Mike Brock wrote:

Gregg Mahlkov writes:

Several on here have mentioned the utter lack of train consists from

times

past. Having dealt with same for much of my railroad career,

consider how

ephemeral the data in a consist is to the railroad. It usually

showed the

car initial, number, load/empty status, gross weight, commodity,
consignee, destination and offgoing junction and road. It does NOT show
origin, shipper, or full route, only enough information for the yard or
connecting carrier to properly handle the car at the destination of the
particular train.

Actually in the case of my 1949 frt conductor's book, some of the above is
not true. In many, many cases, a car's destination is recorded...at least to
the final RR facility. Thus, several cars on one train may have a
destination of Kansas City while others have Omaha...obviously the cars
being separated and placed in different trains. Other cars might be going to
obscure destinations such as Norfolk, Neb. Destinations on other RRs are not
given. Some cars have the point of pickup as well...

In my 1947 UP Conductor Fraley's Book, a car's destination was limited to the UP or the interchange point. Eastbound, mileage was generally used for points on the Nebraska Main Line - "0" for Council Bluffs: "3" for Omaha; "284" for North Platte; "510" for Chian (abbreviation sometimes used for Cheyenne); "566" for Laramie, etc.. For points off the Nebraska Main Line, abbreviations or the town's names were used like "KC" and "Den." Westbound, there seemed to have been a numerical code laced with town's names: - "SP-1" for the Ogden interchange with the SP; "2" for the area surrounding Ogden in Northern Utah; "3" for Salt Lake including "3-WP;" "LA-4" for cars proceeding on the LA&SL; "5", "6" & "7" for cars proceeding on the OSL and OWR&N in Idaho, Oregon & Washington.

In the 1941-42 OSL Wheel Reports between Green River WY and Montpelier ID, the Conductor, JR Nelson, used mileage from Council Bluffs as his reference points only for intermediate station points between Green River and Montpelier. Empty Reefers' destination was usually "West." "CoB" was the abbreviation for Council Bluffs; "KC" and "Den" were used; Omaha and other place names were spelled out although sometimes abbreviated as in "Chian" and "Lar." The same practice was followed for points west of Montpelier.

The 1946 and 1948 Southern RR's Washington Division wheel reports only showed the origin and destinations by mile post on the Washington Division between Potomac Yard (MP 4) and Monroe VA (MP 165). Also, the weight for individual cars was net, not gross in thousands of pounds (not tons). The load of a caboose was estimated through out to be 20,000 pounds the same as Cars carrying LCL Merchandise. Since neither type of car was weighed loaded, the SOU must have assumed that any unweighed car's load was estimated to weigh 10 tons.

The 1949 M&SL data for Minburn and Dallas Center IA which Doug Harding collected used both mile posts (from St. Paul - MP 0 to Des Moines -MP 310 as well as town names. This data also included the origin of the load and terminus of that same load.

Tim Gilbert





In summary, each road & conductor had its own wrinkle.