Tim,
Thanks for breaking the cars down by region. I did check the inbound
information that was available and found that the following outbound
loaded cars had arrived as inbound loads to Honeggers. Loads
included meal, feed, oilmeal, and one car of pallets.
TP 41384 RI 24112
RI 146554 IC 22861
SOOL 135342 CNW 77900
ERIE 82454 CNW 105870
FWD 7534 NKP 17221
GN 48165 RI 30096
MP 32863 NYC 102807
CEI 65119 NH 35694
A total of 16 foreign cars.
I could only find four of the outbound cars that were placed as mtys.
WAB 82916, PRR 570269, WAB 83336, and UP 184971.
This leaves 70 cars that do not show a record of being placed by the
Wabash. The WABASH also interchanged mty box cars to the TP&W at
either Forrest or Honeggers, for the TP&W's westbound local, Train
25, to place in the mill for loading. I am not sure if I have the
interchange information for January 1955.
An additional 20 or more loaded box cars were also placed at
Honeggers, by the WABASH, that did not return to the WABASH. Perhaps
cars placed by the WABASH and TP&W could be loaded or released mty to
either railroad.
The outbound loads mainly show offline junctions with perhaps a few
cars that moved to a final destination for unloading on the WABASH.
Also one car for Tony T. PFE 10000, R-40-26, car of spuds for
Streator on 1-10-55. Number kinda stuck out on a set-out list.
Chet French
Dixon, IL
--- In STMFC@..., Tim Gilbert <tgilbert@...> wrote:
Chet French listed the 90 boxcars loaded by the Honegger Feed Mill
on
the WABASH's Streator Branch at Fairbury IL between January 4th and
29th, 1955. The table below breaks down the ownership of these 90
boxcars into ICC Regions which are then compared to the percentages
each
road owned on 12/31/1954 of the national boxcar fleet.
Region Reported % Rptd. % Nat'l 90 Cars x % Nat'l
WABASH 5 5.6% 1.8% 2
New England 1 1.1% 2.4% 2
Great Lakes 10 11.1% 18.0% 16
Central East 7 7.8% 16.5% 15
Pocahantas 1 1.1% 4.4% 4
Southern 15 16.7% 13.7% 12
Northwest 15 16.7% 15.4% 14
Central West 27 30.0% 20.8% 19
Southwest 9 10.0% 8.8% 8
Total 90 100.0% 100.0% 90
Chet French concluded:
A total of 90 loads were pulled from Honeggers during the month,
which included 85 foreign cars and 5 home cars. Eleven CBQ and
FWD
cars and eight ATSF cars, which were probably destined for the Q's
and Santa Fe's interchange tracks at Streator, appeared to have
been
captured for loading.
Rather than speculating where the loads were dispatched, let's ask
the
question from where did the supply of empties come.
From Chet's introduction, Honegger gathered grain locally, applied
their witch's brew to that grain, and sold it as grain. From the
table
above, the Southern and Western Regions supplied more than
their "fair"
share (66 of the 90 boxcars above vs. 53 if the supply of empties
was
made proportionately to what the roads owned at 12/31/1954).
1954 was a Recession Year while 1955 was a year of Recovery.
Accordingly, as the economy picked up, the boxcars which had been
returned to their home roads because of the lack of loads during
Recession began to be loaded. The percentage of boxcar loadings
jumped
for a short while because there were not enough foreign empties
around
for loading.
Using this reasoning, we can assume that the majority of boxcar
loads
which the WABASH received on the Streator Branch came from the
south &
west if unloaded boxcars on the Streator Branch were the sole
source of
empties for Honegger.
Another source of empty boxcars would be if the WABASH plucked them
off
westbound through trains on their main lines, and routed the
empties to
the Streator Branch for loading. In this case, the supply of
western
boxcars should be more because any empty eastern boxcars would have
interchanged earlier in order to avoid unnecessary per diem charges.
So perhaps we should ask Chet if he has any inbound information
about
what boxcars were received on the Streator Branch.
Returning to where the Honegger loads went, I would think that most
of
them went east as was the case with the soybean meal from the Swift
Plant in Frankfort IN as per the data Bill Darnaby supplied the
Group
last October, but I am no farm boy to know for certain.
Tim Gilbert
