Audubon Republican., 1897-09-30
PRIVATE FREIGHT CARS
a Great Variety ON tho Railroads of ~
Country.

4 Great Variety ON tho Railroads of ~
Country.
Every large shipper in these days
must have his own private freight cars,
and the wonderful growth of the
special car idea can be demonstrated
any day by watching through freight
train. 1t is dollars to cents that there
will be anywhere from one to dozen
special cars in the string, and the pur-
poses they serve are as varied as their
ownership. The dressed meat refrig-
erators are now SO well known as to
excite no interest, unless it be in the
vague conjecture as to how many mill
lions OF dollars are tied up therein
for the number of these travelling ice
boxes is legion. Directly the opposite
OF the refrigerators are the heater cars,
cleverly contrived to keep the contents
at fixed degree of oftemperaturet through
out the trip, and therefore inval-
uable for shipping fruits in cold wealth.
er. The heating is done by oil stoves.
There are quite a number of special
fruit car companies which own cars
especially equipped for the carriage
of fruit and produce in bulk, and these
cars are divided into many classes,
such as orange cars, cabbage cars,
melon cars, and SO on almost in
definitely.
There Is a pickle line, coffee line,
numberless beer lines, and, strangest of
all, chicken or poultry line, these
latter cars being filed with permanent
coops and feeding and watering facil-
itics, intended for the safe handling of
fowls of all kinds. There are furniture
cars, buggy cars, chair stock cars, ice
cars, plate glass cars, crockery cars,
and, indeed, cars for almost every
known commodity manufactured in
sufficient quantities to make it worth
while for the producers to build their
own convcyances. AS to livestock cars,
there are all kinds, from the palace or
stable cars down to the plain everyday
SLATED affairs, and, unlike most of the
other special vehicles, the stock cars
can be used by any shipper willing to
pay the owner nominal sum for the
rent of the car, over and above the
usual freight charges imposed by the
railroads, the advantage gained be-
ing the much better accommodations
afforded by these special cars than
given in the regular equipment of the
railways. In tank cars there are va
rieties for nearly everything liquid.
Petroleum, lard, cotton oil, molasses,
acid, tar. cider, water and even whisky
ore few of the commodities carried in
tanks nowadays.
The owners of these private cars get
no direct benefit from their use. The
contents must pay just the same freight
charges as if carried in railroad COM
panies' cars, but the one great advan-
tagc lies in the fact that supply of
cars ready to load can always be de-
pended upon, for the special cars when
empty are promptly sent home or to
their point of origin, and are not used
in any other trade without the own
er's permission. The railroads allow
owners trifiing sum for mileage which
serves to keep the cars in repair, but
hardly yields any great revenue to
them.
Of course many of these private cars
arc built because of the special trade
in which they are used, and which
would not pay railroad company to
tie up money in furnishing the equip
ment necessary. AS builders must
conform to the rules Of the master car
builders, the private cars are as safe to
run as those owned by the railroad
companies, and, indeed, many are
superior to the average cars in general
usc.-Philadelphia Times.
The COOuETTE A RENEEACTOR.