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

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

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

Mike Brock wrote

The opposite way to go might be to walk into a hobby shop and just
buy everything that seems reasonable and appealing.

Well...maybe in years past. Now days one doesn't usually have as much
choice.

I was struck by Mike's statement, which I think is true -- when I came
back into the hobby in 1988 (and before I discovered Westrail, Tichy,
Prototype Modeler etc) I'd go into a hobby shop and there would be
-hundreds- of different box cars (most of them Athearn!) painted by
Bev-Bel and other custom decorators. I was a kid in a candy store then.

While it's true that we now have hundreds of accurate resin prototype
models, and many accurate plastic models... But isn't it also true that
for Joe Casual model railroader, the choices nowadays are more limited
when it comes to those steam-era paint schemes that were so popular on
the Bev-Bel and other cars? Don't you think? I mean, is a person like
that going to shell out $20-$40 for a super accurate model?

I remember having friends over to the house in the early 90's (none of
them model railroaders) and I took them downstairs to see my layout
under construction, and a friend who had grown up in Buffalo NY commented
on a Bev-Bel box car painted "Phoebe Snow" -- he recognized it! He had
probably not thought of trains since he was a child, but he still had
that memory.

Tim O'Connor

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.

What can be learned from this? Nothing, I believe.

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. Not in a given day, but over about a month. Does this tell us very much about the total traffic over a month? No. OTOH, does knowing that help much with modeling a RR or part of it? No. Modeling frt trains requires information about frt trains and from the conductor's books we know that such trains were not just randomly put together from the available pool of cars...as would be the case if we just used the G-N. So, it all depends upon one's objective.

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.

Well...not the same but I believe that you would see similar trains. If you had all of the UP conductor's books for a couple of weeks you would discern unique trains consisting of similar consists...some running daily. 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. And, while cars are different, except with merchandise trains, it is common to see cars of the same class in the same type of train. Hence, UP H-70-1's in different coal trains, PFE reefers, S-40-12 stock cars, etc.

If you had ALL of the conductors books for every day for a full
week, now that would be interesting! That would smooth out a lot
of the daily fluctuations. Of course there's seasonal variations,
but that might actually be easy to discern in a large sample.

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.

Mike Brock

I designed a track plan proposal for a club in 1500 sq ft that
included a hidden three level stage/elongated helix that would
have provided 700-1000 linear ft of level staging (18-24 long
trains) -- but the staging operator would have had a 36" duck
under. So they voted a plan with NO staging at all and a yard
that is about 70" high off the floor. Go figure. Anticipating
the sheer joy of operating such a layout, I quietly resigned.

Tim O'Connor

Ross

Per diem was a fixed daily charge. I don't think railroads paid mileage
on other railroads' cars. I think the only time railroads played per diem
games was when cars were near interchanges, and then they shuffled cars
to an interchange before the midnight hour, so the receiving railroad
would be saddled with the per diem for the next day. Per diem was quite
low in those days, and was the same for all cars, around $2/day. Some
railroads (like GN) had a per diem surplus and HATED it, because it
amounted to a subsidy to other railroads (i.e. they rented cars out at
less than the cost of ownership).

Tim O'Connor

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

Jeff Aley wrote

For each ICC region (e.g. "Central West"), the percentage of box cars on home
rails is given (28.50%). An assumption is made that each of the roads in the
Central West had exactly 28.50% of their cars on home rails. [The roads in
Central West are ATSF, CB&Q, CRI&P, D&RGW, SP, and UP].

Hmmmm.... I think that assumption has no foundation. I know that the GN
annual reports I have from the 1950's include box car statistical data,
including the fact that for most of EVERY year, the total number of box
cars on GN rails was LESS than the number of cars GN owned! I think the
majority of railroads had on-line box car totals different from their
ownership total -- either more cars, or less. When you think about it,
how could it be otherwise?

In the case of GN (and probably because of the territory, SOO and NP),
cars went off line with lumber and grain, and were very slow to return.

It would be a very interesting fact to find out: For each railroad, what
percentage of loads ORIGINATED on that railroad also TERMINATED on that
railroad? I actually do have exact figures for the Chicago & Alton for
a number of years, but I wonder if there is a "regional bias" with
regard to this statistic? Did the upper midwest railroads tend to send
more loads off-line than say, the PRR or NYC or AT&SF?

Getting back to Jeff's statement, I also recall reading somewhere that
the AT&SF tended to have a very high percentage of home road cars of all
types (e.g. 40% of all freight cars on-line were AT&SF) while the SP
had a much lower percentage (e.g. 25%). I don't recall the exact percent
in each case but I recall there was quite a difference between SP and
AT&SF. I believe a factor in this was that AT&SF offered single-line
service from California to Chicago, something no other carrier had.

Tim O'Connor

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

Larry Ostresh wrote:

FWIW there are 742,546 U.S. box, auto and ventilated cars in the
January 1945 ORER. They break down as follows:
Class XM: 614,947

This almost exactly matches Jeff's 620,000 cars for 1945.

Tony Thompson

Tony

Yes, it is about the same -- However, it begs the question of whether
various conductors' reports distinguish between XM's and XA's for the
purpose of the various ownership tallies. Especially since many XA's
were (as you have noted Tony) used for lumber or other cargos during
peacetime, and during the war (1945) we can pretty safely assume there
was relatively little automobile production!

Tim O'Connor

On some brass cabooses, I stippled on artists acrylics to get a textured surface. Works well for tarred roofs on buildings too, in fact, that's how I started using the technique.

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@..., "lnnrr" <lnnrr@...> wrote:

Folks,
Like Viv, I'm out of my league in all this. My only real acquaintance
with statistics is of the Mark Twain variety (i.e. lies). From what
I read, my view is that if I don't have and can't get the exact data
on the cars actually traveling on my chosen piece of prototype, the
G-N hypothesis gives me some level of practical guidance.
The opposite way to go might be to walk into a hobby shop and just
buy everything that seems reasonable and appealing. Thank all you
folks that care enough to think this stuff through and try to get it
all right. Even if you don't get it all perfected, it has to be
better than my random choices.
Chuck Peck

--- In STMFC@..., "Viv Brice" <viv.brice@> wrote:

Guys,
I'm getting confused - I have no experience in this area and can only
comment on what I read, with great interest I might add, on this incredibly
knowledgeable list. I might also be totally out in left field!

However, to me, we often seem to be talking about traffic and freight cars
in the same breath implying that traffic originating on road X always uses
road X freight cars. Surely traffic was loaded into whatever MTY freight
cars were available, which may or may not be home road, may or may not be
cars being headed 'home' or even may be any car which just happens to be in
the yard and fits the requirement.

As I read it, the G-N 'method/concept/whatever we call it' is not concerned
with traffic, but only with freight cars. Thus Mike's large number of SP
freight cars would probably not represent all of the SP originated traffic,
which would also be being carried in other cars headed east, say PRR, NYC,
etc. Indeed, there is no reason to assume that all of the SP cars contain SP
originated freight (although this may be stretching things a bit - I bow
here to other with more knowledge of the area's traffic flow than I have).

My point is that, from what I've read on this list, traffic and the cars
included in G-N are not necessarily synonymous and we need to be very
careful about assuming that something that affects traffic automatically has
the same effect on freight car distribution.

Regards, Viv Brice
An SPF from 'Down Under'

Chuck and Viv,

The statistical "variability" of "traffic" you are hinting at was discussed on this group back in February 2009.

I crafted a post based on a simple statistical analysis, not to prove or disprove the basis for a specific road appearing at a specific time and location, but simply to illustrate the probability of certain reporting marks appearing in a sample set. (devansprr Wed Feb 4, 2009 4:18 pm ((PST)))

My focus is WWII, and I had been reviewing the Delano color photos to get a sense of freight car weathering. A picture from Belan, NM caught my eye since it had just four box cars in it - all eastern roads. One B&O (no surprise - big fleet), one Wabash (not that surprising), one Erie (getting a little rarer), and one C&WC 40' Steel Automobile car (C&WC's TOTAL X and XM fleet was 532 cars - this is kind of like the mason jar car that caused so much discussion on this group a year or two ago). The national X/XM fleet was over 800,00 cars in 1943, so we are talking one out of every 1,600 cars. Now that C&WC reporting mark, in New Mexico, was a LONG shot.

This triggered two thoughts - most railfans probably recall the odd, rare car much more clearly than recalling the predominance of plain jane cars from the majors of the day (during WWII, eleven roads owned half the nation's box car fleet. Watch trains for a few hours at a busy spot, and people of the era might forget the fact that 9% or so of the cars were PRR - see them everyday). But a C&WC car? Where is that railroad? I have never seen that before. Not to be forgotten quickly (and more likely photographed too - which opens another can of worms.)

Thought two - for general merchandise box cars, not in captive service, on mainlines that are primarily bridge traffic, some simple statistics are probably a valid analysis tool to suggest trends. For example, if my planned mainline model railroad has a number of freight trains that come out of staging every operating session, with a total of 200 box cars arriving on layout, then I doubt my C&WC model should make an appearance every op session (I might be able to justify having the C&WC car pass through once each session if I had 1600 box cars arrive on layout every session - not likely ;-) If it did appear every session among just 200 box cars, and my model railfan was counting cars (or we are counting his old home movies ;-), then one would think that C&WC was a major road, since it would appear more often than a boxcar from T&P, Cotton Belt, D&H, WM and WP since each of those well known roads had less than 0.5% of the national box car fleet (less than 1 in 200 boxcars nationally for each of these roads).

In the end analysis, statistics suggests that modelers are quite justified in including a considerable "fiddle" fleet in their staging area so that some sense of randomness can be added to the trains that appear on their layouts out of staging. In fact, the huge number of small roads during the WWII era might actually make a fiddle yard in staging a mandatory feature if one wants to model the variability of freight car reporting marks that should appear on a layout.

For example, if your fleet of cars generates 200 boxcar moves (traffic) onto a layout every session, and you want to provide a prototypical sense of randomness over 5 operating sessions before an unusually rare car makes a second appearance, then you would draw those 200 box cars from a fleet of at least 236 cars. At least 25 of those cars would each be from a different, small fleet RR, and appear only once out of the five sessions. This is because roads such as Rutland, Clinchfield, Georgia, SP&S, DM&IR, TH&B each had X/XM fleets LESS than 0.1% of the national fleet. Each session, only five of those "rare" 25 cars would appear on the layout. So over five sessions, that Rutland box car should only arrive on the layout ONCE.

To further increase the sense of "randomness", out of the 200 box cars arriving "on-scene" each session, 178 would be regulars on the layout, representing the 39 roads that during WWII each had at least 0.5% of the national X/XM fleet (at least 1 in 200 cars - Katy was the smallest fleet that just makes this cut). So those 178 cars would appear every session. From the rare "fiddle" fleet described above, five other boxcars from the smallest 147 RR X/XM fleets would also appear each session.

But that leaves 17 other boxcars to deploy each session (200-178-5), and to maintain the sense of randomness, those 17 cars would need to come from a fleet of at least 33 cars, one each representing the 33 roads that did not make the "big fleet" cut of 0.5% (39 roads), but that were bigger than the 147 roads/owners that are in the rare "fiddle" fleet. Each session, 17 cars from this intermediate fiddle fleet of 33 roads would be selected. Note that railroads in this fleet include T&P, Cotton Belt, D&H, WM, KCS & WP. Out of the five operating sessions, some cars in this intermediate fleet may appear three or four times, others just once or twice.

So now our model railfan captures on his model movie camera five rare X/XM's out of 200 that passed his favorite train watching spot that day. But how many will notice that, averaged over time, and assuming N-G is in effect at this location, 100 of the 200 X/XM's that are captured by his camera on that day will be from the 11 roads that owned 50% of the nation's WWII box car fleet? (Boring...)

Note that all of this is just to "normalize" the reporting marks. Additional "fiddle" cars would be required for "unusual" and rare cars that were a clear spotting feature. For example, the GN plywood war emergency box cars were unusual and standouts to some extent, and while GN would have several cars appear every session, statistically speaking the GN car was almost as rare as the C&WC car. So it might warrant a place in the "fiddle" fleet instead of the every-session 178 car fleet. One could obviously extend this concept to an absurd extent, and that is clearly not necessary.

But I think it might be a worthy objective, on a model railroad, that the rare prototype cars remain rare, and that a WWII train full of one-offs would never occur, and that instead a train with a significant percentage of 1937 ARA standard box cars (about 1 in 7 of the nation's X/XM fleet in WWII) should be present, as should one or two PPR X29's (that class alone was nearly 3% of the national fleet).

To highlight this point, during WWII, fully 40% of the nation's steel, 40 foot, non-PRR box car fleet was the 1937 ARA design! Fortunately for me Branchline, Red Caboose, and Intermountain have a wide selection for that fleet - many with WWII paint schemes.

Sooo, feel free to visit the hobby shop, and as long as you (1) restrict your purchases to cars accurate for the era you model, and (2) you model a location with significant through/bridge traffic (or else all of this ENTIRE thread goes out the window, as Elden has clearly demonstrated during previous discussions), and (3) include a fleet of about 40 or so fiddle cars in your staging yard so "rare" cars are "rare" on your layout, and (4) your visiting "consist" police have a memory that only lasts about five op sessions, THEN, no one can question the stray appearance of that C&WC box car, or that yellow one with the Mason Jar on it - once every five sessions.

Dave Evans

PS - looking at my Feb 2009 post on recommended fiddle fleets, it was a little confusing - if I have time this weekend I may clean it up and re-post so it is more understandable.

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

Jeff

First of all, you have a small sample. It's 2400 cars, but it's also
only from a small number of trains on any given day, over 90 days.

Second, it's possible that in late fall-winter months less lumber was
shipped. Since shippers may prefer box cars, the seasonal slow down may
have meant there were enough box cars to cover the traffic. Even though
fall is big for grain, double door cars were not suitable for grain --
but that's what the lumber shippers liked.

SP added 1,500 50' double door box cars in 1950-1951 (A-50-17). They
didn't buy any more until 1955. But then they also added more than
2,000 53'6" 70 ton flat cars in 1949-1950, and nearly a thousand more
in 1953-1954. So I'm thinking it's a combination of small data sample,
and slow season for lumber.

Tim O'Connor

I like someone's suggestion of reserving a small proportion of the fleet for rarities, which are rotated. Saves me the need for 974 X29s: I don't mind building a few, but hundreds of the same thing are a pleasure only for our distinguished SPF brethren (and maybe even only some of them!). :-)

Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.

&#92;Ross McLeod wrote:

Whose first rule?
Railroads look to saving every cent they can.

Yep. That's why truckers have been eating their lunch on the profitable traffic for decades. Sorry for implying that a railroader might want to serve the customer.

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@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

"Stop off cars also handled thing like appliances, farm machinery, etc".
 
Correct, I believe with ag imps you could have up to three stop offs, baler twine as many as you wished. 
 
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 
 
 
 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Assuming that some wood freight cars and cabooses had roofs not unlike that on passenger cars, what techniques and materials are you all using to model that?

Victor Baird
Fort Wayne, Indiana

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.

What can be learned from this? Nothing, I believe.

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.

If you had ALL of the conductors books for every day for a full
week, now that would be interesting! That would smooth out a lot
of the daily fluctuations. Of course there's seasonal variations,
but that might actually be easy to discern in a large sample.

Tim O'Connor