--- In STMFC@..., "Schuyler Larrabee"
<schuyler.larrabee@...> wrote:

Story published about the sales, September 1917

USRA formed, December 1917

Keep in mind, Canada technically entered the war in August of 1914,
when Great Britain declared war. They had been at it for three years
by the time of this news piece, and the Canadian car building capacity
was but a fraction of that in the US. I suspect further research will
find that what they were buying were antiquated wooden gondolas with
drop doors, but still necessitating a lot of hand labor to empty. What
the US roads were to receive from the USRA were self-clearing cars.

However, I detect in the article mostly sour grapes at the state
level; while the setting of rates was the business of the ICC, it was
good politics for state officials to cause a stir by opposing the
"greedy railroads" to the benefit of in-state industries. Left unsaid
in the report is whether the cars being sold were actually of any
further use to the railroads in Ohio; their customers likely had been
clamoring for self clearing cars to reduce their own labor costs.

Dennis