Leo...I'm going to make some assumptions here, but I think that the banana
movement would have been from New Orleans to major distribution points ie
Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha etc. Thence via REA to local towns via passenger
trains or as LCL via freight trains.
My dad often told of fresh meat shipments moving via LCL to Langdon via local
freight trains thence via RPLN to Rock Port...Those mainline locals handling
this kind of stuff...ie fresh fruit, vegetable, meat etc carried what we would
term a "trap or way car" for such local shipments..This car would be a
refrigerator car...I think these were gone before I came along, but the local
LCL (way car) was still very much in evidence in "my day" for "dry freight"
Note that I am using the term "way car"...not waycar as the conveyance for
local LCL shipments. "Way car"...derived from it's use as a conveyance for
shipments to be unloaded "along the WAY"
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: Leo <qutlx1@aol.com>
To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Mar 19, 2014 8:17 pm
Subject: Re: [CBQ] What could these crates be?
So is it correct to believe these banana crates moved as REA express on
passenger trains as opposed to LCL on frt and locals ?
Also would be interesting to know if the crates were loaded at New Orleans or
at various wholesalers after delivery of a carload.
Leo
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 19, 2014, at 4:15 PM, "Charlie Vlk" <cvlk@comcast.net> wrote:
West Madison Street in Chicago was “skid row”……where bums and derelicts
(“homeless persons” in todays PC terminology) congregated because of a number
of Rescue Missions located in the area.
It was not far from the Fulton Street Market which was the wholesale
distribution center for (primarily) fruits and vegetables. Pete mentioned
that the Banana Messengers were recruited from West Madison Street so we a
likely talking about contract employees hired by the banana distributors on a
per trip basis, not regular employees of the railroad.
Seems to me there was an article on the banana traffic in RMC not too long ago
that probably covered this.
IC had some extra long cabooses set up with accommodations for banana
messengers (plans were in MR and identified as “Banana Caboose”) so the concept
is not unlike that for livestock drovers that accompanied and cared for the
shipment of animals.
Charlie Vlk
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