Nostalgia & History > Appleton boxcar mover?

Is there such a thing? It looks like something that might be used to control to reproductive urges of a very large stallion.

Huh? That was a surprise - I figured some industry in Wisconsin! - - JLH

I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, and there was a business located there that manufactured railroad car movers. The name of the business was Advance Car Mover. I Googled it, and found this web site: http://www.advancecarmover.com/carmover.html

A car mover is a hand held tool that is used to move rail cars very short distances, such as spotting a car a few feet etc. It’s basically a big pry bar that puts pressure between a car wheel and the rail. Maybe someone can tell us of his or her experiences using one of these car movers and how they worked.

Dennis

Thanks for the link. I grew up in Appleton, too (when it was Milwaukee/Soo/CNW, not CN) and never knew about Advance Car Mover!

I've used a "car mover" (not sure which brand) to move streetcar trucks at Orange Empire. It's not for the impatient. Sometimes one can get the truck to rolling with the mover and push it the rest of the way by hand (usually several hands). Sometimes there's a question: is it faster to use the car mover or to get a locomotive or fork lift to do the job?

Those roller pry trucks are the same as used in supermarkets to move the gondolas and refrigerators a short distance. Leverage!

That is it. Thanks for finding the link.

I recall a couple of industries in my home town whose employees would use these or a similar device to respot cars between visits by the local freight, moving the next loaded car to a specific unloading spot (such as over the conveyor belt, in the case of hopper cars). The people moving these cars also had to be adept at climbing up and (re)tying on a hand brake.

I've got one of these movers, but not sure it is an Appleton. Found it back in the 1960's when I purchased an old scale house- elevator office from a local grain elevator so it came with the move. I'd even forgot I had it until this posting here.

When I was a kid at Haviland, KS on the ROCK ISLAND, I recall seeing this mover used at the local Farmer's Co-op when they needed to tweak the location of a car when spotting it for the grain spout to enter the side door after coopering the opening with wooden grain doors. Usually when they moved a car or two, they had an old International-Harvester tractor that they attached a chain to the truck frame and then pulled. Usually they would get the slack out and then throttle up slightly and release the clutch slowly, sometimes slightly spinning the wheels until the cars began to move slowly. Once in a while they would get too much speed and the driver would quickly dismount, detach the chain from the car and hurridly climb the ladder to reach the hand brake. Another fellow on the ground would be walking alongside the slowly rolling car and would place a piece of scrap 2x4 or two beneath the wheels attempting to stop it. (These were the days before OSHA and insurance auditors) The track had a slight downward slope from the elevator. Once I recall seeing a loaded car with another or two attached that were allowed to roll freely beyond the loading point. The lead car rolled past the feedhouse and to a derail where the first axle went over the derail. That was not a good experience!