Nostalgia & History > How many 1956 Pontiacs can you put in an SP boxcar?

I was scanning a negative I have of the Mesa Arizona Station when I saw this interesting boxcar load.

Robert Morris Photography

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What is four?

Looks like 4 to me and a cute 50'ish Dodge pick-up, to boot.

Tom Y

Wow!  Boxcar loads of autos in my hometown, Mesa, Arizona.  It's been a long time since I thought of this.  The long-time station agent, Marion M. McKinley, ran me out of the depot often.  After I produced a drawing of all the trackage in Mesa's yard, he framed it and placed it over the huge depot safe.  From that moment on, I was welcome in the depot. I remember helping the station forces unload autos from those boxcars in about 1957.  Thanks for a real memory shock!

Norm 

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar

Yes but what kind of mechanism got one on top of the other?
Was there one of those 4 corner pole lifts?

Love to see how they got them in and out of the box car

Jeff

To get them out you used a floor jack. You also had to bring along a car battery to power the lifts.   It was a lot of fun getting 4 cars out of a 40 ft car!  50 ft ,not so bad.

I would have scratched up or dinged every single car trying to get them out of there.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/17 08:27 by atsf121.

I would imagine that quite a few automobiles got torn up by bad switching and train handling.

Did some racks allow for a fifth automobile in a 50' boxcar?

Those forty and fifty foot box cars with the auto's were tied down well, to load,they did the top two first and then the bottlom two and to unload, the bottom two and then the top two, unloading these cars saw very little  and almost no damage to the auto's....The car dealers used their own people to unload who had no skill at unloading, but they followed directions and every thing went well..Every town that had a depot and a ramp and took delivery of the automobiles.....the railroads did their best to make sure of delivery as this was one of their best customers...

aronco Wrote:
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> Wow!  Boxcar loads of autos in my hometown, Mesa,
> Arizona.  It's been a long time since I thought
> of this.  The long-time station agent, Marion M.
> McKinley, ran me out of the depot often.  After I
> produced a drawing of all the trackage in Mesa's
> yard, he framed it and placed it over the huge
> depot safe.  From that moment on, I was welcome
> in the depot. I remember helping the station
> forces unload autos from those boxcars in about
> 1957.  Thanks for a real memory shock!
>
> Norm 

I went to ASU and lived in Mesa for awhile. I would travel between Mesa and LA on the Sunset and remember that beautiful depot quite well.

The device used to load the cars was an Evans Loader.   It allowed four automobiles
to be loaded into initailly a 40' boxcar.  My family has been in the automobile business
since 1937.  My dad spoke of receiving new Chevrolets from Janesville, WI in boxcars
equipped with the Evans Loader.  They did get the cars to the dealership in excellent
condition, although you had to follow the unloading instructions explicitly.  Locally
(SE Minnesota) the transport of automobiles to the dealership by rail ended in
1953 when a semi-truck company based in Janesville began to handle deliveries
within about 300 miles. On one of the first deliveries to our dealership by truck,
the ramps collapsed and the new 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air sedan (and driver)
went from the height of the top deck of the trailer (which carried four cars) to the
street.  The car was heavily damaged, but the driver, while shaken up a great
deal, was not severely damaged.