2c. Re: Chateau Martin Wine Cars
Posted by: "Garth G. Groff" ggg9y@virginia.edu ggg9y
Date: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:09 pm ((PDT))

Richard,

Thanks much. There were (probably still are) several large bulk wineries
on the Tidewater Southern (now UP). So I based on what you say, Chateau
Martin wine cars might have been regular visitors. Any such cars would
have been turned over to the WP at Stockton and would likely have gone
east via the WP/D&RGW/CB&Q. I've never seen a photo of a Chateau Martin
car on the WP, but there are still lots of surprises to be found there.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Garth,

Take a look at
http://www.sacramentohistory.org/search.php?imageid=949
and
http://www.sacramentohistory.org/search.php?imageid=950

These are conventional tank cars loaded with wine but the train is on the WP and the cars are destined for the Eastern Wine Corp. in New York.

Jim Lancaster

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

... As William D. Edson pointed out in his
seminal account of the USRA standard freight cars (Railroad History No.
128, Spring, 1973)...

Err, James E. Lane, CPA is cited as author of the 1973 article in
Railroad History. Edson is cited in the end notes as the author of a
1955 article on the USRA in general, but the statements quoted are
from the Lane article.

Dennis

My .02, How about defining Granger's by tons of grain originated or tons of grain originated / total tons originated?

(who's got the annual reports? or STCC stats)


--

Allen Rueter
StLouis MO









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Hi Dan - Ben Hom has very helpfully posted an easy to look at PDF that also has identification information for several of the cars noted on it. Its at <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/files/details%20%40%20Heatley%20St.%20Aug%206%201945%20%28Hom%20review%29.pdf> What remains is to try to make some sense of the several low gondola's in the 5 gondolas visible in the lower image on the slide - coupled to the steel NYC USRA car and on the track 5 tracks over from it.

Its such a blurry image, however, that I doubt much can be done with it.

Regards,

Rob Kirkham

On Aug 31, 2007, at 6:52 PM, Bob Chaparro wrote:

Westerfield has announced the limited run release of Santa Fe Class SK
L/N/P Caswell stockcars. The prototypes were stockcars with the
Caswell dump mechanisms built into the floor. I understand these cars
were used to haul such non-livestock loads a sand and coke.

Were there other commodities commonly shipped in these cars?

Yes. In fact, I just recently received a fine photo ca. 1910, courtesy
of Gary Rauch, of one of these cars being loaded with sugar beets in
Colorado, and apparently sugar beet loading was fairly common. The
cars couldn't haul sand, however, for obvious reasons. But the Santa
Fe intended them to be used for westbound coke traffic, and they were
widely used for that purpose through the 1920s, until the use of coke
as an industrial fuel declined in the western US.

Richard Hendrickson

Westerfield has announced the limited run release of Santa Fe Class SK
L/N/P Caswell stockcars. The prototypes were stockcars with the
Caswell dump mechanisms built into the floor. I understand these cars
were used to haul such non-livestock loads a sand and coke.

Were there other commodities commonly shipped in these cars?

Thanks.

Bob Chaparro
Hemet, CA

On Aug 31, 2007, at 11:41 AM, Dennis Storzek wrote:

I, for one, believe your original premise, that the USRA intentionally
allocated DS cars to roads with a lot to grain traffic (how's that for
doing an end run around the "Granger road" debate :-), is flawed.
First off, as a gov't agency, it's hard to believe they had that kind
of clear thinking and foresight. Secondly, in the face of the national
emergency, they likely didn't have that kind of luxury anyway. Very
likely, groups of cars were assigned as they became available to plug
holes and put out brushfires in the car supply.

There was certainly a great deal of confusion about which railroads got
which cars from the USRA. As William D. Edson pointed out in his
seminal account of the USRA standard freight cars (Railroad History No.
128, Spring, 1973), the war had ended before most of the USRA cars were
delivered and some railroads simply refused to accept the cars the USRA
wanted to allocate to them (e.g., in the case of the 40 ton double
sheathed box cars, the C&EI and the Nickel Plate) while others accepted
cars that hadn't been originally allocated (e.g., DT&I and KCS) or
accepted more cars than had originally been allocated (e.g., CRI&P,
SL-SF, WAB). There was a great deal of negotiation involved before the
final allocations were made. To quote Edson,

"only 22 of the 69 railroads...were finally allocated the exact number
and type of car as was originally assigned to them.... Thirteen
railroads which appeared on the original allocation list received no
cars under the final allocations.... On the other hand, seven
railroads which were not originally given car allocations were later
assigned cars by the USRA." (pp. 18-19)

Reasons for the changes in allocation ranged from financial (the B&M
was in receivership and the T&P was in such bad financial condition
that neither could afford to pay for the cars originally allocated to
them) to the fact that several RRs (e.g., UP and NP) were already hard
at work building the cars they needed in their own shops.

It's clear, at any rate, that the USRA bureaucracy was unable to simply
impose allocations on the railroads at will, and that the individual
railroads had a good deal to say about which cars they received and how
many. As you yourself point out, the RRs that got double wood sheathed
cars were, for the most part, those that purchased such cars on their
own initiative both before and after WW I. In the case of the Santa
Fe, company policy was to make moving the annual grain rush traffic a
very high priority in planning the design and purchase of new box cars,
and it seems likely that similar policies were in effect on the other
granger railroads. So I think it's reasonable to assume that the
assignment of wood sheathed box cars to railroads like the Santa Fe,
Frisco, Wabash, and Rock Island reflects the preferences of their
mechanical departments and not merely the luck of the draw or
bureaucratic inflexibility.

Richard Hendrickson

On Aug 31, 2007, at 11:49 AM, Garth G. Groff wrote:

Thanks much. There were (probably still are) several large bulk
wineries
on the Tidewater Southern (now UP). So I based on what you say,
Chateau
Martin wine cars might have been regular visitors.

I think that's a relatively safe inference.

Richard Hendrickson

Hey guys I was there. A clerk on The UN PAC at Salina Ks and Topeka Ks from 1948 to July 1951. I would come on duty at 12:01 AM and look at the spike. All the agents with grain elevators in there towns had sent orders to the agent in Salina for what ever box cars his elevators operators said they needed. The Salina agent's clerk had sent copies of these orders to the Chief Yard clerk. He stuck them on the spike. (Which was a heavy base with a spike sticking straight up.) All messages of information was put on it. The footboard yard master who was the engine forman on the yard lead, would look at the spike and make notes how many and where to send the box cars. I would be looking over his shoulder and making my own list. Then we would talk about where we would find them. Find them I did. We did not open any doors. Some were mty grain cars at one of the flour mills. Some were out at SME storage elevator, a few up town at various places and a lot of them in one of the yard tracks. Some of them in the consists of 155 which would be arriving about 4/5 AM from the east. We also used Ballast cars that had tops installed on them. Early form of covered hoppers.
Let say we needed 71 for the orders, If we had any extras we would put them into one of the yard tracks and save them for tomorrow. We knew we would need them.
When the conductor of the local arrived at each station. No agent or elevator operator has to kiss anyones B** for cars. A consist of the train had preceded it by several hours and every one knew what he had. First order was spotted at station one. Next town got theirs and so on taking each order from the front of the train. The conductor did not look into any of the cars. They were delivered first out on the train.
The only arguments I saw was between various men over stay away from My girl friend.
The UN Pac was organized. Maybe that is why it is around. BIG Grin
Thank you
Larry Jackman
Boca Raton FL
ljack70117@comcast.net
I was born with nothing and
I have most of it left

Hi Folks

Many thanks to all of the people who helped identify the "granger
railroads"!

My motivation for seeking this clarification was to examine the
proportion of its fleet that was double sheathed versus single
sheathed near the middle of the last century. I thought this might
be useful background information for the recent thread "DS in Grain
Service". The results of my examination were startling to me, but I
am a novice to the history of railroads.

I shall report my results in several sections, first giving an
overview of the U.S. fleet of cars suitable for grain service, then
providing statistics for these cars for a variety of definitions
of "granger railroad: A very liberal interpretation; a more
restrictive meaning; and a limited construal. The latter might be
considered the "core" of the granger railroads.


Overview of grain service cars, U.S. railroads, 1949:

My digital ORER for April 1949 has data for all box, auto, and
ventilator cars on U.S. railroads and in interchange service. In
addition to dimensional data, it includes sheathing type for over 99%
of this fleet – I have previously posted summary statistics for these
cars for several of the larger RRs.

I do not think the auto or ventilator cars would have been suitable
for grain service. According to at least one of the posts in the "DS
in Grain Service" thread, additional restrictions were that the cars
be 40' box with 6' doors, and no leaks or visible contamination.

Here is the DS/SS/Steel split for 40' class XM boxcars with 6' doors
and in interchange service, for all classes of U.S. railroads, April
1949:

U.S._____%____Number
DS_____7.4%____37,019
SS_____24.9%____124,449
Steel_____66.5%____331,832
Other_____0.9%____4,667
Known_____99.8%____497,967
Unknown_____0.2%____913
Total_____100.0%____498,880
DS %_____22.8%
SS %_____76.6%

The last two lines record the DS/SS split: They are calculated by
dividing the number of DS or SS cars by the sum of the numbers of DS,
SS and Unknown cars.


Liberal interpretation of "Granger Railroads":

This interpretation includes any railroad that turned up on my search
of the archives of this list, plus any added in the past few days.
The roads are as follows: ATSF, C&S, CB&Q, CGW, CMO, CNW, FTDDM&S,
FW&D, GM&O, GN, IC, KCS, KO&G, M&STL, MILW, M-K-T, MP, MV, NP, RI,
SLSF, SOO, T&P, TP&W, UP, WABASH.

If your favorite Granger isn't on the list (e.g., the Midland
Continental), it is because the April 1949 ORER didn't record any
cars for it (or I screwed up!).

Lib, Gr_____%____Number
DS_____9.2%____19,910
SS_____38.2%____82,907
Steel_____50.4%____109,436
Other_____2.1%____4,657
Known_____99.9%____216,910
Unknown_____0.1%____279
Total_____100.0%____217,189
DS %_____19.3%
SS %_____80.4%

For comparison, the next table shows the non-granger roads, that is,
the RRs not on the above list.

Lib, NGr_____%____Number
DS_____6.1%____17,109
SS_____14.7%____41,542
Steel_____79.0%____222,396
Other_____0.0%____10
Known_____99.8%____281,057
Unknown_____0.2%____634
Total_____100.0%____281,691
DS %_____28.9%
SS %_____70.1%

By comparing the last two lines of these tables, we can see that the
granger RRs have a lesser percentage of DS cars than the non-granger
lines, and a corresponding greater percentage of SS. The spread is
about 10%. A simple calculation using the "Total" cars in both
tables shows that by this definition, 44% of the Nation's boxcars
belong to granger roads.


A more restrictive interpretation of "Granger Railroads":

An interesting post yesterday by Malcolm Laughlin divided the granger
RRs into two categories, "Definite" and "Marginal". My intention in
using his classification is not to endorse it to the exclusion of
anyone else's, but simply to give all of you additional information,
which some may find of interest. The following railroads include
both his "Definite" and "Marginal" groups, with the Wabash added
because, as Allen Rueter pointed out, "it was in the lawsuit…" (the
1886 Wabash Case which led to the creation of the ICC): CB&Q, CGW,
CMO, CNW, GM&O(C&A), IC, KO&G, M&STL, MILW, M-K-T, MV, RI, SLSF, SOO,
TP&W, WABASH.

Here is the table for this set of granger railroads, and for its
logical complement of non-granger roads.

Res, Gr_____%____Number
DS_____3.6%____4,401
SS_____50.6%____62,122
Steel_____45.6%____56,005
Other_____0.0%____10
Known_____99.8%____122,538
Unknown_____0.2%____244
Total_____100.0%____122,782
DS %_____6.6%
SS %_____93.0%

Res, NGr_____%____Number
DS_____8.7%____32,618
SS_____16.6%____62,327
Steel_____73.3%____275,827
Other_____1.2%____4,657
Known_____99.8%____375,429
Unknown_____0.2%____669
Total_____100.0%____376,098
DS %_____34.1%
SS %_____65.2%

Again comparing the last two lines of these tables, note that the
granger RRs have an even lesser percentage of DS cars than the non-
granger lines. In fact, their percentage is well below 10%. The
spread is almost 30%. Using this definition of a granger railroad
leads one to suspect an antipathy on their part toward double
sheathed cars. Note also that over 50% of the granger fleet is SS,
whereas the non-granger fleet is nearly three-quarters steel. These
granger RRS have about a quarter of the Nation's boxcars.


A very limited interpretation of "Granger Railroads":

This is Malcolm's list of "Definite" granger RRs, what one might call
the "core": CB&Q, CMO, CNW, MILW, RI, SOO, CGW, M&STL, GM&O(C&A).

Here are the tables, first the core, then the non-core:

Core_____%____Number
DS_____2.4%____2,052
SS_____49.8%____42,788
Steel_____47.5%____40,786
Other_____0.0%____10
Known_____99.7%____85,636
Unknown_____0.3%____236
Total_____100.0%____85,872
DS %_____4.6%
SS %_____94.9%

Non-Core_____%____Number
DS_____8.5%____34,967
SS_____19.8%____81,661
Steel_____70.5%____291,046
Other_____1.1%____4,657
Known_____99.8%____412,331
Unknown_____0.2%____677
Total_____100.0%____413,008
DS %_____29.8%
SS %_____69.6%

By this definition of "granger", less than five percent of its non-
steel boxcars are double sheathed and nearly 95% are single sheathed,
an imbalance that I find remarkable. Calculations using the number
of DS, SS, and Total cars show that the core has less than 6% of the
Nation's DS cars and more than 34% of its SS cars, while constituting
17% of its fleet.


Note: My original intention was to post the results of my analysis
for both April 1949 and July 1950. The analytical part is complete,
but I didn't have time to write it up. I may do that sometime
later. Also, I hope I haven't offended anyone with the
classifications of "Granger" that I used. It is relatively easy to
generate the statistics for any grouping one may wish, so let me know
if you would like to see some other categorization.

Best wishes,
Larry Ostresh
Laramie, Wyoming

I've have worked at a Naval Ordnance Station, although not on any
thing quite as impressive as the 16 inchers. A lot of the stuff we
shipped and recieved was protected by either a yellowish chromate
primer paint or by a black stuff sort of like a thinner, brushable
version of cosmoline. It was shiny black when fresh but after long
weathering became fully flat gray/black.
In the referanced photo k00515, the date is 1942 and those barrels had
not been in long term storage. Likely still warm when sent to the
shipyard.
My guess for such barrels in any year after 1946 would be black.
Flat black going to a shipyard from a depot, shiny black from the yard
back to a depot. And plugged both ends both ways.
Chuck Peck

To toss a match into the gas tank,why then did the Canadian roads rely on single sheathed car for their grain traffic? Armand Premo

The CB&Q was allocated 500 DS box cars in 1918 although it had completely moved away from DS when it built its first SS box and automobile cars in 1913. The AC&F- built DS cars, numbered 120500-120999 and classed as XM-24, were the last DS ones acquired by the Q (other than the XM-27 DS cars in 1926 which were rebuilds of XM-15 with steel centre sills and ends, which in turn had been rebuilds in 1922 of XA-4 automobile cars originally built in 1910)

The allocation of DS cars at this time suggests that the USRA was out of touch with the individual roads preferences, at least in the case of the Burlington. (If I remember correctly, though, the CB&Q President - Charles Perkins - also had a senior role in the USRA.) It is surprising that the Car Committee (presumably railroad engineering experts) could come up with the designs but the allocation was so apparently flawed.

Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ

I believe the late David P. Morgan, editor of TRAINS magazine in the
1940s-1970s, coined the term "granger railroad," but I have no hard
evidence to support that statement.

Anybody else know?

Bob Edmonson
Maryland, near Wash. D.C.

Andy Sperandeo wrote:

"Webster's Third New International Dictionary," in general an excellent reference on railroad-related terms, says simply that "granger" in our context means "a grain-carrying railroad."

Wow! That's going to make it easier to list the NON-granger railroads <g>. Obviously a whole bunch of transcontinentals became grangers in this definition, as well as possible surprises like SP (grain box cars on the SP are shown in my SP Freight Car volume 4).

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroad history

"Webster's Third New International Dictionary," in general an excellent
reference on railroad-related terms, says simply that "granger" in our
context means "a grain-carrying railroad." That's probably too simple to
resolve this controversy, but maybe it's the controversy that's too
complicated.

Have a good weekend,

Andy

Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
Model Railroader magazine
asperandeo@mrmag.com
262-796-8776, ext. 461
FAX 262-796-1142

Posted by: "Thomas Baker" In interviews I have had with the operators of grain elevators on the old Chicago Great Western in Minnesota, I walked away with the impression that the grain elevators would have been happy with any clean car they could obtain, double-sheathed or not. One former grain elevator operator told me that much seemed dependent on how friendly one was with the conductor of the train. If the conductor was favorable, a clean car showed up from somewhere as soon as possible. If not, well, one waited. Perhaps this man was just spouting his resentment at his bad luck or fact.
=======================

That statement seems rather curious and provokes me to ask a few questions. How did the conductor know which car was really clean ? How many conductors opened box car doors so that they could pick a clean car for the friendly elevator operator ? When he was being paid on mileage, that was on his own time.


Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478

Richard,

Thanks much. There were (probably still are) several large bulk wineries on the Tidewater Southern (now UP). So I based on what you say, Chateau Martin wine cars might have been regular visitors. Any such cars would have been turned over to the WP at Stockton and would likely have gone east via the WP/D&RGW/CB&Q. I've never seen a photo of a Chateau Martin car on the WP, but there are still lots of surprises to be found there.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Richard Hendrickson wrote:

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

Good grief! I leave home for a couple of days and my observation that
granger railroads preferred double sheathed to single sheathed USRA box
cars prompted a largely irrelevant discussion of car distribution.
Obviously Malcolm's last sentence is correct. But the preference of
many RRs for double sheathed box cars had nothing to do with car
distribution. It was simply a conviction, whether correct or
incorrect, that double sheathed cars were more likely to remain
weatherproof in service, and thus usable for grain shipments.

Richard Hendrickson

Richard,

I, for one, believe your original premise, that the USRA intentionally
allocated DS cars to roads with a lot to grain traffic (how's that for
doing an end run around the "Granger road" debate :-), is flawed.
First off, as a gov't agency, it's hard to believe they had that kind
of clear thinking and foresight. Secondly, in the face of the national
emergency, they likely didn't have that kind of luxury anyway. Very
likely, groups of cars were assigned as they became available to plug
holes and put out brushfires in the car supply.

There are a couple of other factors that very likely had more bearing
on the decision other than the kind of sheathing; the DS cars were 40
ton capacity, while the SS cars were 50; and no one has offered any
info on the relative price of one against the other. Remember, even
though the USRA was having the cars built to their specs, the
railroads were expected to pay for them. Some roads objected
vehemently to being saddled with the cost of cars they didn't want or
felt they needed, and as Lane points out, there was a certain amount
of "horse trading" and shifting of allocations.

A better way to look at the question of which was thought to be the
better car for grain might be to see what the railroads themselves
were buying just prior to the creation of the USRA. If one goes back
just ten years previous, ALL the roads apparently felt that the DS car
was the best, as that was all that was being built. Swain and Clegg do
a good job of documenting the arguments raised against SS boxcars in
their seminal work on the development of the SS car in Canada by CPR
and DC&F, and subsequent research on the Fowler patents reveal the
designs implemented to allay those fears. By 1917 you have a situation
where CPR, Soo, C&NW at least had decided that the SS design could
make a workable grain car, while NP and GN still insisted on building
DS cars. As time went on after the roads were returned to private
control in the early twenties, it becomes obvious that the industry at
large accepted the SS car as adequate, even if there were a few hold-outs


Dennis

Richard Hendrickson wrote:

I'n not sure what RRs or time periods Russ is generalizing (over-generalizing?) about here, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when I spent a lot of time hanging around the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific in California, every agent, even at small stations, had a current copy of the ORER and used it. I well remember the agent at Oceanside walking the yard every morning, clip board in hand, and consulting the ORER in his office, if he needed to, regarding any of the cars in the yard, especially cars in assigned service (e.g. U.S. Navy ammunition cars) which had to be returned to their point of origin.

Any agent I ever talked from the pre-1960 period was entirely familiar with ORERs and worked with them daily. I asked one if he saved any copies, and he said he was always happy when a new one arrived, as the previous one would be so worn and tattered by then.
Russ was perhaps stating the situation in the 1970s, by which time many smaller agencies were closed on most railroads, and as the ORER print run fell, prices may have risen in response, making the ORER copy an expensive item. It did not seem to be so in the 1950s.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroad history