railroads of the late steam and early diesel era are likely to think of Mer- chants Despatch primarily as the com- pany that provided perishable freight service to the New York Central Sys- tem, and whose white or orange-sided refrigerator cars were seen on railroads almost everywhere in the country. However, as Roger Hinman makes clear in his thoroughly researched and abundantly illustrated history of MDT, the company provided at one time or another all of the functions described in the paragraph above, and more. As the subtitle indicates, this is a
book in two parts. The first part, which occupies about a third of the total text, traces the history of the Merchants Despatch company from its inception in 1855 as a fast freight line through many twists and turns of corporate his- tory until its demise at the end of the 20th century. How it became part of Commodore Vanderbilt’s New York Central empire and how it was trans- formed into a major refrigerator car op- eration are described in detail, as is the evolution of MDT’s East Rochester shops from a small reefer repair facility to a major builder and rebuilder not only of its own refrigerator cars but many other NYC System freight cars. As is often true of nineteenth century railroad history, documentation of MDT’s evolution is scattered and incom-
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
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