The 42% bad order ratio in 1961 (I said 1960, sorry) was 42%, per B&O
president Jervis Langdon testimony before the ICC in support of the
proposed C&O control of B&O.

There was no money to fix them in those days. Even meeting payroll
was in doubt.

Several classes of cars were practically all broken, especially those
with Duryea underframes. Speculation is that the increased train
lengths introduced about then were too much stress and fatigue
loading for them. The Duryea-equipped class N-35A twin offset
hoppers nearly all gave up the ghost in this timeframe.










--- In STMFC@..., Tim Gilbert <tgilbert@...> wrote:

jim_mischke wrote:

B&O frequently made up for its available car shortfalls by buying,
begging, borrowing, commandeering and leasing cars from other
railroads.

By 1960, a financially troubled B&O had accumulated a whopping 42%
bad order freight car ratio.

Where does the 42% come from?

For the year 1960 according to the ICC's Monthly Operating

Statistics of

Large Steam RR's, 18.2% of the daily average of all freight cars on

the

B&O were unserviceable (1960 average - 95,396 average total cars on

line

daily; 17,171 cars unserviceable). Of the 95,396 average total cars

on

line, 60,311 were owned by the B&O, and 35,085 foreign owned. If we
assume that 1% of the foreign cars on line were unserviceable, then
16,770 B&O cars would be unserviceable which then translate to

19.0% of

B&O's total 12/31/1961 being deemed unserviceable.

Granted B&O's 18.2% was an awfully high number - even more than the
PRR's 13.8% - the national average unserviceable percent was 7.7%

in 1960.

Part of digging themselves out of this hole, with substantial C&O
help, B&O availed themselves of a variety of secondhand hoppers

and

boxcars (all built between 1932 and 1952, complying with this

list's

ground rules) by various arrangements involving sales, leases, and
sniveling.

So, over the years, B&O had secondhand cars from .....

Regarding B&M's "contributions" to the B&O in 1949 the B&M leased

100

1928 quad hoppers and 100 drop bottom gons to the B&O for five

years.

The B&O renumbered the hoppers into their #2000-2099 series and the

gons

into their #36000-36099 series. The B&O returned 99 of the hoppers

and

all 100 of the gons to the B&M at the expiration of the lease.
Tim Gilbert