Guys -

Thanks for the nice comments!

Richard and Tony - We do not have a real hobby shop here (San Antonio,
9th largest city in U.S.), two recently closed in Houston (where I have
been buying books), and the good one in Austin is supposedly closing in
January! Looks like I will have to resort to ordering books on-line!
Was hoping to pick up the reefer book and the latest SP freight car
book at Papa Ben's in Houston last week, but it is not open at the new
location.

The photos are really wonderful. I would love to have wet prints of
all of them! The trackwork was amazing! It would be interesting to
have seen those times, but I'll bet there was some hard work done in
bad conditions at some of those buildings.

A.T. Kott

Mike,

Thanks for the information. That is consistent with the other piecemeal C&O iformation information that I have. I'm really looking for the cross-over date. However, that it consistent was C&O Presque Isle coal loadings data that looks like it peaked just around 1960. That would be spelling bad news for the Virginian Rwy . . . which had its coal conveyor belt tuned especially for Tidewater.

Al Kresse

Al Kresse writes:

"I am looking for the member who had access to Bituminous Coal shipments
directions historical data out VA, WV, and KY carried by basically the
C&O/N&W/Virginian (Pokey Roads) East to Tidewater (Hampton Roads) vs.
West (midwest or Great Lakes ports). Early on it was basically all
EAST and then it gradually shifted from going up the intercoastal
waterways to the NE, to heading west and north to the industrial
heartlands. So much so that at one time the Pennsy hard-coal shippers
wanted a tariff to be put on cheap southern soft-coal."

Al, as you are probably aware, Richard Prince summarized coal tonnage on the N&W for the year 1948 in his book Norfolk & Western Pochahontas Coal Carrier. On page 240, I summarize...of 52 million tons originated by N&W, 22 million went west by rail, 10 million went north into Great Lakes ports at Toledo and Sandusky, 10 million went east through Lamberts Point, 2.5 million went south, and the remainder went into Maryland and DC and Virginia itself. So, given that, fully 61% went west and north through Portsmouth.

Mike Brock

Rich,
You may be able to get a set of O scale decals from Rich Yoder at Yoder
Models, then either reduce them or maybe the printer can use them as artwork
(?).
Chuck Hladik

al.kresse wrote:

Folks,

I am looking for the member who had access to Bituminous Coal
shipments directions historical data out VA, WV, and KY carried by
basically the C&O/N&W/Virginian (Pokey Roads) East to Tidewater
(Hampton Roads) vs.
West (midwest or Great Lakes ports).

Al, check any major University library that's close by to you, as they might
have a federal document depository. There you want to find a copy of the
Minerals yearbook. A look at the copy I own (1950 edition) shows the Fed's
did have bit coal production data going back to 1890 but in this volume the
data by state only covers a 10 year span.

Dave Nelson

Folks,

I am looking for the member who had access to Bituminous Coal shipments
directions historical data out VA, WV, and KY carried by basically the
C&O/N&W/Virginian (Pokey Roads) East to Tidewater (Hampton Roads) vs.
West (midwest or Great Lakes ports). Early on it was basically all
EAST and then it gradually shifted from going up the intercoastal
waterways to the NE, to heading west and north to the industrial
heartlands. So much so that at one time the Pennsy hard-coal shippers
wanted a tariff to be put on cheap southern soft-coal.

Many thanks,

Al Kresse

Jeff Aley comments-

Posted by: "Aley, Jeff A" Jeff.A.Aley@intel.com jaley95630
Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:13 pm (PST)

I have been led to believe that many box car interiors and possibly
floors were of white oak. A woodworker once asked me if I knew where
any boxcars were being scrapped (i.e. in the Antelope / Roseville
area), as they were often a source of good-quality recycled oak....

I cannot speak to how common white oak would have been in boxcars,
although I do know they were relatively commonplace for flat car
decking. When in the throes of a wanton brain lapse some years ago
(the '70s), the Sierra Railroad dismantled/scrapped in situ a
seriously deteriorated 19thC wood coach in Jamestown. I was there at
the time, and like a vulture I picked over the bones of the car to
cherry-pick some pretty fine pieces of fine old white oak- primarily
from the carlines. This oak now lives on in the very heart of several
fine boats. Fortunately the hardware was saved and eventually would
its way to the then-developing CalStateRRMuseum.

P.S. How do you recommend I treat the dog-eared cedar fence boards
that are so common in the Sacramento area?

Replace them!

Denny

Denny S. Anspach MD
Sacramento

Here were a couple of comments on the original post. These comments
appeared on the Pacific Electric Railway group at:

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/PEry/

Bob Chaparro
Hemet, CA
=====================
The fact that there is electric overhead in the photo means that the
photo was not taken at Los Alamitos. It could have been on the Santa
Ana - Huntington Beach line, which was built largely to serve a beet
growing area. The PE did operate between Huntington Beach and a sugar
factory at La Bolsa on a SP branch and it is possible that a beet
loader could have been located on the Santa Ana line, but I have not
seen any record of one.

Cliff Prather
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Looks to be a Blackburn type rack that didn't need the stake pockets-
so it may be beet RACK PE 3375 on a flatcar, if there are any purists
in the crowd.

Ed Workman

Photo 14 was taken in 1926 or later. The P&WV gondola at the left was
built in 1926.

Larry Kline
Pittsburgh, PA

Great Pics - I like the gate on #16 and the way the model Ts are parked on #37.Thanks

Mark



EMAILING FOR THE GREATER GOODJoin me

contact me next week.  i have artwork and an Alps printer

Bob Anson %~)

How many do you need and are you capable of laying out the artwork?
There are several custom printers who could do it - you'd need the data
of course to do the masters. Contact me directly if interested in
pursuing this approach. (I am NOT soliciting work - I've just done
artwork for a commercial company and had decals done privately).

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Rich Christie" <rhcdmc@...> wrote:

Does anyone know who makes them? There once was a modeling article in
MR on kitbashing an Athearn gondola into a Lehigh Valley cement gon.
The author mentioned 7th Street Depot. I tried contacting them about

a

year ago, no answer at the phone number provided.

Thanks,
Rich C

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "andy.laurent" <andy.laurent@...> wrote:

" If someone has a copy of IFA#22, I would love to see it."

Regards,
Andy Laurent

Andy, here you go. Rails Unlimited has done a reprint of a 1956 IFA #22

http://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/Books/shippers.html

I do have it, and will tell anyone interested in Chicago railroading it is a
gold mine well worth the price.

Happiness, Jerry Stewart

Woodstock, Illinois

Guys -

Here are some nice photos from around Omaha in the 1924 to 1925 era.
The link was posted on the Railway Bull Shippers Yahoo group. I never
knew that the Old Dutch Cleanser reefers really had a prototype!

<http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26579
<http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26579> >

A.T. Kott

A. T., those are not nice photos, those are GREAT photos.

A few remarks:

Photos 14 and 23: I've never seen that many double slip switches except in the passenger yard leads
for the DL&W in Hoboken! And each one has a single switch lamp. Sure, that makes sense after
thinking about it, but it seems counterintuitive.

Photo 30: Model that steel structure and you'll be laughed at. What a contrivance to hold up the
upper level!

Photo 38: Someone else mentioned this three-way switch. Pretty fancy stuff for an industrial
siding. Neat view into the gon at lower right, too.

SGL

Does anyone know who makes them? There once was a modeling article in
MR on kitbashing an Athearn gondola into a Lehigh Valley cement gon.
The author mentioned 7th Street Depot. I tried contacting them about a
year ago, no answer at the phone number provided.

Thanks,
Rich C

Excellent photos especially showing the end of one of the Wilson stock cars, which I have had a hard time finding a photo of a complete car. This is the only picture of one of the ex-LLT stock cars (see attachment).

The Wilson stock cars were ex-Lackawanna Live Stock Transportation Co cars built sometime before 1915 and they lasted until sometime between 1935 and 1940. Lackawanna Live Stock was headquartered in Chicago.

Lackawanna and Cold Blast Transportation Co were somehow linked together and were purchased sometime between 1915 and 1919. CBT reefers were used by S&S to transport their meat products (see the other attachment). Control of S&S went to Thomas Wilson in 1916, who was the former president of Morris & Co. The name of S&S was changed to Wilson & Co and joined Armour, Wilson, Cudahy, and Swift as one of the country's big five meat packers.

Another large meat packer was Morris & Co which was bought by Armour in 1923. Morris was considered one of the "Big 5" monopolistic meat packers that the government tried to break up. They were also called the "Beef Trust".

Armour ended up divesting itself a large portion of its assets in 1919 which resulted in the formation of Fruit Growers Express but did manage to hold onto its meat business. The Big 5 was made up of Armour, Morris, Wilson, Cudahy, and Swift. Which you can see that they had a big infleunce in Omaha by the pictures on the website.

A 1922 New York Times article that I have reports that Armour had total assets worth $480 million dollars, Morris ($91 million), Swift ($361 million), Wilson ($192 million), and Cudahy ($61 million). This is in 1922 dollars so I have no idea what it is in today's dollars.

A combined value of the Armour / Morris merger would give them a total worth of $571 million compared to the combination of the other three companies of $524 million. I am sure a lot of people were surprised that the merger was approved by the US government. But then we are talking about Armour and Morris having their headquarters in Chicago. And we know what Chicago politics are like.

You can also imagine how much Armour was worth before the 1919 breakup if their meat business was worth $480 million dollars in 1925.

Anyway, one of the pictures on the website show the Morris & Co packing plant, which in 1925 is technically now Armour & Co. It is a good assumption that Armour hadn't gotten around to repainting the building since Morris owned several meat packing plants around the country. Morris lettered reefers, tanks cars, and stock cars lasted until sometime between 1930 and 1935.
Thanks AT for posting this.

Steve Hedlund
Everett, WA



To: STMFC@yahoogroups.comFrom: atkott@swbell.netDate: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:22:35 +0000Subject: [STMFC] 1925 photos around Omaha



Guys -Here are som nice photos from around Omaha in the 1924 to 1925 era. The link was posted on the Railway Bull Shippers Yahoo group. I never knew that the Old Dutch Cleanser reefers really had a prototype!<http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26579>A.T. Kott





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The CB&Q and the FW&D stock cars shown in picture 20 don't look painted to me. There appear to be many knots showing in the wood. Plus in pix 14, there is a Pittsburgh and West Virginia coal gondola. I guess its going over Sherman Hill!

gary laakso
south of Mike Brock
vasa0vasa@earthlink.net

I certainly agree with you and my 20 years in the ESPEE Law Dept confirm that the marketing folks like to list everything and then some as potential customers. I will not discuss how accurate their marketing plan car counts were compared to reality or what flooding the system with too much traffic did to train operations.
That said, the book reflects patterns of heavy Team Track usage for a much wider variety of products then I thought. I may have read too many ESPEE team track reports! For instance in the GN book, in a large number of towns, coffins are listed as a team track commodity (though one industry received "coffin plywood" [no, there was no footnote on whether it was treated or not]) and there are a fair number of soda companies and potato chip receivers listed. Maybe they were team track customers.

gary laakso
south of Mike Brock
vasa0vasa@earthlink.net

Gary,

It is useful to consider why the "Industrial Guide" was published (and given away). I believe the intent was for "Business to Business" transactions. In other words, if I had something to ship, I could look and see what potential new customers were available ("coincidentally" served by the GN). Or, if I want to buy something, I can similarly look for suppliers (again, that would ship by the GN).

Some local freight agents would apparently list every single industry they could find, and if they weren't rail-served, they'd list them as "Team Track". My point is that a listing in the book doesn't necessarily mean that such a shipment (from a team track) ever really happened.

Regards,

-Jeff


________________________________
From: STMFC@yahoogroups.com [mailto:STMFC@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of gary laakso
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2008 9:54 AM
To: STMFC
Subject: [STMFC] Car Types for Team Tracks


I have been going through the January 1, 1961 Great Northern Railway Industrial Guide for points served by it and other railroads. The scope of team track usage amazes me since it covers from coffins to Edsels to Hamms beer to paving machinery and on and on. Here are the uses that i am not sure what type of freight car would be used (no, i am not listing pipe, threaded or not):
1- boats; flatcars?
2- fish; refrigerator cars?
3- elevators (as in Otis) boxcars?
4- steel products (its not more specific) gondolas?
5- soft drinks (i assume vending machines) boxcars?
6- vitamins; refrigerator cars?
7- pilings; flat cars or gondolas?
8- candy/tobacco; refrigerators?
9- potato chips (its listed at multiple locations) refrigerators?
10- ferns , as in plants ? no idea
11- fireworks? no clue and for Mike Brock..
12- jailhouse supplies? brig cars?


gary laakso
south of Mike Brock
vasa0vasa@earthlink.net<mailto:vasa0vasa%40earthlink.net>

There are some great yard trackwork photos in that series. I was particularly fascinated by the three way point switch. What a fun project to build in 1/48 scale.
Charlie