Ever seen a semi trailer like this?

[Dave Schneider]

The Beer Line served the Schlitz and Pabst breweries during the 1970s, but they had very different operations. Schlitz was located along the tracks so they were served directly through a number of spurs to their grain and bottling plants. Pabst received grain at an elevator along the right of way, and then transported it via truck to their facility located about a mile away. They hauled the finished product back to the tracks where they were loaded into rail cars. In this image from the 1950s, the Pabst trans-load yard is located at the bottom of the photo. As you can see it was a busy place.



Pabst used some rather odd looking trucks to haul the beer to the tracks. In this photo from the 1970s a string of these trucks can be seen along the right side. They had doors on both ends as well as the sides, and can be seen parked in these long strings in some photos, and as singles in other photos. Perhaps these were parked as strings to form a mobile load platform where other trucks could back up to the open ends or side doors? Any thoughts on what kind of doors would be on the ends of these?



Good photos of these trailers are hard to find. This is the best one that  I have in my slide collection (from a small portion of the slide). It looks to me like these may have had sliding doors. I think I can see a door track in trailer AO, and it looks like the logo on trailer AW would "fit" it is slid to the left into the door opening.
 


In this photo from the 1950s, what looks like a similar style only uses a canvas cover over the opening, unless it had a sliding door as well?



Has anyone out there ever seen a trailer like these? They look like they could be built easily, especially if there were some hollow square stock (styrene or brass) of the correct dimension. I continue to look for photos of similar trailers and welcome any leads or thoughts on modeling these.
Ultimate N Scale looks like it has something similar and I ordered a couple to see what they look like (http://www.ultimatenscale.com/images/49%2Ds.jpg).

Best wishes, Dave

[tom mann]

Dave:  I love you.

Ps.  Please post more of that slide.
Pps.  I was just in Milwaukee and got photos of what was left of the beer line/nut line.

edit:  http://picasaweb.google.com/tmann1/Milwaukee#

roller coaster remains:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Nw4xaMvyMv0/S-dLxWa9PGI/AAAAAAAAZ0M/bFj54EXQcyI/s800/_DSC2829.jpg

[up1950s]

Tom said "Dave:  I love you."

Make him take you out for dinner , and just a kiss good night on the first date .

[Dave Schneider]

Tom,
Must be the beer talking...trust me, I'm not that good looking the next morning!  :-*

As requested, the rest of the photo



Some of my Beer Line stuff. I have more that is not online yet. I also have some of the online images at high resolution, but I can't post them for free at full res.
http://s291.photobucket.com/albums/ll290/djs_ank_ak/Beer%20Line/

As for the truck...."Discuss?"

Best wishes, Dave

[sirenwerks]

I don't know know at all, but I don't see any of those trailers having sliding doors. AO may have had hinged side doors at one point but the structural bracing in the 'doorway' makes it seem like the openings are a modification and the trailer is always open, accessible.

The 1950s trailer seems altered too. Look at how the canvas is hugging the structural braces on the top half of the opening? There seems to be a different bracing layout on the bottom half of the opening under that canvas, probably so boxes can be slid through the seemingly tighter brace clearances.

So what's the point of having doors on the ends if the sides are always open? I don't think there are any on the ends either, there seems to be too much clearance, like the doors and end were removed. Your platform idea seems perfectly reasonable but removing the ends would make the trailers really unstable, and susceptible to collapse - they would fold over like a cardboard box sleeve.

[Dave Schneider]

Bryan,

Good point about the trailers not being very stable if the ends are removed. Maybe they just used a gate or bars with a canvas covering. I still think that the side doors might slide. If you look at the logo on the side it seems like the Blue Ribbon symbol on trailer AW would join up nicely with the text portion of the logo on trailer AO. On the other hand, it looks like there could be hinges on either side of the door opening. Still hoping that someone else has seen a trailer like this before.

Best wishes, Dave

[Ian MacMillan]

Pps.  I was just in Milwaukee and got photos of what was left of the beer line/nut line.

Guessing you did not get a chance to attend your Outlaws meeting?

[Dave Schneider]

Pps.  I was just in Milwaukee and got photos of what was left of the beer line/nut line.

Guessing you did not get a chance to attend your Outlaws meeting?

Hey man, it's a club not a gang!
If Tom wants to be an Outlaw, he is going to need a new avatar....
"Milwaukee Jack" might be available.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/96370809.html

Best wishes, Dave

[Ian MacMillan]

Pps.  I was just in Milwaukee and got photos of what was left of the beer line/nut line.

Guessing you did not get a chance to attend your Outlaws meeting?

Hey man, it's a club not a gang!
If Tom wants to be an Outlaw, he is going to need a new avatar....
"Milwaukee Jack" might be available.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/96370809.html

Best wishes, Dave

Ha! I guess one of the main pieces the feds are using is an Outlaws attack we had in the town I work for that happened in 2005;
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=NH+attempted+murder+tied+to+federal+indictment%2C+arrests+of+27+Outlaws+members+and+associates&articleId=11b46685-3cca-4bb8-b7f5-5cbfcb1084ea

Found it odd that they did not hit the Outlaws clubhouse we have here in town, but I guess it was one of the ME chapters that attempted the hit so they hit that one. Angels and Diablos made a very strong presence in town this past week with Bike Week going on.

[tom mann]

I wonder if Vespa sponsors their club activities!

[Sokramiketes]

Good photos of these trailers are hard to find. This is the best one that  I have in my slide collection (from a small portion of the slide). It looks to me like these may have had sliding doors. I think I can see a door track in trailer AO, and it looks like the logo on trailer AW would "fit" it is slid to the left into the door opening.
 

Dave-

I'm not seeing anything in this photo that suggests sliding doors.  The logo is just a continuation on the trailer side in AW, and you can see the folded up canvas in the shadow at the top of the door opening in AO.  I would say that canvas was the only "door".

[Dave Schneider]

Mike and Bryan,

Thanks for the input. I am just about convinced that these trailers only had canvas doors. I have yet to find a photo showing any other kind of door, and you make good points about the lack of physical evidence for sliding doors. Here is a portion of a photo from 1946 that just arrived in the mail over the weekend (back before the yard was reconfigured). All of these trailers show the canvas side doors, as well as the rarely modeled open reefer doors. Still curious about the trailers with openings on both ends. Any other thoughts on these or insight into other groups or forums with trailer geeks?



Best wishes, Dave

[tom mann]

Wow Dave, where did you get *that* photo?  I had no idea that the yard was reconfigured!

[Dave Schneider]

Wow Dave, where did you get *that* photo?  I had no idea that the yard was reconfigured!

http://content.mpl.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/MilwWaterwa&CISOPTR=689&CISOBOX=1&REC=2

I purchased the full resolution digital file (6700x5800) along with some others from the Milwaukee Waterworks collection. The Chestnut Street yard was rebuilt in the late 1940s to early 1950s. If you have the Beer Line book from the Milwaukee Road Historical Assoc. there is a photo of the yard in this earlier layout.

Best wishes, Dave

[Chris333]

Would Kalmbach have any old photos to share?