History

The early history of the Chicago, New York, & Boston Refrigerator Company (CNY&B) is not well known, but it began as a consolidation of the yet earlier New York Despatch Refrigerator Line and the National Despatch Refrigerator Line enterprises in 1893.  It was in turn subsumed by the Whipple Car Company, with no change of management in 1909.¹  Notes included in Official Railway Equipment Registers (ORER) plainly stated that no distinction was to be made between the two different names; it was considered as one fleet in all operational aspects.  A useful summary was offered by the Federal Trade Commission in 1919:

Having been acquired by the Grand Trunk (GT) in 1913, the reefer line would be shifted to Grand Trunk Western (GTW) control sometime after Canadian National (CNR) took control of the GT in 1920.  The equipment continued to bear their unique reporting marks until 1942, when the GTW absorbed the operation into the theirs and began to renumber the cars.

As their holding company's name indicated, the National Refrigerator Despatch and New York Refrigerator Despatch are best known for operating their cars along a Chicago to New York and Boston routing, with the junction of the wye so formed located at White River Junction, VT.  A combination of meat, dairy, and perishable ladings from the upper midwest are likely, given the variation in the equipment roster.  Railroads participating in this routing were predominately the CNR and it's predecessors and subsidiaries: GT, GTW, and CV, with the (corporately unrelated) Boston & Maine (B&M) taking the Boston bound traffic the 'last mile' to eastern New England destinations.  However, these cars were in no way exclusively used in that trade, as the FTC indicated, and are known to have traveled the northeast more widely as well.

The Reporting Marks

The evolution of the reporting marks used by these concerns was ongoing, and can be easily confused with another operation.²  As early as 1899, the National Despatch Refrigerator Line used NDL in the ORER, while the New York Despatch Refrigerator Line used NYD at that time.³  Photographic evidence and the etchings used in the ORER listings suggest, however, that cars were lettered NDRL and NYDL, respectively.  Around the time of the Whipple acquisition in 1909, and possibly coinciding with it, the registers began to show NDRL and NYDRL, but no specific evidence has yet come to light that the latter was applied to any cars; an end view from that brief period is not known.  The first evidence of new reporting marks in use is the assignment of NDRX and NYDX to the two lines in 1915.⁴  However, no changes are shown in the ORER's up to 1919 despite the 1913 GT purchase, but by 1923, the registers show the new reporting mark in use, applied to the recently acquired NYDX 15000-15249 series.  The MCB had revised their recommended lettering practices around 1919 to include lines above and below the car number.  It seems that the CNY&B changed their lettering practices at this time, finally displaying reporting marks on the car side, and going a step further by implementing the rather uncommon practice of using lines with the end marks as well.  The elimination of references to NDRL and NYDRL in the registers occurred after 1926, but prior to 1930; by that date, NDX appears to have supplanted the earlier marks on National Despatch equipment.  Sometime prior to 1934, however, the previously assigned NDRX marks would finally appear in the register.  This initially appeared concurrently with NDX in the register, and then NDX was dropped entirely by 1935.  The remaining marks, NDRX and NYDX, would remain in use until GTW completed the renumbering of the cars after 1942.

The Refrigerator Cars

A significant complication to the study of the CNY&B refrigerator car fleet is that the company elected to not report quantities for individual series of cars nor total cars owned in the ORER.  The FTC did publish the total cars for the years 1914 through 1917: 817, 803, 788, 776.  Furthermore, the number of cars in each series transferred to the GTW in 1942 is also available, totaling 390 cars.

Additionally, with much of the early production occurring in the CNY&B/Whipple Car Co shops (records of those companies not known to this author,) even precise quantities built are not well established.  The car series reported in the ORER's gives a maximum, but there can be no guarantee the series listed were indeed 'filled' with cars.

At the turn of the century, the CNY&B refrigerator car fleet consisted of some early 29-30' cars without airbrakes, and an assortment of 34' and 36' air brake equipped cars.  The non-air brake cars were retired from service very soon after, and they will not be addressed further here.

34' Refrigerator Cars

Of the early cars that persisted for many years into the 20th century were a number of 34' refrigerator car series.  The 17500 and 17550 series appear to have been transfered from one car line to the other with the addition of an initial '1' to the car number.  These series were all retired circa 1920.  No good photographs of these cars are known to the author, but the ORER would publish a grainy image and engravings of car 7505 for many years.

RM	Series	To	Builder	Built	Reno/rblt	Delisted
NYDL	13400	13424	unk	before 1900		ca. 1920
NYDL	13425	13449	unk	before 1900		ca. 1920
NYDL	13450	13560	unk	before 1900		ca. 1920
NDRL	7500	7549	unk	before 1900		ca. 1920
NDRL	7550	7599	unk	before 1900		ca. 1920
NYDL	17500	17549	unk		1901	ca. 1920
NYDL	17550	17599	unk		1901	ca. 1920

From 1899 & 1901 ORER

Early 36' Refrigerator Cars

Accompanying the 34' cars in the early fleet were several series of somewhat higher capacity 36' refrigerator cars (Table 2.)  These cars predated the change in corporate structure to the Whipple Car Co in 1909, and featured the use of Samson steel underframes, consisting of 9" channel center sills and needle beams and minimalist fabricated steel body bolsters; truss rods continued to be the primary load bearing structure.⁵  Small numbers of the cars would last until the GTW takeover in 1942.

RM	Series	To	Builder	Built	Reno/rblt	Delisted
NYDL	13651	13724	CNY&B?	before 1900		after 1942
NYDL	13725	13850	CNY&B?	before 1900		ca. 1920
NYDL	13851	13999	CNY&B?	1900		ca. 1920
NYDL	14000	14199	CNY&B?	1900		ca. 1920
NYDL	14200	14375	CNY&B?	1901-3		after 1942
NYDL	14376	14575	Whipple	1904-7?		1935
NDRL	7600	7610	Whipple?	1907		after 1942

1909 Car Builder's Dictionary

1909 Car Builder's Dictionary full size

Ca. 1909, Steamtown ERIE collection, cropped from original here

See below: 142xx, Jan 23, 1930, Leslie Jones photo, Boston Public Library Collection

Whipple Car Co. 36' Car and 34' Cars

While Whipple Car Co assumed control of the CNY&B in 1909, the next fleet addition occurred in 1911.  One 36' car and an entire series of 34' cars would appear in the ORER at the same time.  The cars used a insulating product prominently on the market, Linofelt, produced by the Union Fibre Company; an image of NYDL 901 was among those used in that supplier's extensive advertising at the time.  The company had displayed an exhibition car, UF #1, at the 1910 Master Car Builders Association convention, even featuring lettering akin to that used on NYDL cars.⁶  It might be reasonable that NYDL 900 may have had such a one-off origin.  The substantial series of 34' cars eventually produced at this time may have been a rather a throwback capacity choice for the car line, these but these cars were also the first to receive the newly mandated Safety Appliances and contined use of the Samson steel underframe, suggestive of a wood car builder that had not acquired the tools and technology to build with metal.  The photographs available document the change in reporting marks and lettering that occurred ca. 1920.  Three of these small cars would persist all the way to the GTW takeover in 1942.

RM	Series	To	Builder	Built	Reno/rblt	Delisted
NYDL	900		unk	1911?		ca. 1920
NYDL	901	1200	Whipple	1911		after 1942

1911, Whipple Car Company or Union Fibre Company photo

Mar 1930, Leslie Jones photo, Boston Public Library Collection, cropped from original here

Jan 23, 1930, Leslie Jones photo, Boston Public Library Collection, original here

Unknown Cars Rebuilt or Acquired ca. 1918

In or before 1918, the CNY&B fleet acquired some additional series, in some instances, with car numbers 10000 below that of earlier series.  While it is completely possible that these were rebuilt from other existing equipment, the dimensions reported do not correlate closely.  Another possibility is that these could have been acquired second hand.  In addition to the railroad contracts (series unknown) mentioned by the FTC, at least some of this group of series appears to have been leased to a meat packer: the Iowa Packing Co detailed their use of six cars in the 3400 series and four in the 3600 series during Feb and Mar 1918 in a letter submitted to the FTC.

AC&F 36' Steel Underframe Cars

With the Grand Trunk (and then Canadian National,) taking control of the car line in 1913, new contruction appears to have been moved entirely out of the old Whipple shops.  NYDX 15000-15249 were built as Lot 9436 of the American Car & Foundry Co in 1923.  The 15000 series continued to use arch bar trucks, but were the car line's first equipment to use full steel underframes and to move to 5' wide doors.  Over the half the total cars in existence when the GTW began to reletter the fleet were 15000 series cars; they would remain the larger fraction of the former NYDX fleet into the 1950's.

A limited number of photos have been published (CVRHS Amabassador, Vol 29, Num 4,) documenting examples of leased cars in this series during the late 1920's into perhaps the early 1930's: NYDX 15013 sporting a Clicquot Club Co (a Millis, MA, beverage manufacturer,) billboard scheme with a different scheme on another car partially visible in the background; and NYDX 15166 showing a Nestle's Lion brand condensed and evaporated milk advertisement.  A photo of NYDX 15115 leased to Burnham & Morrill Company, a Portland, ME, food processor mostly famous for their canned baked beans, can be viewed here.   Details of the number of cars leased, inital date, and duration of the leases are not known, but these cars would have been required to have been repainted after such lettering was banned in railroad interchange effective Jan 1, 1937.

RM	Series	To	Builder	Built	Reno/rblt	Delisted
NYDL	15000	15249	ACF	1923		after 1942

May 2, 1923, ACF photo, Barriger collection here

May 2, 1923, ACF photo, Barriger collection here

May 2, 1923, ACF photo, Barriger collection here

Undated, Walter Ainsworth photo, Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive

1947, M.D.Carter photo⁷

Pullman-Standard 40' Steel Underframe Cars

The last new cars to appear in, and the largest capacity equipment ever owned by, the NYDX fleet were the 8000-8099 cars of 1937.  Built by Pullman-Standard, these 40' refrigerator cars utilized significantly more modern design principles and details, with a full steel body frame, Hutchins Dry Lading roofs, cast steel sideframe trucks, and a geared horizontal wheel hand brake.  They were intended for meat service, with beef rails, divided basket bunkers, and "Liquidometer Temperature Indicating Apparatusses."  The paint scheme used was a substantial update from the style used for the last few decads.  The entire series would continue to the GTW fleet takeover, and as the longest lived of the NYDX fleet, are perhaps the best photographed and known by historians and modelers.

RM	Series	To	Builder	Built	Reno/rblt	Delisted
NYDX	8000	8099	P-S	1937		after 1942

1937, 1946 Car Builders Cyclopedia

Notes

1: Walter Whipple, originally from RI, was elected President of the CNY&BRCo in 1906.  He was instrumental in the formation of the Whipple Car Co in 1909, and stayed on as president of both firms until Dec 1914, a year after the GT acquistion.  By Feb of 1915, his long time General Manager, C.R.Cooper would take the helm at CNY&B, and remain in that position until about 1930.

2: The late 1800's National Car Company, and distinct from the better known Fruit Growers Express subsidiary operation of the mid 20th century, operated their National Dispatch Line private cars running in New England-to-Chicago trade over the Grand Trunk, Central Vermont, and Boston & Maine railroads from a headquarters in St. Albans, VT (the CV's predecessor, the Vermont Central as well as the Rutland RR were involved at the beginning.)  This car line referenced NDL reporting marks in some ORER's; ND was used in some railroad paperwork.  Despite the similarity in name and service route, little corporate connection and no operating connection is documented.  The one documented connection is that Albert Tuttle of Fairhaven, VT, and Vice President of the CNY&B from 1905 until January 1915, also served as the last president of National Car Company, taking over from B.B. Smalley sometime between 1909 and 1912, until the company disappeared during 1913.

3: Additional cars were lettered CNY&B, but, lacking air brakes, they disappeared around the turn of the century, and such cars will not be addressed further here.

4: Proceeding of the Association of Transportation and Car Accounting Officers, Vol 22, Dec 1914, Vol 23, Jun 1915.

5: The Samson Steel Underframe Co was incorporated in 1907 and discontinued in 1916.
The June 1909 AT&SF Employee's Magazine reported that the CNY&B were to rebuild 500 of that road's box cars with the Samson underframe. In Dobyne's Santa Fe Box Cars 1869-1953, he mentions such applications beginning in 1906, while the road's Bx-W thru -Z series, acquired beginning in 1910, appear to have a higher capacity development of this underframe design- inwardly facing channel needle beams with tilted cast queen posts- despite their construction by AC&F.  Figure 2.44 in that book gives an excellent view of such a replacement underframe which appears to match the resources offered above.

6. Railway Age Gazette, 6/17/1910.

7: This photo was also published in Rail Model Journal, 3/1997, in a Richard Hendrickson article.  While most models that have featured this paint scheme have featured white sides, Hendrickson describes them as "mineral red and yellow cars..."  Indeed color photos of the 8000 series show yellow sides, but this author has found no reports of yellow in use prior to those later cars, nor specific mentions of white in use earlier.

Sources

Official Railway Equipment Register (3/1899, 2/1901, 6/1901, 11/1901, 3/1903, 7/1904, 6/1907, 4/1908, 4/1909, 12/1910, 3/1911, 8/1911, 6/1912, 2/1913, 12/1914, 2/1916, 10/1917, 10/1919, 4/1923, 10/1926, 12/1930, 7/1931, 7/1934, 7/1935, 1/1938, 1/1953). New York: The Railway Equipment and Publication Co..

Hendrickson, Richard and Edward Kaminski (2008). Billboard Refrigerator Cars. Berkley and Wilton, CA: Signature Press.

Hinman, Roger (201?). Refrigerator Cars on the Central Vermont. Central Vermont Railway Historical Society, The Ambassador, Vol 25, Num 3.

Hinman, Roger (201?). Refrigerator Cars on the Central Vermont; More Photos, More Cars. Central Vermont Railway Historical Society, The Ambassador, Vol 29, Num 4.

Kline, Larry and Ted Culotta (2006). The Postwar Freight Car Fleet. Chattanooga, TN: NMRA.

Union Fibre Co. (1912). Insulation of railway equipment. Winona, Minn.: Union Fibre Co..

United States. Federal Trade Commission. (1920). Food investigation: report of the Federal Trade Commission on private car lines ... June 27, 1919. Washington: Govt. Print. Off..

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Posted 10/19/22.  Updated 5/25/23.  Maintained by Earl Tuson