----- Original Message -----
From: "tim gilbert" <tgilbert@...>
To: "The Freightcars List" <freightcars@...>; "Jim
Eager" <jeager@...>; <STMFC@...>
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 2:59 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: [FC] December 1930 Railroad Freight Car Fleet

Jim,

You wrote:

Just four examples of the pitfall of relying on car fleet statistics

alone:

1% Box Car Fleet
CN 71457 7.36%
CP 65878 6.79%

The overwhelming majority of these cars were used in domestic
Canadian service. In this case the numbers are sufficiently large to
seriously skew the percentages.

As David Thompson replied to Stafford Swain, Canadian cars were
restricted from all-American routings - the US Customs Service wanted
their piece of the pie. Likewise, American owned cars with all-Canadian
routing incurred the wrath of Canadian Customs. Accordingly, I agree
with you that CN and CP cars should be removed from the denominator if
you use the denominator in distribution of owner statistics particularly
on segment of US lines - such as Sherman Hill.

1% Gondola Fleet
DRGW 5699 1.12%

These were virtually all drop-bottom or GS-type coal gons, none were
solid-bottom mill gons in 1930.

In the April 1949 ORER, there were 306,799 Gondolas listed as being
owned by US Class I RR's: - 207,914 (67.8%) were Solid Bottom GB's,
61,696 (20.1%) were Side Dumping Drop Bottom GS's, and 22,517 (7.3%)
Center Dumping Gons GA's - the remaining 4.7% were dispersed among
another seven classifications.

If you imply that all Solid Bottom GB gons were used to carry
commodities which could not be dumped (e.g. Steel, Pipe, Lumber), and
that all Drop Bottom GA & GS gons were used to carry commodities which
could be unloaded through the bottom, then this would be false at least
in the Fall of 1947 between Rawlins and Laramie WY according to UP
Conductor Fraley's Wheel Reports.

Four of the total 22 GA Gons carried commodities which could not be
dumped: - likewise, six of the Total 33 GS Gons. Meanwhile, 58 of the
108 Solid Bottom GB gons carried commodities primarily company coal
which could have been dumped, but not by the Solid Bottom gons.

1% Hopper Fleet
DMIR 12745 2.36%

These were virtually all ore cars that stayed on home rails.

Agreed, but for the most part, the movement of hoppers was restricted by
the inability to reload them anywhere except at the mine with some
exceptions. Accordingly, hoppers' radii of operation from the mines were
generally limited by the competitive coal operations of which the cost
of transportation was a large factor. Thus, hoppers were mostly
restricted to a region rather than being part of a national pool of cars
like boxcars.

The UP was able to load some Eastern Hoppers with company coal for the
trip over Sherman Hill, but those hoppers got to the west of Sherman
Hill only because they carried premium types of coal - this was a
rarity, however.

Covered Hop. Fleet
ACL 950
SAL 946

Almost all built for phosphate service.

And limited to the Southeast. In the April 1949 ORER, there were 15,370
Covered Hoppers on Class I US Railroads - about 2,000 of them could be
classified as Dry Phosphate cars in the southeast while the remainder
were mostly, if not all, Cement Hoppers. Cement was mostly a short haul
business so covered hoppers did not stray too far from their home roads.
No covered hoppers were recorded by Fraley as going over Sherman Hill in
1947. Only ten were recorded by a conductor on SOU's Washington Division
(Pot Yard to Monroe VA) in the Fall of 1946 - eight of them were PRR and
two B&O.

The statistics don't tell you any of this. The stats are really only
useful for cars in unrestricted general service (XM, GB, FM).

I assume that what you define as useful being car designations which
were constituted a national pool of cars.

If so, for the 1945-55 decade definitely, I would expand the XM class to
include all boxcars as well as the ventilated cars. Due to the car
shortages, cars equipped for auto loading regularly carried other
commodities such as lumber. The purpose of Ventilated Cars had been
replaced primarily FGEX reefers, and thus they, too ranged the country
carrying the typical boxcar commodities.

For 1930, however, I would tend to restrict the national pool to XM's,
but even there, the surplus of boxcars restricted the reloading of
foreign car empties for destinations on other foreign roads. I just
don't have the support to be as adamant in 1930 as I am in the 1945-55
decade.

I have not looked into the GB gons enough to ascertain whether they were
part of a national pool or not. At this point, I cannot argue with your
assessment.

General Service Flat Cars (FM) were in short supply in the 1945-55
decade so they were part of a national pool. Other Flat Cars such as
FL's and LP's were in restricted service on or near the home road.
Special Service Flat Cars (FW's, FG's & FD's) were generally assigned to
a manufacturer.

Tim Gilbert


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