Selling Appliances from a Boxcar
Between 1958 and 1970, Grebe’s Appliances of
Wausau, Wisconsin, sold its goods out of a boxcar track- side at a local team track. This unique sales approach of the late transition era and beyond offers a new way to model car movements and prototypical team-track operations.
Grebe’s Appliances, a family-owned business, part- nered with General Electric to offer the brand’s applianc- es right off the boxcar. Grebe’s could offer lower prices by marketing the appliances railside. The sales occurred in the summer months, often three or four times a year. Shipped straight from a GE plant known as Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky, a boxcar loaded with new appliances arrived at one of three pre-advertised loca- tions in Wausau. Customers were encouraged to come and buy appliances right off the boxcar. The sale usually lasted two days. Newspaper ads show Grebe’s offering re- frigerators, ovens, air-conditioners, washers, and dryers during these sales.
GE and the railroads (the shipments originated with Louisville & Nashville — the railroad that serviced GE) assigned each appliance a point value based on its physi- cal size representing how much of the boxcar’s volume it filled. A certain point total corresponded to an entire 40-foot boxcar, with smaller totals equaling one-half or one-third of a boxcar. Grebe’s needed to buy a full car or half-car for the sale to work. An owner of Grebe’s remem- bers “splitting” a boxcar with Gruett’s appliance store in Merrill, Wisconsin, just 20 miles north on the Milwau- kee Road’s Valley Line. The plan ensured Grebe’s would get the boxcar direct from GE and could better time its advertising to coincide with the shipment’s arrival. After Grebe’s sale had ended, the boxcar continued north to be re-spotted at the Merrill depot to unload Gruett’s portion of the load.
Surviving ads from the Wausau Record-Herald reveal the sales were well-advertised during its 12-year run. Lo- cations hosting these events included Chicago & North Western’s freight house at First and Jackson Streets. In at least one instance, the railroad allowed a large banner advertising the sale to be placed above the freight house door. Other sales occurred at a C&NW team track just off Second Avenue on Wausau’s west side. The third lo- cation was a Milwaukee Road siding on Wausau’s east side near St. Paul Street. Details about why these loca- tions and particular routings were used did not survive. One newspaper ad revealed that on one occasion, some of the appliances sustained damage while in transit. An ad in the September 6, 1963, Record Herald announced
38 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
Grebe’s was having a “Railroad Damage Sale.” The ad further revealed that although the last shipment had been damaged, the “Milwaukee Road agent had paid the claim promptly,” so Grebe’s could offer discounts to customers interested in the damaged goods. One surviving picture of a trackside sale shows store founder Arthur Grebe alongside Bill Manuel, the store’s GE representative. Appliances are displayed on the plat- form beside a blue and yellow L&N boxcar labeled “Pool AA,” meaning the car’s primary designation was for appli- ance shipments. Steven Johnson, a member of the L&N RR Historical Society, confirmed this boxcar belonged to a series rebuilt at the South Louisville Shops between February and March 1969. There were only two Grebe’s trackside sales after that date — held on May 10, 1969, and June 13, 1970 — so the photo is of one of these two sales. The car’s paint and exterior appear fresh and free from graffiti, so these dates seem reasonable. In the late 1960s, sales from these boxcar promotions declined, and Grebe’s held the trackside sales less fre- quently. Grebe’s records indicate the sales from Septem- ber 1970 were particularly disappointing, and there is no record of any further “Trackside Sales.” Transporting ap- pliances shifted to trucks, giving us the “Truckload Sale.” The freight house and the sidings used for these sales are now gone. Although Grebe’s is still family owned and in business today (
www.grebesonline.com), few Wausau residents are even aware these sales were once a sum- mertime fixture in north central Wisconsin. This part of Wausau’s past offers several opportunities for prototypical operation to those interested in that as- pect of model railroading. If your railroad uses a car card system, you could send a boxcar to different team tracks within a city as different “events” on one card. Further, since historically appliance stores in two cities shared a boxcar, that means you could create a more complex routing. A boxcar can be sent to one online team track, spend a certain amount of time there, and then travel to another team track elsewhere on the layout. During our research, we found no other examples of this arrangement between GE and a local appliance store, although such arrangements could have existed. This business relationship lasted for 12 years. Remem- ber: if you can explain it, you can model it as a prototypi- cal operation on your railroad!
T.J. Krueger and Brett Barker
PERSPECTIVE
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