Almost every Wayfreight had one or more LCL cars in which the shipments for smaller stations on their route had been placed. This car was "worked" at each of the smaller stations by opening the car door and handling the parcels for that station. There could also be LCL set outcome cars to be spotted at the larger stations freight houses or on the depot house track. I worked with one particular brkmn a number of times and his favorite sad sack story was about unloading school desks from the LCL car at Stratford,IL. LCL was almost always handled in 40 ft box cars. Rarely a 50 footer. Occasionally an mty reefer could be utilized.
As FYI I have 2 ofull length articles on Q LCL operations written for the BRHS Bulletin. The smaller one is an in depth look at the Aurora,IL freight house operation. This house served both as the towns frt house and as what today would be called a "hub" for dozens of LCL cars going out on the daily Wayfreights across Northern Illinois. The second is a large work on the Q's Chicago freight houses and operations. There were actually more than a dozen over the decades. Still working on visuals for this piece. Also have one or two more interviews to fill in blanks on operations.
Due to space,schedules,many other fine articles available from others I am unsure when these will be available.
Leo Phillipp
Sent from my iPad
The Q didn't have special boxcars for LCL (at least in later years). As a matter of fact, the LCL cars might not even be Q cars. I don't know about the K line, but in the area I'm familiar, locals did set out LCL cars at certain stations. For example, an LCL car was set out at Christopher, the contract draymen delivered and picked up freight at Christopher, Zeigler and Valier and a northbound turn picked the car up.
Local passenger trains worked head end traffic at station stops. Some local freights picked up and unloaded LCL at station stops.
I am modeling the K Line from STL to Hannibal and would like to add LCL Service to the railroad. To implement LCL I have several questions. First, did the Q have special box cars assigned to this service and were they identified with special paint or special logo.
I know that the Q had Train #1 which carried both mail and express packages. Did this train make station stops to drop and pick-up mail and express packages?
What about local freights did they perform tasks similar to #1 ? Did the Q ever leave the LCL CAR behind to be picked up the next day? Thank-you for your help.
Hank
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