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Re: Milling in Transit

Dennis Storzek
 

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "Aley, Jeff A" <Jeff.A.Aley@...> wrote:

Dennis,

Could you please expand upon this topic?

For example, who is it that has his wheat milled in transit: the farmer, or some intermediate elevator? Is the "milling in transit" done between the grain elevator and flour consumer (e.g. bakery)?

You imply that the exact same boxcar gets used for the flour as was used for the grain. Is this always the case, or was that a simplification?

Thanks much,

-Jeff
I'm getting near the fringes of my knowledge, but I'll start, and someone who knows more can chime in and correct anything I've mis-interpreted.

Milling in transit appears to pre-date the formation of the ICC. In the rough-and-tumble pre-regulatory days it was a way railroads could induce millers to locate on their line; offer a single through rate from source to customer. It appears to be the reason that both the M &St.L and Soo Line were built; the millers in Minneapolis were tired of paying two local rates to move grain in and then ship flour out, when the same RR's they were shipping on were offering better rates to mills located further east. The Minneapolis milling interests started building a railroad to St. Louis, but lost control, they later started two other lines, the Minneapolis & Pacific to bring grain in from the west, and the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie & Atlantic to ship flour to the east. When these roads were finished, they were consolidated into the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie. Then Pillsbury and the other Minneapolis Millers could also enjoy the the advantages of milling in transit.

Since this was the entrenched way that the flour trade was being conducted, it continued under ICC regulation; the tariffs were published, and all the ICC concerned itself with is that the rates were equally available to all.

Who was the Shipper? As I understand it, it was the miller, who bought the grain delivered at the elevator, and paid the freight from there to the customer, with the priveledge of a stop-off to mill it into flour somewhere along the way. The combined rate was less than the sum of the local inbound rate on grain and local outbound rate on flour; it was advantageous to the railroad as it gave them a longer haul on grain that was captive to their line.

Did it have to be the same car? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I think most tariffs had a provision for changing the cars en route; there are instances of railroads who would reload coal into home road cars back in the days when labor was cheap.

In reality, it may well have often been a paper transaction, with fifty tons of inbound grain simply matched with fifty tons of outbound flour for billing purposes. You will notice the 1890 newspaper article I linked to concerns itself in part with the outbound loads being heavier than the inbounds :-)
However, since the same class of car was used for both grain and flour, back in the day, I would suspect that from track side, it looked like the same cars being used.

Dennis
Re: Box/auto distribution 1938

Tim O'Connor
 

I'm sure I don't need to point out 1949 was a very different year
than 1938, in which the US economy was still deep in recession.
Yes, of course. I would expect therefore that there would have been fewer trains per day in 1938 than in 1949, which would raise my percentages. If you have data showing that the Great Depression led to more trains across Wyoming, I would like to see it. Or if you have better data than Mark provided, please make that public.

It has nothing to do with the number of trains Larry. Tim Gilbert
pointed out that the percentage of home road cars staying on-line
greatly increased throughout the depression years, and so the
distribution of cars nationwide was quite different in 1949 than
in 1938. The more-or-less uniform distribution of plain box cars
is far more apparent in the late 1940's than in the late 1930's.
The year 1938 was a severe recession. Industrial output declined
sharply. I assume that means there were a lot fewer PRR and other
eastern cars on the SP and UP than would be in normal economic
times.

You say your data show "dominance" of SP cars -- but isn't it just
201 or so SP cars in 34 random trains over a period of a month? Now,
that might show "dominance" but it might just also be random luck.
If the UP ran 3 trains a day, I'd say that was a great sample. But
even if UP only ran 20 trains a day... Well, it's not much to go on.

Tim O'
Re: Freight car Distribution

Tim O'Connor
 

Paul, what kind of paperwork is handled by the conductor who is
delivering the empty car to the industry? Is this just called a
Car Order? Or maybe an "Empty Waybill"?

When an empty car is moved to another (distant) location (e.g. to
return to its owner) is that called a Waybill?

Tim O'Connor

Jeff:

Not so. Customer ordered a car/cars from the Car Distributor. Car
Distributor issued an order to the yard for placing an empty/empties at a
given industry. Car/cars were spotted. After loaded Industrial Clerk
signed for the bill of lading and ordered car/cars pulled. Bill of lading
was turned in to the Agents office and a waybill was typed out.

Paul C. Koehler


From: STMFC@yahoogroups.com [mailto:STMFC@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Aley, Jeff A
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 9:01 AM
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: Freight car Distribution

Tim,

Tony Thompson can answer better than I can. But if I understood his clinic
correctly, the Agent wrote the empty car order and waybill BEFORE the car
was spotted for loading. So the waybill, with the car # typed on it, was
already completed.

Therefore, I conclude that if the industry randomly loads the car, the
paperwork would have to be changed.

On the other hand, concepts like "milling in transit" or other "diversions"
can certainly have no a' priori knowledge of where the car will end up.

Regards,

-Jeff

Not to belabor this point, but let's suppose the railroad agent/clerk
follows the AAR rules and sends a PRR, WABASH, SP and UP box car to a
single shipper on the SP for loading -- with the intention that the
PRR box car will be sent to the PRR, the WABASH car to that railroad,
and so on.

Now all four cars get shoved up to the shipper's dock. The shipper
asked for four cars, and has his loads all prepared at their doors.
The ORDER of the four cars is random -- the railroad certainly did
not sort them according to each load's destination.

So the shipper loads the 1st car, the 2nd car, etc -- without any
regard to the ownership of the car!! How could it be otherwise? Can
you imagine the shipper worrying about whether AAR rules are being
followed properly? He just wants to get his shipments loaded.

I don't know if the above scenario is true, but I've never heard any
contradictory evidence. Looking at photos of railroad freight houses
in the Chicago area, it sures looks like a dog's breakfast of cars
was shoved onto the loading/unloading tracks, taking care only to
line up the doorways for crossing via ramps between cars.

Tim O'Connor
Re: "Tar Paper " and "Mule Hyde" Roofs

cinderandeight@...
 

Victor,
Some freight cars did indeed have canvas roofs that were painted
several coats of paint. The June 2, 1928 issue of Railway Age (Page 70) had an
ad for "Mule Hide" roofing which read as follows:
"Why lay up your cars while you wait for several coats of paint to dry
on canvas?
MULE-HIDE canvas car roofing is made of the same raw duck that you are
accustomed to use on the roofs of passenger cars, saturated and coated
both sides with pure Mexican Asphalt, permanently waterproofed.
Your men can lay it as quickly as the canvas alone, and as soon as it
is applied the car is ready for service.
Widths and weight to meet your specifications. Standard on many
railways."
The product was offered by the Lehon Company of Chicago.
Incidentally, the car illustrated in the ad was a CV "Green Mountain Route" milk car,
#567.

Rich Burg
Milling in Transit

Aley, Jeff A
 

Dennis,

Could you please expand upon this topic?

For example, who is it that has his wheat milled in transit: the farmer, or some intermediate elevator? Is the "milling in transit" done between the grain elevator and flour consumer (e.g. bakery)?

You imply that the exact same boxcar gets used for the flour as was used for the grain. Is this always the case, or was that a simplification?

Thanks much,

-Jeff


From: STMFC@yahoogroups.com [mailto:STMFC@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of soolinehistory
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 8:36 AM
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [STMFC] Re: was LCL - Stop Off traffic




--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com<mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com>, Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:

Ross

I've heard of storage in transit for grain, but milling in transit??
Wouldn't the transformation of bulk grain into bags of flour involve
an entirely new tariff?

Tim O'Connor
No, it was a single tariff designed to keep the flour traffic on the line that had originated the grain move. It goes back a long way; here's a link to a nespaper article from 1890:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9802EED8153BE533A25752C1A9629C94619ED7CF

Keep in mind that grain is fungible, like money is. When you go to the bank to make a withdrawal, you don't get the same money you deposited back; you get different but equal money. Grain is the same, you don't get your grain back out of the elevator, you get different but equal grain. Same with milling in transit. You don't get the flour that was milled from the grain you hauled in; you get equal flour milled from different grain. So, the car just emptied of grain can be immediately refilled with flour and sent on its way.

Dennis



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: was LCL - Stop Off traffic

Dennis Storzek
 

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:


Ah, but Dennis, suppose I shipped a box car of $100 bills to the bank,
and withdrew it again as pennies?

:-) Tim "infungible" O'Connor
Tim,

Your point?

Dennis
Re: Box/auto distribution 1938

Wendye Ware
 

Tim O'Connor wrote

Larry Ostresh wrote

I think 2,267 box cars represent three or four days of UP freight traffic across
Wyoming in the late 1930s. (Data from 1949 provided by Mark Amfahr show 30 to 33
trains a day between Laramie and Cheyenne.)
I'm sure I don't need to point out 1949 was a very different year
than 1938, in which the US economy was still deep in recession.
Yes, of course. I would expect therefore that there would have been fewer trains per day in 1938 than in 1949, which would raise my percentages. If you have data showing that the Great Depression led to more trains across Wyoming, I would like to see it. Or if you have better data than Mark provided, please make that public.

I don't understand
the basis of your statement "[other conductor books] wouldn't be the
same, but they are likely to be similar". The tricky word of course
being "similar"...
I think the sentences following the one you quoted spell out precisely what I mean by "similar". I wrote: "For example, I would expect them to show the same dominance of UP and SP cars, and I think it is likely that the Central Western ICC region will have more than its fair share of cars, even with UP and SP removed. The New England and Southern regions may have fewer than expected representation also."

Best wishes,
Larry Ostresh
Laramie, Wyoming
Re: Lumber Loading

Clark Propst
 

Just pointing out that the car has been moved on the railroad before.

I assume the car was dropped at Albert Lea MN by a westbound and now was on an east bound?
Clark Propst

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:


Clark I don't understand -- what does ALBERT LEA BACK HAUL mean?

Lumber definitely could be diverted before it reached its final
destination. And diversions could go in any direction, as long as
someone paid for it (the diversion, that is).

Tim O'Connor



NP 26619 LUMBER 119 ALBERT LEA BACK HAUL

The car listed above was in an M&StL Minneapolis to Peoria time freight. This car must be ping-ponging across the railroad waiting for a buyer?
Clark Propst
Re: CGW 1934 X29

brianleppert@att.net
 

I can find only one photo in the Color Guide that shows one of these cars WITHOUT its original Dalman trucks. #W85320 shows up on pages 106 and 107, photographed in 1978 with roller bearing Ride Control trucks. Other cars appearing in the book, photogrphed in 1967, 1980 and 1984, still have their Dalmans.

The Summer, 1992 issue of North Western Lines had a seven page article on these box cars.

Brian Leppert
Carson City, NV

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "mopacfirst" <ron.merrick@...> wrote:

I'll refine my original question just a bit.

By the end of this time frame (1960), were there very many of the Dalman two-level trucks still around on these CGW cars? The CGW color guide suggests not, but I'm curious if this is a statistical quirk based on the photos that made it into the book.

The coil-elliptic spring truck, I can certainly see that.

Ron Merrick
Re: Freight car Distribution

Paul <buygone@...>
 

Jeff:



Not so. Customer ordered a car/cars from the Car Distributor. Car
Distributor issued an order to the yard for placing an empty/empties at a
given industry. Car/cars were spotted. After loaded Industrial Clerk
signed for the bill of lading and ordered car/cars pulled. Bill of lading
was turned in to the Agents office and a waybill was typed out.



Paul C. Koehler



_____

From: STMFC@yahoogroups.com [mailto:STMFC@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Aley, Jeff A
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 9:01 AM
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: Freight car Distribution





Tim,

Tony Thompson can answer better than I can. But if I understood his clinic
correctly, the Agent wrote the empty car order and waybill BEFORE the car
was spotted for loading. So the waybill, with the car # typed on it, was
already completed.

Therefore, I conclude that if the industry randomly loads the car, the
paperwork would have to be changed.

On the other hand, concepts like "milling in transit" or other "diversions"
can certainly have no a' priori knowledge of where the car will end up.

Regards,

-Jeff

From: STMFC@yahoogroups. <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com> com
[mailto:STMFC@yahoogroups. <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com> com] On Behalf
Of Tim O'Connor
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 6:30 AM
To: STMFC@yahoogroups. <mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com> com
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Freight car Distribution

Jeff Aley wrote

Viv,

I think you might have missed out on the Car Service rules, published in
the ORER. Those rules indicate what cars should be used for loading.

To simplify, they state that preference should always be given to
foreign-road cars for shipments that will travel off-line. They also state
that foreign cars should be loaded toward their home road (or to any point
beyond if the home road is part of the route).

Anecdotal evidence shows that the rules were followed "most" of the time,
but certainly not "all" of the time. This is because of the (unwritten) rule
0: PROTECT THE SHIPMENT.

Jeff

Not to belabor this point, but let's suppose the railroad agent/clerk
follows the AAR rules and sends a PRR, WABASH, SP and UP box car to a
single shipper on the SP for loading -- with the intention that the
PRR box car will be sent to the PRR, the WABASH car to that railroad,
and so on.

Now all four cars get shoved up to the shipper's dock. The shipper
asked for four cars, and has his loads all prepared at their doors.
The ORDER of the four cars is random -- the railroad certainly did
not sort them according to each load's destination.

So the shipper loads the 1st car, the 2nd car, etc -- without any
regard to the ownership of the car!! How could it be otherwise? Can
you imagine the shipper worrying about whether AAR rules are being
followed properly? He just wants to get his shipments loaded.

I don't know if the above scenario is true, but I've never heard any
contradictory evidence. Looking at photos of railroad freight houses
in the Chicago area, it sures looks like a dog's breakfast of cars
was shoved onto the loading/unloading tracks, taking care only to
line up the doorways for crossing via ramps between cars.

Tim O'Connor
Re: was LCL - Stop Off traffic

Tim O'Connor
 

Ah, but Dennis, suppose I shipped a box car of $100 bills to the bank,
and withdrew it again as pennies?

:-) Tim "infungible" O'Connor

I've heard of storage in transit for grain, but milling in transit??
Wouldn't the transformation of bulk grain into bags of flour involve
an entirely new tariff?

Tim O'Connor
No, it was a single tariff designed to keep the flour traffic on the line that had originated the grain move. It goes back a long way; here's a link to a nespaper article from 1890:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9802EED8153BE533A25752C1A9629C94619ED7CF

Keep in mind that grain is fungible, like money is. When you go to the bank to make a withdrawal, you don't get the same money you deposited back; you get different but equal money. Grain is the same, you don't get your grain back out of the elevator, you get different but equal grain. Same with milling in transit. You don't get the flour that was milled from the grain you hauled in; you get equal flour milled from different grain. So, the car just emptied of grain can be immediately refilled with flour and sent on its way.

Dennis
Re: Freight car Distribution

Aley, Jeff A
 

Tim,

Tony Thompson can answer better than I can. But if I understood his clinic correctly, the Agent wrote the empty car order and waybill BEFORE the car was spotted for loading. So the waybill, with the car # typed on it, was already completed.

Therefore, I conclude that if the industry randomly loads the car, the paperwork would have to be changed.

On the other hand, concepts like "milling in transit" or other "diversions" can certainly have no a' priori knowledge of where the car will end up.

Regards,

-Jeff


From: STMFC@yahoogroups.com [mailto:STMFC@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Tim O'Connor
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 6:30 AM
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Freight car Distribution



Jeff Aley wrote

Viv,

I think you might have missed out on the Car Service rules, published in the ORER. Those rules indicate what cars should be used for loading.

To simplify, they state that preference should always be given to foreign-road cars for shipments that will travel off-line. They also state that foreign cars should be loaded toward their home road (or to any point beyond if the home road is part of the route).

Anecdotal evidence shows that the rules were followed "most" of the time, but certainly not "all" of the time. This is because of the (unwritten) rule 0: PROTECT THE SHIPMENT.
Jeff

Not to belabor this point, but let's suppose the railroad agent/clerk
follows the AAR rules and sends a PRR, WABASH, SP and UP box car to a
single shipper on the SP for loading -- with the intention that the
PRR box car will be sent to the PRR, the WABASH car to that railroad,
and so on.

Now all four cars get shoved up to the shipper's dock. The shipper
asked for four cars, and has his loads all prepared at their doors.
The ORDER of the four cars is random -- the railroad certainly did
not sort them according to each load's destination.

So the shipper loads the 1st car, the 2nd car, etc -- without any
regard to the ownership of the car!! How could it be otherwise? Can
you imagine the shipper worrying about whether AAR rules are being
followed properly? He just wants to get his shipments loaded.

I don't know if the above scenario is true, but I've never heard any
contradictory evidence. Looking at photos of railroad freight houses
in the Chicago area, it sures looks like a dog's breakfast of cars
was shoved onto the loading/unloading tracks, taking care only to
line up the doorways for crossing via ramps between cars.

Tim O'Connor
Re: was LCL - Stop Off traffic

Ross McLeod <cdnrailmarine@...>
 

"I've heard of storage in transit for grain, but milling in transit??
Wouldn't the transformation of bulk grain into bags of flour involve
an entirely new tariff?"
 
It would always be that way, once the shipment leaves the transit point, the inbound bill(s) would be surrendered and the freight paid credited to the thru rate for the "new commodity" from the original origin.
 
It could get complicated as you may be dealing with an outbound shipment that comprised product or tonnages from multiple origins into the transit station. I believe I saw some bills from five origins credited on one outbound bill. There were also time limits involved.
 
Ross McLeod Calgary

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Freight car distribution - a Question

Jim Betz
 

Hi,

A question for Mike Brock and/or the moderators of this group.

Are discussions of model train layout "train make up" methods
OK for this group?

I'm talking about how our layout trains are manipulated/handled
and how that relates to the G-N model and other such prototype
activities. It is the other side of the same coin - but the
focus would be more on how we do stuff like "set" a layout for a
run ... and how that relates to what actually happened on the
prototype ... rather than mostly about the prototype with hints
at how that might be used on a layout.

I realize that this doesn't fit the raison d'etre of this list
exactly. But we keep dropping hints about stuff like how G-N
might be used on our layouts in order to make up trains. So ...
I'm asking ... perhaps we can open up this for some limited time
such as just for one week?
- Jim
Re: was LCL - Stop Off traffic

Dennis Storzek
 

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:

Ross

I've heard of storage in transit for grain, but milling in transit??
Wouldn't the transformation of bulk grain into bags of flour involve
an entirely new tariff?

Tim O'Connor
No, it was a single tariff designed to keep the flour traffic on the line that had originated the grain move. It goes back a long way; here's a link to a nespaper article from 1890:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9802EED8153BE533A25752C1A9629C94619ED7CF

Keep in mind that grain is fungible, like money is. When you go to the bank to make a withdrawal, you don't get the same money you deposited back; you get different but equal money. Grain is the same, you don't get your grain back out of the elevator, you get different but equal grain. Same with milling in transit. You don't get the flour that was milled from the grain you hauled in; you get equal flour milled from different grain. So, the car just emptied of grain can be immediately refilled with flour and sent on its way.

Dennis
Re: Box/auto distribution 1938

Tim O'Connor
 

Larry Ostresh wrote

I think 2,267 box cars represent three or four days of UP freight traffic across
Wyoming in the late 1930s. (Data from 1949 provided by Mark Amfahr show 30 to 33
trains a day between Laramie and Cheyenne.)
I'm sure I don't need to point out 1949 was a very different year
than 1938, in which the US economy was still deep in recession. I
think someone else already pointed that out, as did Tim Gilbert so
that's all to say about that.

I take your point about 1938 trains per se, but I don't understand
the basis of your statement "[other conductor books] wouldn't be the
same, but they are likely to be similar". The tricky word of course
being "similar"...

I look forward to your compilation of the new books, both separately
(by themselves) and then combined with the other books to see what
happens to the statistics.

Tim O'Connor
Re: MD&S' / SAL's Magor Pulpwood Cars

Tim O'Connor
 

According to Ed's book, the cars were purchased by the SAL but lettered
for MD&S. Unfortunately there is no photo. They were Lot W-3689. Also
listed as SAL purchased, MD&S lettered, are gondolas 4000-4009 built
11-1956, just one month before the pulpwood cars.

Tim O'Connor

At 4/15/2010 09:07 AM Thursday, you wrote:
Hi John,

I don't have an answer and don't recall seeing anything in the CBCs. I would make an educated guess that the MD&S cars were part of a larger SAL order (MD&S did a lot of "tag-along" orders with SAL in previous years).

When trying to find information in cases like these, I go straight to the experts. Ed Kaminski recently authored a book on the Magor Car Co., so you might want to contact him to see if he knows anything. SAL had a good working relationship with Magor.

Our man at Signature Press might be able to provide contact info if you can't find anything.

John Golden
Bloomington, IN



--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "John Degnan" <Scaler164@...> wrote:

I am desperately searching for information or drawings or photos of a series of 25 pulpwood cars built in 1956 by Magor Car for the Macon, Dublin & Savannah Railroad. These cars were numbered 5000-5024 on the MD&S, and ended up on the Seaboard Air Line around 1958 when the SAL absorbed the road with road numbers 42900-42924.

The ONLY photo I have ever found of these cars is of one in SAL lettering... car # 42901, seen at the top of page 96 of Paul Faulk's SAL Color Guide.

Is anyone else familiar with these cars? Got any info? Drawing? General dimensions? Photos? Or anything else pertaining to these cars that I can beg, borrow, purchase?

Thanks.


John Degnan
Scaler164@...
Re: was LCL - Stop Off traffic

Tim O'Connor
 

Ross

I've heard of storage in transit for grain, but milling in transit??
Wouldn't the transformation of bulk grain into bags of flour involve
an entirely new tariff?

Tim O'Connor

There was also stop offs to complete loading as well there were many transit arrangements such as treating in transit (poles etc), milling in transit (grain), storage in transit or one of my favourites furfural residue (corn cob hulls ex Memphis made into glue @ Oroville for wood built-up (plywood)).

Ross McLeod Calgary
Re: Box/auto distribution 1938

Wendye Ware
 

Tim O'Connor writes:

"Larry, does 2,267 box cars on the UP mainline even represent the traffic of a single typical day? So here we are looking at freight trains spread over four months... or on any given day, less than 1% of the box cars on the main line are sampled."


Yes Tim, I think 2,267 box cars represent three or four days of UP freight traffic across Wyoming in the late 1930s. (Data from 1949 provided by Mark Amfahr show 30 to 33 trains a day between Laramie and Cheyenne.) The information in the three train books covers 120 trains and about 7,000 cars. Ferguson's book is from May 13 to June 21, 40 days, 41 trains, over 2,000 cars, about a 3% sample. Fraley's and Fitz's books span September 12 to October 24, 43 days, 89 trains, nearly 5,000 cars, about a 6.6% sample. Pooling them gives about a 4.5% sample.

I'm not sure that the percentage of the sample matters as much as its size, however. The Gallup Poll routinely uses a sample size of about 1,000 adults when conducting its survey research. If there are 200 million adults in the country, the sample percentage is about 0.0005%. Also, what are the sample sizes and percentages for the data on which the G-N model is based? Does anyone know?

A far more serious potential problem than sample size or percentage is its randomness. Random sampling is generally required for statistically accurate results, and it would be hard to argue that these are random samples. There is nothing we can do about it other than exercise caution when interpreting the results however. And there is no need to over-emphasize this problem either. I think the train books are far preferable to other methods we have of reconstituting the past (photos, videos, ICC reports, etc.).

"What can be learned from this? Nothing, I believe."
I on the other hand learned a lot. So can others if they look at it carefully (and critically). How can one have data from 120 trains and 7,000 cars and learn nothing?!?

"Look at it another way -- suppose you had conductors books for the
same time period from three other conductors. Do you think that the
tallies would be the same? I don't -- not one chance in a thousand.
So then, which would be the representative sample? Answer: neither."

No, they wouldn't be the same, but they are likely to be similar. For example, I would expect them to show the same dominance of UP and SP cars, and I think it is likely that the Central Western ICC region will have more than its fair share of cars, even with UP and SP removed. The New England and Southern regions may have fewer than expected representation also. In any event, that is a question that may have an answer in a few months, because I in fact do have three more conductors' reports from September/October 1938 that I intend to transcribe.

And if it were me I wouldn't worry about which is representative. I would simply pool them.

"If you had ALL of the conductors books for every day for a full week, now that would be interesting!"
Yes, and if a Big Boy were to pull a load of 1950-era cars through Laramie today, that would also be interesting too! :) (And how would we know if it is a typical week?)

Best wishes,
Larry Ostresh
Laramie, Wyoming
Re: Box/auto distribution 1938

Tim O'Connor
 

On the contrary, I think we know a great deal. We know what UP frt trains
looked like. From my conductor's book, we know what 34 trains looked like.

Mike

My point is, can anything useful be inferred from it about the overall
composition of freight trains on the UP mainline? I don't think so. But
as I said before, if you want to model THOSE trains, then it's exactly
what the doctor ordered.

You have a basic assumption that because you see a variety of consists,
you are seeing a cross-section of all the trains on the UP. But how do
you know that? Maybe the same train, different day, had an entirely
different composition because of the ebb and flo of traffic. Was this
conductor high seniority, or extra board? That could make a difference
in what trains he got. Did he get the fast freights, or slow rollers?


Even in my 34 trains, it is easy to see similar trains. For example,
reefer blocks, lumber trains, tank car trains [ both MTY & loaded from
Sinclair ], stock trains, coal trains and even merchandise trains. The
cars will be different but there were specific trains running almost daily...
Roseville Fruit for example.

Mike if you had a month's worth of Roseville Fruit trains, that would be
very interesting. As I said, a whole week's worth of one train (especially
a train like that) can tell you a great deal about THAT train! At least,
about that train in that season. Did you see many Bangor & Aroostook reefers
in your fruit trains? During the summer months BAR reefers were largely out
of work in Maine, but they could be found on the SP being loaded with
California produce. But you would not see that if your data sample was
taken at a different time of year. If you model UP year round, you would
need BAR reefers. But if you model only the fall-winter, you don't.


But the daily fluctuations are the goal...if one wants to model real trains.
Again, there were specific trains with specific tasks and, yes, sometimes
they were combined. If one wants to simply know what frt cars operated
between two points...like between Laramie and Rawlins...over a long period,
you would need a large % of the conductor books for that period.

Well, Mike, it seems we are in agreement! :-)

Tim O'Connor
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