Leo,
In your recent response to the Westmont question. you mentioned that
Pepperidge Farm bread was loaded into baggage cars on the south side
of the Downers Grove Main Street depot. Having grown up in DG and
being familiar with the area, I found this statement to be somewhat
curious since the Pepperidge Farm plant is less than 2 miles from the
Main Street depot. Loading a truck at the plant, moving it the short
distance to the depot and then reloading into a baggage car makes no
sense, particularly since Pepperidge has it's own siding that could
load a car and be picked up by a commuter train with no more effort
or time than picking up a car from the south side of the depot and
without blocking crossings. Since I have access to someone with first
hand knowledge of the Pepperidge operation in those days, I decided
to do some investigation.
Pepperidge Farm opened in 1953. For the first three years, my uncle,
Dean Barber who is now 87 years old, had the exclusive truck shipping
contract for Pepperidge. In fact, he hauled the first truckload of
bread out of the plant. His company shipped most if not all of the
bread from the plant to distribution points in the Chicago area (they
supplied Chicago stores), Railway Express in Chicago and all of the
railroad freight terminal buildings in Chicago. From these last two,
bread and other products were shipped by passenger train north,
south, east and west. The bread was time sensitive, so, truck
shipment to Chicago was preferred. .My uncle's trucks departed around
the clock, but a lot of them left in the evening to make late night
passenger trains so the bread would be available the next morning at
it's destination.
My uncle's company never delivered any bread product to the DG depot
and he is not aware of any other operation that did so during his
association with Pepperidge. He also does not recall any outgoing
product being shipped by rail from the plant's siding. Such shipments
were considered too slow. The primary use for the sidings were and
still are, incoming ingredients, flour, etc. The bread was shipped in
large cardboard boxes which probably held 24 loaves and were quite
heavy. It was loaded using hand trucks from conveyor belts in the
plant. At the end of the first three years, he lost the contract to
another bidder, Preisler Trucking, which hauled for Pepperidge for
many more years.
While I don't know what the source of your information is, I don't
think Pepperidge Farm bread was among the products shipped for the DG
depot. I do know that cars came and went, so other products were
shipped and/or received there. Of course, at one time, prior to WWII,
there was a wood freight house on the west side of Main Street. It
had been the original DG depot before the current depot was built in
1910 or 1911. The freight house was removed just before or during WWII.
Bill Barber
Gravois Mills, MO
On Nov 29, 2010, at 4:26 AM, CBQ@yahoogroups.com wrote:
> Westmont
> Posted by: "qutlx1@aol.com" qutlx1@aol.com leophillipp
> Sun Nov 28, 2010 7:23 pm (PST)
>
>
>
> Express,mail,newspapers and baggage were handled by a few specific
> suburban trains each day. Certain stations,Berwyn for example, had
> stub sidings to
> set out cars of express.
> At most stations it was simply handled at the platform. The dinkies
> with
> these duties were specified on the trainmasters notices at bid
> time.The
> notice would specify how many baggage cars the job would handle on
> which run
> and which were set out at what stations and how many were "working"
> cars. I
> was suprised how many jobs and how many cars were involved even
> into the 50s
> and 60s. Back in the day certain dinkies hauled a lot of mail.
> Recently
> re-read one of the files wherein brakemen were unloading in excess
> of 72
> sacks of mail at Aurora off a westbound dinky ! Not just one day
> but everday
> for months.
> At Downers Grove Pepperidge Farm loaded bread in baggage cars on
> the track
> that was behind the depot. An eastbound dinky would back onto it
> and take
> it to CUS and then 14th st.
> Aurora had the express house trk.and also baggage and company mail
> handled
> on the platforms.
> Then there were the cars from Kable in Oregon that were shuttled by
> the
> Oregon Turn wayfrt and the dinkies after the thru trains were taken
> off that
> had done the work.
> The wheel car has been extensively discussed. One thing that hasn't
> been
> covered was the shuttling of passenger cars to and from Aurora
> shops for
> repairs by the dinkies.
>
> By the 70s there was only one midday job that dropped off only company
> mail westbound at each station and picked up eastbound. Bill Lyons
> was the
> brakeman on that run for years. He'd leave his uniform coat in the
> closed half
> car,put on his frt hat and meet each agent at each stop.
> That reminds me of the brakeman trying to do both milk and
> passenger work
> on #42. But that's a future article. Then again maybe one on little
> know
> dinky facts someday
>
>
> Leo Phillipp
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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