conductor wheel reports from 1934 for the Southern's Winst0n-Salem division to prepare for my presentation at the upcoming Middle Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers meet this September.  My presentation discusses building a model layout freight car fleet through "triangulation" of data sources (and "Cap'n" HF Snow's conductor's books from Jan-Oct, 1934 is one of the my most useful sources and the reason I'm modeling 1934 in North Carolina).

In the analysis, I examined the proportion of reporting marks by car type and learned some interesting things about the N&W freight cars around Greensboro and Winston-Salem (which you can hear about from me at the MARPM meet (seeHome | MARPM | Mid-Atlantic RPM).

In looking at reefers I was surprised to see two reefers listed with N&W reporting marks making round trips between Winston-Salem Union Station and Pomona yard in Greensboro carrying milk waybilled to Greensboro and High Point, NC and returning empty to the N&W via Winston-Salem.

The two N&W reefers are numbered 7006 and 7008.

I'm curious to learn more about these.  Are they milk cars labeled as reefers by the Southern conductor?  Is there evidence of reefers with N&W reporting marks for 1934?   All I can find in the archives are photos of non-N&W reefers and some track plans for White House and PET milk facilities in Virginia and Union Dairy platform for the Illinois Terminal RR.

What can you tell me about this intriguing finding?  Did Cap'n Snow write down the wrong info multiple times?  Or were there reefers carrying milk lettered for the N&W in 1934?

If so, I might have to try my hand at modeling one some day!

Thanks,

Dave Bott

Here's a sneak preview of some interesting, if not totally surprising, N&W-related findings about N&W boxcars on the Southern trains (Gilbert-Nelson hypothesis doesn't apply to these trains):

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