Friday, November 25, 2022

Waybills, Part 103: timebook ads, conclusion

 As a wrap-up on what I regard as an interesting topic, the ads found in the timebooks used by train service employees, I want to show one more batch of these ads. I have written some comments on the background for timebooks, and on the ads and their use, for which I suggest the previous post in the series (see it here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/11/waybills-part-102-more-timebook-ads.html ).  

Most of the pages of ads that I will shown here are from a 1950 timebook for Southern Pacific’s Coast Division. As I have mentioned before, some are clearly aimed at railroaders’ personal lives, but others are interesting business ads.

Above you see ads for a savings and loan, and an auto dealership; but also some produce companies and San Jose’s FMC Corp., an obvious source of inbound waybills for any packing house or food handling business. Below are another two pages from this timebook:

In this pair of pages, there are again some obvious personal businesses, but also Pacific Hardware & Steel, along with the Western Pump Company we saw in the 1946 Coast timebook (link shown in the top paragraph of the present post).

Thirdly, I will show a single page from this 1950 Coast Division book (at right, below), and a single page from a 1948 Western Division book (at left).

 Once again, there are obvious personal-type ads (a clothing store and a drug store) but there is also an interesting logo for a concrete pipe company, Spiekerman, that could readily be used on a layout industry building, or as a placard on an open-car load. From these pages, though, I decided to make a waybill for the Gladding Bros. clay products company, to an on-line customer that uses a team track on my layout:

I continue to find these groups of ads in booklets used by train service employees very interesting, providing as they do a window into that world of some 70 years ago.  That they can also yield ideas for waybills in layout operation is simply a plus.

Tony Thompson


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