How did they ship WIDE front Ms on a railcar???

mike1972chev · Feb 17, 2012

Hey,its me,

I have been looking at old tractor photos again.Love it!

I have several photos of narrow front M tractors being shipped on rail cars sitting front to frontwith the front wheels of one nosed into the rear tires of the one sitting next to it.Stacked like sardines! Looks cool.I use these pics as my computer background sometimes.

My question Is did they ever ship them on a rail car WITH the wide fronts on ??? Never saw a photo of that???

Nebraska Cowman · Feb 17, 2012

If they would fit I suppose they loaded them crosswise like the cars to the left on the tracks. I know smaller tractors were shipped that way. Otherwise they would just have to load them as close as they could. I doubt if they shipped many carloads that way. It would just be one or two wide fronts on a load with other narrow fronts sorted by destination. In the early years whole trains would be made up for districts (Branch Houses) as a publicity program. I have a panoramic photo of a train load of Farmalls for Nebraska taken about 1929.

wilson ind · Feb 17, 2012

sad to see such a massive company and american plant now gone

sflem849 · Feb 17, 2012

That's a flying B!!!

Brown Dirt Cowboy · Feb 17, 2012

Now Howard you know that pic was not made in 1929 because there were no B's until 1939.

rustyfarmall · Feb 17, 2012

(quoted from post at 08:36:37 02/17/12) Now Howard you know that pic was not made in 1929 because there were no B's until 1939.

Maybe the Bs, Hs and Ms in that picture are all early prototypes?

55 50 Ron · Feb 17, 2012

But maybe he has ANOTHER panaramic picture that WAS taken in 1929 and he didn't mean the picture he posted.

D Slater · Feb 17, 2012

Interesting picture of the military crawlers and the winch drive from rear to front.

sflem849 · Feb 17, 2012

(quoted from post at 09:45:04 02/17/12) But maybe he has ANOTHER panaramic picture that WAS taken in 1929 and he didn't mean the picture he posted.

I have seen it. There are two pictures on the WHS website. They are of trainloads of F series tractors that all the Nebraska dealers ordered. It is pretty cool.

Anyhow, the one he posted isn't a panorama picture.

Brown Dirt Cowboy · Feb 17, 2012

you may be right, Ron. Howard will make it right

mike1972chev · Feb 17, 2012

Maybe I need to repost this?

Harold H · Feb 17, 2012

They just laced them as close as they could on the flatcars. They were still comonally shipping farm tractors by rail unto the 1980's and I imagine some new tractors are still shipped by rail today. Combines and other large machines and Caterpillar equipment is still commanly shipped by rail.

Harold H

rhtx55 · Feb 17, 2012

In answer to the initial question, anything going by rail was shipped with a tricycle front end, the wide fronts were ordered by the dealer and shipped seperately, then installed prior to delivery.
If you ordered a tractor & wanted it shipped with a wide front by rail to your dealer you paid a pretty penny for freight, they took up a lot of room on the flat car.

Harold H · Feb 17, 2012

rhtx55,
Through the 50's and early 60's, most were shipped with tricycle installed. However during the 60's and later as wide front ends became more common, they were shipped by rail as ordered with the wide front already installed. Even with fewer tractors on the flat car,rail
freight was still much cheeper than truck freight when ordering tractors by the carload. I have unloaded many, both with tricycle fronts and with wide fronts. Most all in the 50's and through mid 60's were tricycle in the Delta.

Harold H

rhtx55 · Feb 17, 2012

Harold,
I certainly agree, I was referring to the vintage photo above. I rmember seeing railcars loaded with Farmalls coming through on their way to Cincinnati from Indianapolis, B & O ran right behind our house.
I don't remember seeing any on flatcars with wide fronts until later around 1960 or so.

Rick

wisbaker · Feb 17, 2012

Saw JD tractors on a flatbed railcar yesterday when I was going through Chicago

Nebraska Cowman · Feb 18, 2012

Exactly. This is the one I was referring to. It hung in the old Scharf & Wetzel IH store here in town. There are 6 Farmalls to the car as far as you can see.

How did they ship WIDE front Ms on a railcar???

mike1972chev

Well-known Member

Nebraska Cowman

Well-known Member

wilson ind

Well-known Member

sflem849

Well-known Member

Brown Dirt Cowboy

Member

rustyfarmall

Well-known Member

55 50 Ron

Well-known Member

D Slater

Well-known Member

sflem849

Well-known Member

Brown Dirt Cowboy

Member

mike1972chev

Well-known Member

Harold H

Well-known Member

rhtx55

Member

Harold H

Well-known Member

rhtx55

Member

wisbaker

Well-known Member

Nebraska Cowman

Well-known Member

Similar threads