Box Vox

packaging as content

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December 2, 2011

Entenmann’s Boxcar

EntenmannsBoxcarPhotos above and below by Rich Melvin

Licenced Entenmann’s/Lionel O gauge operating boxcar comes in an  Entenmann’s-style see-through pastry box:

BoxCarBox“It is not often that a railroad club car1 gives you a craving for sweets, but that is what happened when I saw the 2010 Lionel operating car from the Railroad Museum of Long Island (RMLI) in its authentic-looking white and blue Entenmann’s baked goods box…

This innovative box design was the brainchild of Bob Mintz, chief design engineer of the RMLI.”

Ed Boyle, How Sweet It Is
O Gauge Railroading, June-July 2011

(Another photo and a footnoted digression, after the fold…)


Entenmanns-Car
Photo from Railroad Museaum of Long Island

Footnoted digressions:

1. I don’t know a lot about model trains, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of titling a post “Entenmann’s boxcar” since it does that Brian-Jonestown-Massacre2 thing of seamlessly merging two meanings: “Entenmann’s box” and “boxcar.”

It’s only fitting, I suppose that I’m immediately confused by the use of the term “club car” in the O Gauge Railroading article that I quoted above. My understanding of a “club car” is that it’s a “railroad passenger car equipped with lounge chairs, tables, a buffet or bar, and other comforts. Also called lounge car.” But the Entenmann’s car pictured here is clearly a boxcar. Not a passenger “club car.” What gives?

Then I realized it was another Brian-Jonestown-Massacre thing. Railroaders call each train car a “car” so when the author refers to the “railroad club car,” he means the railroad club’s car!

2. Wikipedia says that the name “Brian Jonestown Massacre” is a “portmanteau of The Rolling Stones' founder and guitarist Brian Jones and the infamous mass cult suicide in Jonestown, Guyana.” But the definition of “portmanteau” doesn’t really seem to cover these kinds of phrases with overlapping, ambiguous meaning. Is there a more precise term?

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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