Bruce Smith wrote

 > The actual traffic appears to have been between 10 and 20 cars a day, which I
 > would term "modest" and the refinery appears to have been able to unload 13 cars
 > a day ...  These are not oil trains but blocks of cars of crude


Yep. This is consistent with what I've seen in photos etc of the NP. "Very modest"
is more like it. After all, 4800 barrels/day (20 car loads) would be approx 0.07%
of US crude oil production in 1955. Small movements of crude oil in this region
persisted well into the era of the Bakken shale (i.e. the present day) but rarely
amounted to more than about 20 cars/day nationwide. Still, in you model the NP in
this area and this era, then this could add some fun to your op sessions.

Tim O'Connor