Thursday, March 4, 2010

May I Have the Envelope, Please?

Bob Kutella says:

I was taking in the mail today and noticed this envelope!!!


Actually, I just came into possession of well over 200 envelopes, representing a snapshot in time of railroad commerce in the USA. These are mostly from February 1955, give or take a month, and all are addressed to Union Refrigerator Transit.

So this may have double significance with the recent acquisition of CA&E cars and our well represented refrigerator cars from URTX.

Apparently, every month, every line that handled their private owner cars were required to report movements to the owner, and this collection has many examples of that correspondence from large and small railroads, and fallen flags abound. The North Shore, Illinois Terminal, Peidmont and Northern, Bamberger, and Portland Traction are there to name a few that the trolley fans should recognize.

We would hope to be able to assemble these into an exhibit for display later this year. Anyone interested in helping, or with any specific ideas as to format, etc, please contact me.

Bob Kutella

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