Here is an update to my original post. The following information is based on a CB&Q (not BRHS) Burlington Bulletin I just obtained, Issue Number 35, September-October 1967 ("MEAT PROGRESS" on cover):
1. The same photo in the 1967 Annual Report is on page 8 of this BB. The caption reads: "Sixty containers, largest containerized shipment ever to arrive in Chicago from Japan, was received recently in Cicero yards. The aluminum containers, which carried radios, rape recorders and other electronic parts and equipment, we carried aboard special articulated flat cars after being unloaded from a container ship at Los Angeles."
This caption makes it sound like this may have been a special shipment. Also, the fact that these are "special articulated flat cars" will hopefully give a clue as to whose cars these were. From the photo it is clear these are two-car sets made up of GSC flat cars. Although the caption uses the term "articulated", I doubt these are really articulated sets (which implies one center truck shared by two cars). My guess is that they are draw-bar permanently coupled sets. If we do the math, 60 containers would have require 15 of the two-car articulated flat car sets. So whoever's cars these are, they would have needed to have a number of these two-car sets on their roster. Since one car still has two 20' containers on it, I would say these are the longer GSC flats, 55-60 ft long.
My guess is that these were UP flat cars. According to the UP Color Guide Volume 2 Page 49 The UP used 53'-6" class F-70-5 cars to make 25 110' articulated car sets designated class F-70-13 in 1964. The photo is of a mineral red car set. In Volume 1 on page 52 is a photo of a two-car set U.P. 258164 designed for containers. Total car length was 114'-8". UP owned ten of these cars and later acquired 170 more with a total length of 115'-10". These cars were in yellow and had predominate UP reporting marks/number on the car ends. The reason why I bring this up is the photo in the BB at Cicero has no visible car end reporting marks. This may have been the PR department airbrushing out the UP info so as not to detract from the CB&Q or it may be another indicator of car owner/type because many UP flat cars shown in the Color Guides, both mineral red and yellow, do not have any reporting marks on the car ends.
2. This BB also has an article in it on Meat Transport that has info on new container cars for 24' reefer containers. The photo shows a TTX 89' flat that was outfitted with an "underslung" "64-HP, three-cylinder, two-cycle diesel engine". According to the article the diesel engines were "used successfully on combat and construction vehicles in Viet Nam." The meat containers were loaded at Armour in St. Paul (three 24' containers per car) and shipped to Alameda, CA "where they are loaded on a Matson freighter for the Hawaiian Islands." The article said a second car was being retrofitted at Havelock and if successful, 18 more "Underslungs" would be built.
Anyone know if this was successful? Also, I am curious about the route to Alameda. Would the cars have gone all the way to Chicago and then to California, or would these have possibly gone to Savanna and then the Pea Vine to Galesburg? These were 89' cars, so I don't know if the Pea Vine regularly handled that length.
Tom Mack
Cincinnati, OH
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, "thommack" <thommack@...> wrote:
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> I was looking through my 1967 CB&Q Annual Report (released May, 1968)and ran across a very interesting photo on page 4. It shows a "down on" view of apparently shot from some elevated vantage point of the container operations at Cicero yard. Being unloaded from a flat car is a Mitsui O.S.K. Lines 20' container that also has a large "AIWA-SELECTRON" sign attached to the container ribs. The caption photo says "Container loads of Japanese electronic wares are unloaded at Cicero yard, on Chicago's western limits."
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> Here are some interesting observations and a question:
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> 1. The 20' containers are not on 89' container flats. There are two of them each on GSC flat cars (clearly identified by the wooden deck pattern). Anyone know what length and whose GSC flat cars would have been modified for twin 20' container carrying in 1967? Were these actually CB&Q flats?
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> 2. The containers are being unloaded using an old Whiting gantry crane. The crane is an old rail mounted gantry crane apparently already at Cicero. It is not a rubber tired gantry crane like you usually think of for containers and piggyback, and which the Q actually purchased for Cicero in 1965 (a 171,400 pound capacity LeTorneau Series ST-40 pictured on page 18 of the 1965 Annual Report). The container is being lifted by four cables, one cable hooked at each top corner of the container, not by some actual container lifting device like is used today.
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> 3. Does anyone know if these containers were offloaded anywhere else other than Cicero? e.g. Might they have gone to the Twin Cities for offload there, or was container traffic pretty much between the west coast and Chicago only?
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> Hope this gets some lively discussion going!
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> Tom Mack
> Cincinnati, OH
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