224 pages, letter size, hard cover, $60.00
車体側面いっぱいに広告を描いた冷蔵貨車、すなわちビルボード・リーファーの写真集で、解説もある。その最盛期が1920年代から30年代までなので、ほとんどがモノクロ写真だが、戦後のカラー写真が9頁、30年代にHOゲージでRed Ballから売り出されたカラー印刷の側板が2頁に渡って紹介されている。
1920年代に勃興したリーファー・リース会社は、鉄道運賃が積車と空車で同一な点を稼働率の高さで補い、また高稼働率のリーファー側面を広告媒体として販売することにより事業を成り立たせていた。ただし、鉄道事業者にとっては、生鮮食品を積んだリーファーは優先順位が高く、運用も面倒な存在で、自社保有リーファーの競争力を削ぐ存在として、ICC（Interstate Commerce Commission）に提訴した結果、1934年に側面を広告媒体とすることが事実上できなくなる規則が決定され、1937年以降の運行が禁止された。それはプライベート・リーファー事業モデルの転換でもあった。【書き掛け】
＞＞管理者のささやかな模型コレクション
The billboard refrigerator car was a car decorated with advertising ma-terial, often vivid and even flamboyant in appearance. Flourishing at their peak from the 1920s until 1937, these cars marked a distinctive era in American railroad history. That period is the focus of this book. The authors present more than 440 photos, most never before pub-lished, to show the lettering and general appearance of a wide variety of these cars, which ran on railroads throughout the country. They also pro-vide information on car construction and service usage. The history of this period can be puzzling. The authors explain the conditions which led to the Interstate Commerce Commission ruling banning the cars in 1937, and also provide extensive information on the leasing companies and car fleets which accounted for most of the cars.
Contents
5 Ch.1 Historical Background
Refrigerator Cars in the Nineteenth Century
Refrigerator Car Ownership and Operation at the Turn of the Century
The Railroad Begin Reclaiming the Refrigerator Car Business
Refrigerator Car Design and Construction in the Early Twentieth Century
The Advent of "Billboard" Refrigerator Cars
The Railroads' Objections to Privately Owned "Billboard" Reefers
"Billboard" Reefers Outlawed
Billboard Reefers ad the End of Prohibition
19 Ch.2 Early Billboard Refrigerator Cars
35 Ch.3 Billboard Reefer of the 1920s and 1930s: Meat Packers
47 Ch.4 North American Despatch
73 Ch.5 North Western Refrigerator and Western Refrigerator Lines
93 Ch.6 Merchants Despatch Transportation Company and Northern Refrigerator Car Company
123 Ch.7 General American Refrigerator Express
135 Ch.8 Union Refrigerator lines
157 Ch.9 Quaker Refrigerator Express
167 Ch.10 Other Owners and Leasing Companies
181 Ch.11 End of An Era
187 Ch.12 Postwar Renaissance (Postwar Color Gallery)
207 Appendix 1: Historical Color Renditions
209 Appendix 2: Summary of ICC Ruling
209 Bibliography
215 Index
The practice of painting advertisements on the freight cars of shippers and car owners dates well back into the 19th century. But in the 1920s, leasing companies realized they could contract with shippers to pass back usage payments beyond some agreed minimum.
This led to an explosion of car leasing and, as this book amply demonstrates, a corresponding explosion of billboard decoration of refrigerator cars. Railroad objections, especially to the usage payment rebates, led to hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission, which, taking effect in 1937, banned most of the leasing practices which had generated the car leasing bonanza. After World War II, a restrained billboard style made a modest comeback.
Car-side advertising was only a detail of that ICC decision. But because it was the basis for a remarkable diversity of refrigerator car paint schemes in the era, the photographs of these cars have long held an interest for historians, railfans, and model railroaders.
Thoroughly documented here are hundreds of these paint schemes, together with details of the leasing companies and car builders associated with the individual cars. More than 440 photographs, most previously unpublished, enrich this book. Even a modest amount of color information was available and is included.
The authors, both recognized authorities on railroad freight car history, have done a superb job of collecting and organizing the information presented here. The book is sure to appeal to modelers and to many who are interested in railroad history.
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