While beginning a look through my Fraley for autos & auto parts, I notice three "lumber trains" heading east. The consists of these three trains are interesting primarily because of the presence and lack thereof of SP cars. The first train on Mar 3, '49, was 77 cars in length and contained 27 SP cars carrying lumber. Of the 27, 25 were box cars and 2 were flats. Of the 25 box cars, 9 were 50 ft long. Two additional SP box cars were in the train...40 fters carrying paper and something unreadable. There were 21 cars of other RRs in the train carrying lumber. Thus, 35% of the train were SP box cars, 32.5% were SP box cars carrying lumber and 62% were cars carrying lumber. Compare this to a train on Apr 7, '49, which contained 98 cars. Of these, 58 carried lumber and 4 were SP box cars. One more SP box car was in the train giving SP box cars a 5% presence....closer to the national average. The third train, on Apr 16, 1949, contained 93 cars. Of these, 34 were SP box cars, 32 carrying lumber. 27 other RR cars were also carrying lumber. 36.6% of the cars were SP box cars, 34.4% were SP box cars carrying carrying lumber. 27 other cars were also carrying lumber giving lumber content cars 63.4% of the train. Trains 1 & 3 are remarkably similar in content...as far as lumber and SP box cars is concerned. I am surprised at the small number of flat cars carrying lumber.

Fraley uses several terms for contents that I'm not sure of. He uses "CO" for company [ UP ] and adds "L" or "lump" followed by "Coal" for company lump coal, presumably for steam loco use. He uses "Co RM" or "RM company". I'm not sure what the "RM" is. He also uses "Xa", "Xb", "Xg", "Xh" and "Xr". No idea what they mean. I'm reasonably sure "Xt" is for empty.

Mike Brock