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--- On Sun, 6/9/13, David Jordan <dpj1974@mediacombb.net>
wrote:
From: David Jordan <dpj1974@mediacombb.net>
Subject: [PeoriaRails] Historical Operations Dept. - CB&Q Starts Peoria's
First TOFC Service 7-5-55!
To: PeoriaRails@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, June 9, 2013, 3:47 AM
List,
This is one of the best discoveries I've made while going through the Peoria
Journal Star on Microfilm these past several years! In fact, this is one of
the reasons I go through them in the first place (comments below article).
From the PEORIA JOURNAL STAR, July 6, 1955:
"'PIGGY-BACK' TRAILER HERE WITH SWEET LOAD
Another commercial transportation milestone in Peoria was marked Tuesday
morning with the arrival here of the first piggyback truck trailer shipment.
A trailer loaded with 320 one hundred-pound sacks of sugar was taken off a
Burlington railroad flat-car at the Burlington Truck lines terminal. Shipped
here from Denver, Colo., it was hitched to a tractor and taken by highway to
Bloomington.
Previously, piggy-back trailers to and from Peoria were loaded and received
at Galesburg. Completion of an unloading ramp at the local terminal gives
Peoria direct service with widely scattered rail-truck terminals of the
Burlington system.
RAMP READY
Construction of ramp facilities here began 30 days ago. Work has been
completed and operation became effective July 4. Local loading of long-haul
consignments is expected to reduce time in transit greatly.
IN the piggy-back system loaded trailers are transported on specially
converted flatcars. This type of transportation is said to combine the
benefits of door-to-door delivery with the speed of distance haulage.
The Burlington line has 110 45-foot rail cars in service. Some 400 truck
trailers are utilized in the piggy-back program. Future plans call for
construction of 50 72-foot cars capable of carrying two trailers each.
FURTHER PLANS
Due to the increased popularity of piggy-back shipping, the company plans to
expand its refrigeration truck equipment. To expedite delivery of
perishables, 50 refrigerated trailers are on order.
Company officials point to reduced operational costs and speedier
cross-country delivery in predicting a growing future for rail-truck
transportation.
They also feel the public will be greatly benefited by the eventual
reduction in numbers of huge, long-haul trucks on the highways.
Future plans envision entire piggy-back trans which will operate on
cross-country schedules equal to fast passenger service.
(end of story)
The article notes the first TOFC load to Peoria was actually going to
Bloomington. The most obvious consignee there for sugar was the Paul F.
Beich Co. at Front and Lumber streets. If shipped in boxcars, the Imperial
Sugar plant in Denver (the likely shipper) might have routed it UP-Kansas
City-GMO. If so, CB&Q found a way to snatch this business.
Obviously, CB&Q's motivation for installing a TOFC ramp at Peoria wasn't
to
cannibalize their own boxcar business, but to cannibalize other railroads'
boxcar business.
The attached photo shows what appears to be a wooden ramp adjacent to the
CB&Q freight house, which was located at S. Washington and Persimmon
Streets
at the time (later the site of Wahlfeld Mfg. Co and now Cast Technologies).
A second, depressed ramp was installed nearby in 1960. Both were replaced by
double depressed ramps located across Persimmon Street in 1965. These lasted
well into the Burlington Northern era. It is still listed in the
January-February 1983 Official Guide, but not the May-June 1983 edition.
DPJ
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