During the holidays, it is customary for

Corrugated Container Corp. (CCC) to send

customers a specially designed 3D

corrugated card and treat. One year the

company sent a gingerbread house

designed to hold cups of coffee. Another

year it sent a replica of one of its trucks,

along with a coffee mug, candy and cocoa.

Three years ago, the design team at the

company’s Roanoke, Va., headquarters

wanted to do something different,

something that would showcase CCC’s

wide variety of printing and converting

capabilities. At the time, the Virginia

Museum of Transportation announced the

“Fire Up 611!” initiative to restore Norfolk

and Western’s (N&W) 611 steam

locomotive, one of the most powerful

COMMEMORATING THE ‘PRIDE OF ROANOKE’

Corrugated Today January/February 201610

passenger steam locomotives ever built. It

pulled the Powhatan Arrow passenger train

from Norfolk to Cincinnati. The locomotive

was taken out of commission in 1959

when N&W switched to diesel locomotives.

In 2013, CCC designed a corrugated

version of the 611 locomotive and tender

and sent the two cars to customers as a

holiday greeting. In 2014, customers

received the Powhatan passenger car, and

last year they received the final piece, the

observation car.

“I have several customers who built a

shelf in their offices for the train,” says

Chad Tyson, CCC General Manager. “They

made the shelf long enough because they

knew we were coming out with another

train each year.”

Design Excellence

THIS REPLICA OF THE FAMOUS 611 LOCOMOTIVESHOWCASES CORRUGATED CONTAINER CORP.’S WIDERANGE OF DESIGN CAPABILITIES.

SBS SHEETS

Carolina Graphic Services LLC

EQUIPMENT

Ward VerigraphixAutomatän Laminator

CUTTING DIES

ClearCut DieWorks

INK

Poteet Printing Systems

PREPRESS

ArtiosCAD

technical

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Corrugated Today January/February 2016 11

Design Excellence

The images and structure are exact

replicas of the original 611. Dennis

Gordon, CCC Structural Design Manager,

designed the structure of each of the

pieces, and Jeff Homan, CCC Senior

Graphic Designer, was responsible for

the graphics. “We actually took a field

trip to the transportation museum and

took a series of photographs and used

those to create the design,” Homan

says.

Designing the 611 was especially

meaningful for Gordon since he is a

train buff. “This whole project was a lot

of fun. We like doing things like this,” he

says.

3D Design

For the structure, Homan illustrated it

flat and then used design programs to

view it in 3D. “It’s quite interesting how

he had to design it because it doesn’t

look like anything flat,” says Peggy

Underwood, CCC Graphic Design

Manager. ”We used Illustrator with a

plug-in from Artios called Studio which

allows us to see it in 3D as we designed

it.”

The designers also created

corrugated model kits that were sold at

the transportation museum in Roanoke

to raise money for the restoration of the

611. Underwood’s 13-year-old son

helped write the instructions for

assembly.

The engine and tender were litho

printed on 12 pt SBS and laminated to

F-flute on CCC’s Automatän 7000 series

label laminator. The passenger car was

direct print flexo four-color process plus

varnish. Silhouettes of people can be

seen through each window. The

observation car was an SBS top sheet on

singleface with embossing and foil. All of

the pieces, with the exception of the

plastic nose cone on the front of the

engine, were F-flute.

The engine and cars were shipped

already assembled in boxes designed to

look old and worn. The engine was

shipped in a flexo printed orange and

black B-flute box similar to an old Lionel

train box. The passenger car box was

flexo printed maroon on kraft. Homan

says a patina gave the boxes a worn

look. “The graphics were designed to

make it look like the boxes had been put

on and taken off the shelf for the last

20 years,” Tyson says.

“Both shippers use the same cutting

die, but the first one was printed two

colors on kraft and printed so badly on

purpose that the press operators didn’t

want to print it,” Underwood says.

“We had to convince them three

different times that, ‘Yes, it’s supposed

to have broken up images and

smudges so that it would look old

and used.’”

“Our operators are very quality

conscious,” Tyson adds. “When they

received the printing plates and started

printing, they thought, ‘Something is

wrong with these plates.’ We said, ‘No,

they were designed that way.’”

All of the flexo printed pieces were

run on a Ward Verigraphix four-color

rotary diecutter. The plates were

produced by CCC’s in-house printing

plate department.

Four ADDYs

The Powhatan rail car received a Gold

Western Virginia American Advertising

Award (ADDY) and a Silver National and

a District 3 ADDY. The engine and

tender also received a Gold Western

Virginia ADDY.

“It’s very unusual to have a

corrugated company and not an

advertising agency win anything at the

national level,” says Underwood, who

was at the judging of the national

ADDYs. “The judges went nuts when

they saw the car. They were impressed

with what could be done with

corrugated.”

Tyson attributes CCC’s skilled

employees for being able to produce the

train. “Anybody can purchase the

equipment. The ability to make the train

pieces is the result of employee skill. It

was the employees at Corrugated

Container who made that happen,” he

says. �

THE POWHATAN RAIL CAR RECEIVED GOLD AND SILVERADDY AWARDS.

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