Paul Koehler wrote:

When an industry was within the "Reciprocal Switching Limits" any carries
serving that "Switching Limits" was considered to be serving that industry.
In your example the SP physically served the industry, but WP could solicit
the long haul on any inbound or outbound traffic and all SP got for the
handling was a switching charge. If on the other hand the industry was not
within the "Reciprocal Switching Limits" then the SP would get a division of
the line haul revenue.

I'm with you so far on this - basically it behooved the Southern Pacific to
offer competitive rates and service to these Bay Area shippers in order to keep
the business from being stolen by WP, AT&SF etc. Now, as to the subject of the
"switching districts" - all this would be laid out with SP and WP tariffs filed
with the ICC, would it not? Have any (or all) of these tariffs been preserved
someplace by the government, or anyone else for that matter? Obviously if I want
to find out which railroad was allowed to switch its competitors shippers, I'll
need to track down some of these tariffs. If they still exist...

As a side note, in leafing through this circular it's become clear that a large
majority of industries in the Bay Area were located on railroads other than WP.
Obviously the Wobbly would really have had to hustle to try and steal business
away from the SP and Santa Fe, who of course would take a dim view of this. I do
wonder if this isn't the reason the WP struggled all its life, and ended up being
eaten by the Union Pacific?

Shawn Beckert