GPEX 1021
©2013 Ryan C Kunkle, licensed to About.com, Inc.
GPEX 1021 is a special milk tank car. A large tank is enclosed inside the insulated carbody. Once common on branchlines across the country, these cars brought fresh milk from local farms to the cities daily.
The "milk run" normally stopped at every town along the way, picking up milk by the carload or the can load. Like other express reefers and boxcars, many of these cars were equipped so that they could be run in passenger service.
The small payloads and short travel distances made these services some of the first to fall to improved roads and trucks in the 20th Century. This car is preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum which boasts one of the largest rail collections anywhere in the world.
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