Phillips Packing Company in 1955

Phillips Packing Company in 1955, with Factory B at Sunburst Highway and Washington Street, William D. Brightwell collection, from the book “Cambridge Past & Present, A Pictorial History,” by Donald L. Reid, Roger Guy Webster, & Hubert H. Wright IV, published by The Donning Company/Publishers in 1986 (ISBN 0-89865-491-2).

Although I've already posted a photo from the 1920's from the H. Robins Hollyday Collection at the Talbot Historical Society looking roughly southeast (see the post from February 19, 2017), I wanted to share a photo from 1955 in the excellent book, “Cambridge Past & Present, A Pictorial History,” by Donald L. Reid, Roger Guy Webster, & Hubert H. Wright IV, published by The Donning Company/Publishers in 1986 (ISBN 0-89865-491-2).

This photo can be found on Page 141 & it was supplied to the authors by William D. Brightwell & we're facing southeast.

The lime green arrow is pointing out the wye that was located within Phillips' compound, heading off to the southwest. The short stub track inside the wye (with the automobile parked next to it) is the former location of the engine house (it's gone in this photo).

I'll quote the caption from the book & then comment afterwards. Here's what the caption says, “L.B. Phillips, Albanus Phillips, and W. Grason Winterbottom formed a partnership on March 10, 1902, to operate a canning business under the firm name of Phillips Packing Company. The partnership agreed to take the tomatoes that had already been contracted by the Woodford Packing Company and also to take the cans that had been purchased by the same company. Each member of the firm furnished one-third of the capital and shared equally in the profits and losses. This 1955 aerial photograph shows Factory B at the intersection of Sunburst Highway and Washington Street, the frozen food plant, and the can manufacturing plant. Courtesy of William D. Brightwell.”

If you'll notice, you'll see that the plant has absolutely no freight cars whatsoever. I can think of at least three reasons that come to mind. Again this is my opinion, but maybe someone who knows more about what was going on when this photo was taken can comment, but here's what I came up with:

1. It's 1955, & in 2 short years, the Phillips Packing Company would be sold to Consolidated Foods. The production at this plant is in a slow decline thanks to Phillips loosing the lucrative federal government contracts to produce both the “C” and “K” rations for the armed forces after WWII's close. You can see that Phillips built a frozen food plant (that's the white building up to the top left of the photo). Frozen food production would be one of the nails in the coffin for the canning business on the Eastern Shore & Phillips was aware that this was the “wave of the future,” so they added the frozen factory to their plant. Is the canning of fruits & vegetables winding down?

2. It's 1955, & the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (Route 50) opened in 1952. With the opening of the Bay Bridge & the soon to be enacted Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 being mulled around in Washington thanks to President Dwight D. Eisenhower convincing the people we need a national system of interstate & defense highways (made effective June 29, 1956), you can see 2 tractor trailers at the frozen food factory – is this the beginning of traffic that predominantly traveled by rail now going to truck?

3. Could it simply be that the photo was taken on a day that the plant was closed, like a Sunday? There aren't a lot of employee vehicles throughout the plant. Also, there's only 2 trucks that can be seen at the frozen factory. That's all well & good that it might be a day off, but why aren't there any rail cars stationed throughout the plant?

I am of the opinion that more product is going by truck & Phillips is a not producing as much canned goods as it did during the height of WWII. I was originally going to model sometime between 1955 & 1956, but this photo changes my mindset here.

I may push back the years a little bit towards the early 1950's rather than the mid-1950's. I also want to have a chance to run steam locomotives, so there will be times that I want to back-date the operations to reflect this. I really won't have to change too much on the layout to do this. More thinking...