Date
1 - 20 of 61
Mill Gondolas In Interchange
Shawn Beckert
Fellow Listers,
I now have around a dozen P2K mill gondolas in the closet,
and I've been eyeing all those one-piece gondola kits at
Mr. Westerfields web site. Before I get too carried away,
though, I need to learn more about the traffic patterns of
gondolas, especially mill gons.
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
Thanks,
Shawn Beckert
I now have around a dozen P2K mill gondolas in the closet,
and I've been eyeing all those one-piece gondola kits at
Mr. Westerfields web site. Before I get too carried away,
though, I need to learn more about the traffic patterns of
gondolas, especially mill gons.
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
Thanks,
Shawn Beckert
dehusman <dehusman@...>
--- In STMFC@..., "Beckert, Shawn" <shawn.beckert@d...>
wrote:
In the 198o's eastern road gons were very common in the southwest
carrying oil well pipe from the eastern mills.
I would think that the pattern would be valid in the 50's.
I remember seeing a picture of people sandbagging the Missouri River
in Omaha during a flood in the 40's and one of the gons they were
using for sand was a RDG USRA type gon.
Dave H.
wrote:
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons=========================
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
In the 198o's eastern road gons were very common in the southwest
carrying oil well pipe from the eastern mills.
I would think that the pattern would be valid in the 50's.
I remember seeing a picture of people sandbagging the Missouri River
in Omaha during a flood in the 40's and one of the gons they were
using for sand was a RDG USRA type gon.
Dave H.
Andy Sperandeo <asperandeo@...>
I don't have any definite information on eastern mill gons getting out west
in steel service, but I do have a copy of a 1940 bulletin book from the
Santa Fe's Los Angeles Division that mentions a series of Pennsylvania RR
gons modified for auto frame service (alas, I have not memorized the number
series, but I could look it up if anyone's interested). The meat of the
bulletin is that these cars were rather topheavy when loaded and required
extra care in switching. Reading between the lines, they probably turned one
over in 1939!
So long,
Andy
Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
MODEL RAILROADER Magazine
262-796-8776, ext. 461
Fax 262-796-1142
asperandeo@...
in steel service, but I do have a copy of a 1940 bulletin book from the
Santa Fe's Los Angeles Division that mentions a series of Pennsylvania RR
gons modified for auto frame service (alas, I have not memorized the number
series, but I could look it up if anyone's interested). The meat of the
bulletin is that these cars were rather topheavy when loaded and required
extra care in switching. Reading between the lines, they probably turned one
over in 1939!
So long,
Andy
Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
MODEL RAILROADER Magazine
262-796-8776, ext. 461
Fax 262-796-1142
asperandeo@...
Don Valentine
Quoting "Beckert, Shawn" <shawn.beckert@...>:
Hmmm. This raises the question of what sort of steel CF&I has produced
at Pueblo, Colorado over the years other than rail that might have negated
the need for steel from the east. I don't have a clue. Does anyone know?
Come to think of it, in the area you are questioning I guess the same
questions could be raised about steel out of Birmingham, Alabama.
Pennsylvania may be known as the Rust Belt from the decline of the steel
business in recent years but that does not mean it was the only place
producing it; just the best known. And why would the gons necessarily have
to be returned empty? If they went out with a load from an electric hearth
furnace paired with a rolling mill couldn't they go back with a load of scrap
for said furnace?
Just some questions that cross my mind.
Take care, Don Valentine
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
Hmmm. This raises the question of what sort of steel CF&I has produced
at Pueblo, Colorado over the years other than rail that might have negated
the need for steel from the east. I don't have a clue. Does anyone know?
Come to think of it, in the area you are questioning I guess the same
questions could be raised about steel out of Birmingham, Alabama.
Pennsylvania may be known as the Rust Belt from the decline of the steel
business in recent years but that does not mean it was the only place
producing it; just the best known. And why would the gons necessarily have
to be returned empty? If they went out with a load from an electric hearth
furnace paired with a rolling mill couldn't they go back with a load of scrap
for said furnace?
Just some questions that cross my mind.
Take care, Don Valentine
Richard Hendrickson
SHAWN BECKERT WRITES:
backwater (oops, strike that) in the scenic region you are modeling, but I
can tell you a bit about traffic to/from the west coast in the late
'40s/early '50s. You're right that most of the kind of freight that was
carried in mill gons traveled from east to west. That's not to say that
there weren't any eastbound or outbound loads for mill gons from the LA and
SF metro areas, but they weren't as numerous as inbound loads, so there was
always a surplus of empties to be returned east. Santa Fe practice in the
LA area was to store these at Hobart Yard, which was then on the way out of
town near the stockyards (and is now surrounded by miles and miles of
factories, strip malls, and tract housing). Eastbound freight trains from
1st St. yard over the third district would stop at Hobart and pick up
enough eastbound empties to make up their maximum tonnage for the grade up
Santa Ana Canyon, delivering them to San Bernardino where they would then
be despatched on any eastbound freight train that could handle them over
Cajon Pass. Needless to say, moving these cars east wasn't a high priority
but the ATSF didn't want to be paying per diem on them while they stood
idle, so they didn't stay around long. I would imagine that a similar
pattern prevailed in Texas and the southwest.
Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520
....I need to learn more about the traffic patterns ofShawn, I have no information about gon traffic in the geographical
gondolas, especially mill gons.
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
backwater (oops, strike that) in the scenic region you are modeling, but I
can tell you a bit about traffic to/from the west coast in the late
'40s/early '50s. You're right that most of the kind of freight that was
carried in mill gons traveled from east to west. That's not to say that
there weren't any eastbound or outbound loads for mill gons from the LA and
SF metro areas, but they weren't as numerous as inbound loads, so there was
always a surplus of empties to be returned east. Santa Fe practice in the
LA area was to store these at Hobart Yard, which was then on the way out of
town near the stockyards (and is now surrounded by miles and miles of
factories, strip malls, and tract housing). Eastbound freight trains from
1st St. yard over the third district would stop at Hobart and pick up
enough eastbound empties to make up their maximum tonnage for the grade up
Santa Ana Canyon, delivering them to San Bernardino where they would then
be despatched on any eastbound freight train that could handle them over
Cajon Pass. Needless to say, moving these cars east wasn't a high priority
but the ATSF didn't want to be paying per diem on them while they stood
idle, so they didn't stay around long. I would imagine that a similar
pattern prevailed in Texas and the southwest.
Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520
Dave Nelson <muskoka@...>
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
years now and I can't say I've been able to come up with a clear answer to
your question (BTW it's the same question I've been asking myself).
What I have learned is to think in terms of 3 different industries: Iron ore
reduction -- the blast furnaces; steel production --the open hearths that
turned iron into steel and the rolling, hot or cold, that formed basic
shapes); and lastly fabrication (e.g., bridges, tin plate, etc). Any of
these 3 would use mill gons. The tendency for vertically integrated
companies would have increased rail traffic -- plant to plant for those
items not produced locally while the limiting factor of course was the
expense of shipping, especially on low value items, would have limited
distance moved.
Some examples:
In the west CF&I in Pueblo Co made lots of rail which they shipped all over
the great plains, mountain states, and Pacific coast. Nobody else made rail
anywhere nearby so they had the western market to themselves despite rail
being a rather ordinary commodity item. They also shipped ordinary wire to
both coasts as they owned fabricating plants that made springs, fences, etc.
(here in the Bay area it was to L.A. Young in San Leandro). Surely they
could have purchased wire nearer to those plants and saved on the shipping
but they didn't because it was more important to fully utilize the
production capacity of their facilities in Pueblo.
In Geneva Utah, U.S. Steel rolled a lot of coil for shipment to their own
cold rolling plant in Pittsburg CA. where the coil was cold rolled and
tinned. Boxes of (high value, high profit) tin plate went all up and down
the Pacific coast and probably back to Utah too, all going to the can
fabricators. Now it turns out demand for tin plate on the west coast
exceeded supply -- by quite a bit. And there are many varieties of tin
plate that are needed -- what goes to Hawaii for canned Pineapple isn't
going to be the same as what would be used to can Bay Area pears. So tin
plate had to be brought in from elsewhere. Here's the problem: rates by
water from the east coast were likely to be less than rail rates from the
midwest. I dunno which method was used. Maybe both.
Geneva also shipped basic structural shapes into the L.A. basin where one of
their divisions did final rolling and IIRC some fabrication. What they
didn't fabricate themselves would have been shipped to other fabricators in
California.
Near Geneva is Ironton where there was an old, small blast furnace used to
reduce ore into pig iron. For a number of years this was leased by Kaiser
steel who shipped all the pig to Fontana CA for making steel -- their own
blast furnaces were under construction at the time. Later on it was picked
up by U.S.S. who skipped the pig casting and simply moved bottle cars of
molten iron down the road to Geneva.
Also at Ironton was Pacific Coast Cast Iron Products -- they made cast iron
pipe and shipped it everywhere in the mountain and Pacific coast states.
So, back to your question: I think you see from the above all sorts of stuff
moved around the west so you probably can justify most anything you want
thru the Ozarks as the same issues apply: not very many facilities. A good
story always helps! So, if I were in your shoes I'd want to find out who
and where in Texas were the steel producers and what was commonly
fabricated. I'd imagine a whole lot of pipe. But maybe not any stainless
steel (Gary and Pittsburgh) or ordinary cast iron pipe (Utah and
Birmingham). So I think you'll hit on something plausible but I can't say
for sure what that might be.
Good luck.
Dave Nelson
-----Original Message-----
From: Beckert, Shawn [mailto:shawn.beckert@...]
I now have around a dozen P2K mill gondolas in the closet,Shawn, I've been looking at the Pacific coast steel industry for a number of
and I've been eyeing all those one-piece gondola kits at
Mr. Westerfields web site. Before I get too carried away,
though, I need to learn more about the traffic patterns of
gondolas, especially mill gons.
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
years now and I can't say I've been able to come up with a clear answer to
your question (BTW it's the same question I've been asking myself).
What I have learned is to think in terms of 3 different industries: Iron ore
reduction -- the blast furnaces; steel production --the open hearths that
turned iron into steel and the rolling, hot or cold, that formed basic
shapes); and lastly fabrication (e.g., bridges, tin plate, etc). Any of
these 3 would use mill gons. The tendency for vertically integrated
companies would have increased rail traffic -- plant to plant for those
items not produced locally while the limiting factor of course was the
expense of shipping, especially on low value items, would have limited
distance moved.
Some examples:
In the west CF&I in Pueblo Co made lots of rail which they shipped all over
the great plains, mountain states, and Pacific coast. Nobody else made rail
anywhere nearby so they had the western market to themselves despite rail
being a rather ordinary commodity item. They also shipped ordinary wire to
both coasts as they owned fabricating plants that made springs, fences, etc.
(here in the Bay area it was to L.A. Young in San Leandro). Surely they
could have purchased wire nearer to those plants and saved on the shipping
but they didn't because it was more important to fully utilize the
production capacity of their facilities in Pueblo.
In Geneva Utah, U.S. Steel rolled a lot of coil for shipment to their own
cold rolling plant in Pittsburg CA. where the coil was cold rolled and
tinned. Boxes of (high value, high profit) tin plate went all up and down
the Pacific coast and probably back to Utah too, all going to the can
fabricators. Now it turns out demand for tin plate on the west coast
exceeded supply -- by quite a bit. And there are many varieties of tin
plate that are needed -- what goes to Hawaii for canned Pineapple isn't
going to be the same as what would be used to can Bay Area pears. So tin
plate had to be brought in from elsewhere. Here's the problem: rates by
water from the east coast were likely to be less than rail rates from the
midwest. I dunno which method was used. Maybe both.
Geneva also shipped basic structural shapes into the L.A. basin where one of
their divisions did final rolling and IIRC some fabrication. What they
didn't fabricate themselves would have been shipped to other fabricators in
California.
Near Geneva is Ironton where there was an old, small blast furnace used to
reduce ore into pig iron. For a number of years this was leased by Kaiser
steel who shipped all the pig to Fontana CA for making steel -- their own
blast furnaces were under construction at the time. Later on it was picked
up by U.S.S. who skipped the pig casting and simply moved bottle cars of
molten iron down the road to Geneva.
Also at Ironton was Pacific Coast Cast Iron Products -- they made cast iron
pipe and shipped it everywhere in the mountain and Pacific coast states.
So, back to your question: I think you see from the above all sorts of stuff
moved around the west so you probably can justify most anything you want
thru the Ozarks as the same issues apply: not very many facilities. A good
story always helps! So, if I were in your shoes I'd want to find out who
and where in Texas were the steel producers and what was commonly
fabricated. I'd imagine a whole lot of pipe. But maybe not any stainless
steel (Gary and Pittsburgh) or ordinary cast iron pipe (Utah and
Birmingham). So I think you'll hit on something plausible but I can't say
for sure what that might be.
Good luck.
Dave Nelson
Shawn Beckert
Richard,
"Geographical backwater" is probably a good discription of
Arkansas and Northeast Texas (unless you're from there) but
in terms of traffic the Cotton Belt was pretty important as
far as getting manufactured goods out of the East St. Louis
gateway and moving them out to the west coast.
But you knew that....
So, I'm safe in having a few Westerfield PRR G25b's wandering
around the railroad, wouldn't you say?
Shawn Beckert, maybe some NYC and P-Mickey gons too....
"Geographical backwater" is probably a good discription of
Arkansas and Northeast Texas (unless you're from there) but
in terms of traffic the Cotton Belt was pretty important as
far as getting manufactured goods out of the East St. Louis
gateway and moving them out to the west coast.
But you knew that....
So, I'm safe in having a few Westerfield PRR G25b's wandering
around the railroad, wouldn't you say?
Shawn Beckert, maybe some NYC and P-Mickey gons too....
Ted Culotta <tculotta@...>
On Friday, September 19, 2003, at 01:47 PM, Beckert, Shawn wrote:
If you're looking for PRR gons, I'd start with Al's G22 and Martin's GS
gons. Both were more common than the G25.
Regards,
Ted Culotta
So, I'm safe in having a few Westerfield PRR G25b's wanderingShawn:
around the railroad, wouldn't you say?
If you're looking for PRR gons, I'd start with Al's G22 and Martin's GS
gons. Both were more common than the G25.
Regards,
Ted Culotta
Ray Breyer <rbreyer@...>
I would really imagine that the use of freight cars in the 1950s was
completely different than in the 1980s. Different laws, different
technologies, different enonomic patterns. Saying that the RRs looked alike
30 years apart is like saying US foreign policy was the same 100 years ago.
As for the use of mill gons, keep in mind that the steel industry was
totally different in the 1950s. There were a lot more large-ish mills
scattered all over the country, including the Midwest. In Illinois alone,
there were fairly large steel mills around Chicago, and in Rockford,
Kankakee, Joliet, Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign, Decatur, East St. Louis,
Springfield...basically any city over 50,000 people. Yes, these mills
weren't the size of the mills around Gary, but they were still supplying
local steel needs. By the 1980s, the steel industry had bellied up, and now
you're seeing a lot more small mills pop up again, mostly supplying sheet
steel for fabrication use.
I think you'd be safer to figure out what was going on in your geographic
area during your target years, and figure out what sort of loads would be
justifiable. You want pipe? Fine, but figure out what municipalities were
growing and needed water pipe. Or figure out where pipelines were being
built.
Case in point: I wanted a long tank car string to run in my 1950-era Peoria
layout, but coundn't justify one, until I ran across the TP&W's 1950 general
order book. It listed three seperate warning instructions for the RR about
tank cars being spotted along the ROW for use in asphalt road construction
(obviously route 24, which parallels the TP). Now I have a tank string.
Dave: a Reading GS gon could have been in Omaha for any reason. I think that
sort of freight car wandered around as much as boxcars.
Ray Breyer
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
completely different than in the 1980s. Different laws, different
technologies, different enonomic patterns. Saying that the RRs looked alike
30 years apart is like saying US foreign policy was the same 100 years ago.
As for the use of mill gons, keep in mind that the steel industry was
totally different in the 1950s. There were a lot more large-ish mills
scattered all over the country, including the Midwest. In Illinois alone,
there were fairly large steel mills around Chicago, and in Rockford,
Kankakee, Joliet, Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign, Decatur, East St. Louis,
Springfield...basically any city over 50,000 people. Yes, these mills
weren't the size of the mills around Gary, but they were still supplying
local steel needs. By the 1980s, the steel industry had bellied up, and now
you're seeing a lot more small mills pop up again, mostly supplying sheet
steel for fabrication use.
I think you'd be safer to figure out what was going on in your geographic
area during your target years, and figure out what sort of loads would be
justifiable. You want pipe? Fine, but figure out what municipalities were
growing and needed water pipe. Or figure out where pipelines were being
built.
Case in point: I wanted a long tank car string to run in my 1950-era Peoria
layout, but coundn't justify one, until I ran across the TP&W's 1950 general
order book. It listed three seperate warning instructions for the RR about
tank cars being spotted along the ROW for use in asphalt road construction
(obviously route 24, which parallels the TP). Now I have a tank string.
Dave: a Reading GS gon could have been in Omaha for any reason. I think that
sort of freight car wandered around as much as boxcars.
Ray Breyer
-----Original Message-----
From: dehusman [mailto:dehusman@...]
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 12:00 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Mill Gondolas In Interchange
--- In STMFC@..., "Beckert, Shawn" <shawn.beckert@d...>
wrote:
In the 198o's eastern road gons were very common in the southwest
carrying oil well pipe from the eastern mills.
I would think that the pattern would be valid in the 50's.
I remember seeing a picture of people sandbagging the Missouri River
in Omaha during a flood in the 40's and one of the gons they were
using for sand was a RDG USRA type gon.
Dave H.
From: dehusman [mailto:dehusman@...]
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 12:00 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Mill Gondolas In Interchange
--- In STMFC@..., "Beckert, Shawn" <shawn.beckert@d...>
wrote:
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons=========================
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
In the 198o's eastern road gons were very common in the southwest
carrying oil well pipe from the eastern mills.
I would think that the pattern would be valid in the 50's.
I remember seeing a picture of people sandbagging the Missouri River
in Omaha during a flood in the 40's and one of the gons they were
using for sand was a RDG USRA type gon.
Dave H.
Shawn Beckert
Ted Culotta wrote:
late 1950's, which means I have to pay attention to which
classes and types of cars were still around at that time.
According to the PRR Equipment web site, there were only a
handful of G22's left in the 1958 ORER's. Same for the G25's.
For the variations on these classes though, a different story:
G22b - 437 listed as of October, 1958.
G25b - 574 listed as of October, 1958.
So, you're right - I need just as many G22's as G25's, but they
need to be the "B" variation. As for the GS gons, I somehow have
it in my head that these older and shorter cars stayed closer to
home in later years than the mill gondolas. Obviously I could be
all wrong, but I'd want to see some documentation proving that.
Shawn Beckert
If you're looking for PRR gons, I'd start with Al's G22Well...It's not as simple as all that. I model the mid-to-
and Martin's GS gons. Both were more common than the G25.
late 1950's, which means I have to pay attention to which
classes and types of cars were still around at that time.
According to the PRR Equipment web site, there were only a
handful of G22's left in the 1958 ORER's. Same for the G25's.
For the variations on these classes though, a different story:
G22b - 437 listed as of October, 1958.
G25b - 574 listed as of October, 1958.
So, you're right - I need just as many G22's as G25's, but they
need to be the "B" variation. As for the GS gons, I somehow have
it in my head that these older and shorter cars stayed closer to
home in later years than the mill gondolas. Obviously I could be
all wrong, but I'd want to see some documentation proving that.
Shawn Beckert
Shawn Beckert
Dave Nelson, in a very informative post, writes:
Thanks for some very helpful information. As usual, research
plays a big role in trying to model anything with accuracy. I
know that both Texas and California had heavy industries that
used steel. Where that steel came from is the big unknown. I've
always thought that steel pipe, plate and other shapes came from
back east to be used west of the Mississippi, but it's clear that
there were plants capable of producing steel products out west as
well. My initial question concerned what cars would have carried
all that product from producer to user. Maybe a better way of posing
that question would be: what ratio of foreign road to home road
gondolas could one expect to see in a southwestern road's freights in
the years 1955 to 1960? I don't know that I'll ever find a definite
answer to that one.
Shawn Beckert
...I think you can see from the above all sorts of stuffDave,
moved around the west so you probably can justify most
anything you want thru the Ozarks as the same issues apply:
not very many facilities. A good story always helps! So, if
I were in your shoes I'd want to find out who and where in
Texas were the steel producers and what was commonly fabri-
cated. I'd imagine a whole lot of pipe. But maybe not any
stainless steel (Gary and Pittsburgh) or ordinary cast iron
pipe (Utah and Birmingham). So I think you'll hit on some-
thing plausible but I can't say for sure what that might be.
Thanks for some very helpful information. As usual, research
plays a big role in trying to model anything with accuracy. I
know that both Texas and California had heavy industries that
used steel. Where that steel came from is the big unknown. I've
always thought that steel pipe, plate and other shapes came from
back east to be used west of the Mississippi, but it's clear that
there were plants capable of producing steel products out west as
well. My initial question concerned what cars would have carried
all that product from producer to user. Maybe a better way of posing
that question would be: what ratio of foreign road to home road
gondolas could one expect to see in a southwestern road's freights in
the years 1955 to 1960? I don't know that I'll ever find a definite
answer to that one.
Shawn Beckert
MOFWCABOOSE@...
There used to be furnaces at Middlesboro, Kentucky, around the turn of the
last century, too. Middlesboro is right where Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia
all meet.
I used to have information on the "why", but have forgotten/can't find it
now. The best I can do is that there was an iron ore deposit in the vicinity,
plus abundant coal and limestone.
John C. La Rue, Jr.
last century, too. Middlesboro is right where Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia
all meet.
I used to have information on the "why", but have forgotten/can't find it
now. The best I can do is that there was an iron ore deposit in the vicinity,
plus abundant coal and limestone.
John C. La Rue, Jr.
JK <kuban@...>
Shawn,
American Bridge had a huge bridge fabrication yard in Ambridge, PA (just west of Pittsburgh) where major bridge components were assembled, prior to loading into (usually) mill gondolas for shipment to highway and railroad bridge projects across the country. These were very interesting loads and the partially assembled bridge components would often require one or two idler flats to handle the length of the fabrication which often exceeded the length of a single gon. Flat cars were also used to carry these components, but gondolas seemed to be the car for this.
Phoenix Steel had a fabrication plant located at Coatesville, PA on the Reading and this was the shipping point for the Golden Gate bridge components mentioned earlier in this thread. The road names mentioned earlier are all legitimate for these shipments and I would imagine that these made their way to the TNO-SP-SSW on a regular basis in the '50s.
Jim Kubanick
Morgantown, WV
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
American Bridge had a huge bridge fabrication yard in Ambridge, PA (just west of Pittsburgh) where major bridge components were assembled, prior to loading into (usually) mill gondolas for shipment to highway and railroad bridge projects across the country. These were very interesting loads and the partially assembled bridge components would often require one or two idler flats to handle the length of the fabrication which often exceeded the length of a single gon. Flat cars were also used to carry these components, but gondolas seemed to be the car for this.
Phoenix Steel had a fabrication plant located at Coatesville, PA on the Reading and this was the shipping point for the Golden Gate bridge components mentioned earlier in this thread. The road names mentioned earlier are all legitimate for these shipments and I would imagine that these made their way to the TNO-SP-SSW on a regular basis in the '50s.
Jim Kubanick
Morgantown, WV
----- Original Message -----
From: Beckert, Shawn
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 2:44 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Mill Gondolas In Interchange
Fellow Listers,
I now have around a dozen P2K mill gondolas in the closet,
and I've been eyeing all those one-piece gondola kits at
Mr. Westerfields web site. Before I get too carried away,
though, I need to learn more about the traffic patterns of
gondolas, especially mill gons.
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
Thanks,
Shawn Beckert
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From: Beckert, Shawn
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 2:44 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Mill Gondolas In Interchange
Fellow Listers,
I now have around a dozen P2K mill gondolas in the closet,
and I've been eyeing all those one-piece gondola kits at
Mr. Westerfields web site. Before I get too carried away,
though, I need to learn more about the traffic patterns of
gondolas, especially mill gons.
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
Thanks,
Shawn Beckert
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ADVERTISEMENT
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Shawn and list,
Some photographic evidence of eastern gons on the SP is in
Pentrex's "Daylights, Cab Forwards & Early Diesels" Vol. 1.
Documented is a circa-1950 movement of U.S. Navy bridge pontoons
westbound on the Coast Line in gons of the PRR (several GRa's),
P&LE, CP, NYC, B&O, and CRP as well as a CRI&P GS gon and a MP USRA
gon. This is also a decent video for freight car content if you can
get past all the passenger stuff.
Also, in Rehor's "Beaumont Hill" there is C&O mill gon in the
consist of the Redlands Branch local.
Jim Wolf
Otis Orchards, WA
--- In STMFC@..., "Beckert, Shawn" <shawn.beckert@d...>
wrote:
Some photographic evidence of eastern gons on the SP is in
Pentrex's "Daylights, Cab Forwards & Early Diesels" Vol. 1.
Documented is a circa-1950 movement of U.S. Navy bridge pontoons
westbound on the Coast Line in gons of the PRR (several GRa's),
P&LE, CP, NYC, B&O, and CRP as well as a CRI&P GS gon and a MP USRA
gon. This is also a decent video for freight car content if you can
get past all the passenger stuff.
Also, in Rehor's "Beaumont Hill" there is C&O mill gon in the
consist of the Redlands Branch local.
Jim Wolf
Otis Orchards, WA
--- In STMFC@..., "Beckert, Shawn" <shawn.beckert@d...>
wrote:
Ted Culotta wrote:If you're looking for PRR gons, I'd start with Al's G22Well...It's not as simple as all that. I model the mid-to-
and Martin's GS gons. Both were more common than the G25.
late 1950's, which means I have to pay attention to which
classes and types of cars were still around at that time.
According to the PRR Equipment web site, there were only a
handful of G22's left in the 1958 ORER's. Same for the G25's.
For the variations on these classes though, a different story:
G22b - 437 listed as of October, 1958.
G25b - 574 listed as of October, 1958.
So, you're right - I need just as many G22's as G25's, but they
need to be the "B" variation. As for the GS gons, I somehow have
it in my head that these older and shorter cars stayed closer to
home in later years than the mill gondolas. Obviously I could be
all wrong, but I'd want to see some documentation proving that.
Shawn Beckert
ljack70117@...
When you speak of wire you must think out side of the roll of wire that you are used to. Electrical, balling, fence, and other types of wire that people think. But I worked in a plant in New Jersey that made things out of wire. The notched handle on a caulking gun is made from wire. Piano tuning pins are made from wire. Wire can be 5/8 to 3/4 inch in diameter. Even in some cases one inch in diameter. We turned our over 50,000 tuning pins a month. They had been doing so since 1933 when the factory was opened.
Thank you
Larry Jackman
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Show quoted text
Thank you
Larry Jackman
On Friday, September 19, 2003, at 04:34 PM, Dave Nelson wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Beckert, Shawn [mailto:shawn.beckert@...]I now have around a dozen P2K mill gondolas in the closet,Shawn, I've been looking at the Pacific coast steel industry for a number of
and I've been eyeing all those one-piece gondola kits at
Mr. Westerfields web site. Before I get too carried away,
though, I need to learn more about the traffic patterns of
gondolas, especially mill gons.
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
years now and I can't say I've been able to come up with a clear answer to
your question (BTW it's the same question I've been asking myself).
What I have learned is to think in terms of 3 different industries: Iron ore
reduction -- the blast furnaces; steel production --the open hearths that
turned iron into steel and the rolling, hot or cold, that formed basic
shapes); and lastly fabrication (e.g., bridges, tin plate, etc). Any of
these 3 would use mill gons. The tendency for vertically integrated
companies would have increased rail traffic -- plant to plant for those
items not produced locally while the limiting factor of course was the
expense of shipping, especially on low value items, would have limited
distance moved.
Some examples:
In the west CF&I in Pueblo Co made lots of rail which they shipped all over
the great plains, mountain states, and Pacific coast. Nobody else made rail
anywhere nearby so they had the western market to themselves despite rail
being a rather ordinary commodity item. They also shipped ordinary wire to
both coasts as they owned fabricating plants that made springs, fences, etc.
(here in the Bay area it was to L.A. Young in San Leandro). Surely they
could have purchased wire nearer to those plants and saved on the shipping
but they didn't because it was more important to fully utilize the
production capacity of their facilities in Pueblo.
In Geneva Utah, U.S. Steel rolled a lot of coil for shipment to their own
cold rolling plant in Pittsburg CA. where the coil was cold rolled and
tinned. Boxes of (high value, high profit) tin plate went all up and down
the Pacific coast and probably back to Utah too, all going to the can
fabricators. Now it turns out demand for tin plate on the west coast
exceeded supply -- by quite a bit. And there are many varieties of tin
plate that are needed -- what goes to Hawaii for canned Pineapple isn't
going to be the same as what would be used to can Bay Area pears. So tin
plate had to be brought in from elsewhere. Here's the problem: rates by
water from the east coast were likely to be less than rail rates from the
midwest. I dunno which method was used. Maybe both.
Geneva also shipped basic structural shapes into the L.A. basin where one of
their divisions did final rolling and IIRC some fabrication. What they
didn't fabricate themselves would have been shipped to other fabricators in
California.
Near Geneva is Ironton where there was an old, small blast furnace used to
reduce ore into pig iron. For a number of years this was leased by Kaiser
steel who shipped all the pig to Fontana CA for making steel -- their own
blast furnaces were under construction at the time. Later on it was picked
up by U.S.S. who skipped the pig casting and simply moved bottle cars of
molten iron down the road to Geneva.
Also at Ironton was Pacific Coast Cast Iron Products -- they made cast iron
pipe and shipped it everywhere in the mountain and Pacific coast states.
So, back to your question: I think you see from the above all sorts of stuff
moved around the west so you probably can justify most anything you want
thru the Ozarks as the same issues apply: not very many facilities. A good
story always helps! So, if I were in your shoes I'd want to find out who
and where in Texas were the steel producers and what was commonly
fabricated. I'd imagine a whole lot of pipe. But maybe not any stainless
steel (Gary and Pittsburgh) or ordinary cast iron pipe (Utah and
Birmingham). So I think you'll hit on something plausible but I can't say
for sure what that might be.
Good luck.
Dave Nelson
dehusman <dehusman@...>
--- In STMFC@..., "JK" <kuban@3...> wrote:
bridge components mentioned earlier in this thread. The road names
mentioned earlier are all legitimate for these shipments and I would
imagine that these made their way to the TNO-SP-SSW on a regular
basis in the '50s.
================================
Phoenix Steel was in Phoenixville, PA. Lukens Steel was in
Coatesville.
The bridge sections for the Golden Gate were made by the McClintic-
Marshall Steel Co. of Pottstown and Steelton, PA. Both on the
Reading. Teh RDG cut down a series of GMl USRA gons, leaving the
sides about 3" above the deck, to form class FMd flatcars. Those
cars were assigned to carry the bridge sections from Pottstown ans
Steelton to Port Richmond (Phila. PA)where they were transferred to
ships to the west coast. The FMd class cars (RDG9556-9599) were
known as the "Golden Gate" flats.
While bridge parts might be legitimate gondola loads the Golden Gate
pieces weren't shipped in gons and never moved off the Reading.
The Summer '87 issue, Vol. IX No 2 of the RCT&HS "Bee Line" has an
article about the Golden Gate move and the flatcars.
Dave H.
Phoenix Steel had a fabrication plant located at Coatesville, PA onthe Reading and this was the shipping point for the Golden Gate
bridge components mentioned earlier in this thread. The road names
mentioned earlier are all legitimate for these shipments and I would
imagine that these made their way to the TNO-SP-SSW on a regular
basis in the '50s.
================================
Phoenix Steel was in Phoenixville, PA. Lukens Steel was in
Coatesville.
The bridge sections for the Golden Gate were made by the McClintic-
Marshall Steel Co. of Pottstown and Steelton, PA. Both on the
Reading. Teh RDG cut down a series of GMl USRA gons, leaving the
sides about 3" above the deck, to form class FMd flatcars. Those
cars were assigned to carry the bridge sections from Pottstown ans
Steelton to Port Richmond (Phila. PA)where they were transferred to
ships to the west coast. The FMd class cars (RDG9556-9599) were
known as the "Golden Gate" flats.
While bridge parts might be legitimate gondola loads the Golden Gate
pieces weren't shipped in gons and never moved off the Reading.
The Summer '87 issue, Vol. IX No 2 of the RCT&HS "Bee Line" has an
article about the Golden Gate move and the flatcars.
Dave H.
Steven Delibert <STEVDEL@...>
There used to be bits of the steel industry in all sorts of unexpected
places - I was particularly startled to come across a photo of a blast
furnace in Rochester, NY, around the turn of the last century.
Does anyone know if there were many other such installations in such
unlikely places, and anything about their sources of materials (coal at
Rochester is obvious; was the iron from the Adirondacks?) or what they
shipped to where?
Thanks
Steve Delibert
places - I was particularly startled to come across a photo of a blast
furnace in Rochester, NY, around the turn of the last century.
Does anyone know if there were many other such installations in such
unlikely places, and anything about their sources of materials (coal at
Rochester is obvious; was the iron from the Adirondacks?) or what they
shipped to where?
Thanks
Steve Delibert
tim gilbert <tgilbert@...>
"Beckert, Shawn" wrote:
At the 1948 AAR Superintendents' Convention, there was a discussion
about Gons and their traffic movements saying on page 78 of the
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION - "There is a continual movement of
traffic in gons, particularly mill-type, from steel mills in the Eastern
& Central States destined to the Western Territory resulting in a
preponderance of gons of the Eastern & Allegheny Roads terminating in
the Western Territory. The problem continually confronts the railroads
and the Car Service Division of obtaining a steady flow of these cars
returning to their home roads. There is little eastbound traffic from
the terminating territory requiring Gons; therefore eastbound movement
must be predominantly empty."
Gons can be roughly split into three groups based on their bottoms: 1)
solid; 2) side drop; and 3) center drop. Based upon this, one might
equate solid bottom gons with mill-type gons.
According to the April 1949 ORER, there were 305,501 gons. The table
below splits this geographically by type of bottom (in thousands):
EAST SOUTH WEST TOTAL
Solid Bottom 142 32 31 205
Side Drop 2 7 62 71
Center Drop 3 25 1 29
Total 147 64 94 306
In a Spring 1949 Wheel Report for the T&NO's primarily South Texas line
between Alice & Brownsville, there were 67 Solid Bottom Gons reported.
The movement of gons on this primarily agricultural branch was loads
southbound and empties north. 35 of the gons were owned by the eastern
roads; 3 by the southern roads; 17 by the western roads and 12 by the
home road, the T&NO. The primary commodity loaded on the Eastern Gons
was Pipe, with a couple of gons being loaded with Steel, Asphalt or
Rock. I assume that there was some infrastructure construction along the
line. For the Western Roads, there was one load of Steel (in a RI Gon),
and a lot of Rock and Asphalt. The T&NO's Gons toted Company Material as
well as Rock and Asphalt.
In a Fall 1947 UP Wheel Report between Rawlins & Laramie WY, there were
113 solid bottom gons reported: - 42 loaded westbound, 66 loaded
eastbound and 5 eastbound empties. These gons' geographic distribution
of ownership was 13 home road (UP), 79 eastern, 9 southern and 12
western. Contrary to what the AAR Superintendents thought, the UP could
load gons eastbound with lumber, scrap and company materials. Westbound,
the eastern gons carried steel, pipe, auto parts, machinery, etc..
In a Fall 1946 SOU Wheel Report between Pot Yard & Monroe VA, there 98
solid bottom gons reported: - 36 southbound loads; 14 southbound
empties; 22 northbound loads; and 24 northbound empties. The
distribution of ownership was 12 SOU (Home Road); 68 eastern; 13
southern; one western and 2 Class II. 19 of the 36 southbound loads were
steel with the remainder comprising scrap, rail, minerals, coal, lumber
& miscellaneous. Of the 22 northbound loads, 7 were lumber; five each
for minerals and engines, scrap, coal and miscellaneous. Once again, the
Railroad Superintendents did not know how their "mill-type" gons were
being used.
Of the 205,514 Solid Bottom Gons owned by Class I Roads in the US as per
the April 1949 ORER, 22,964 were less than 40' long (20,592 owned by the
PRR); 82,729 between 40' & 45' long; 50,135 between 45' & 50' long;
37,631 between 50' and 62' long; and 7,315 over 62' long. Those 65' Mill
Gons comprised only 3.6% of the National Solid Bottom Fleet.
Hope this helps, Tim Gilbert
Shawn,
I now have around a dozen P2K mill gondolas in the closet,
and I've been eyeing all those one-piece gondola kits at
Mr. Westerfields web site. Before I get too carried away,
though, I need to learn more about the traffic patterns of
gondolas, especially mill gons.
I'm kind of assuming (there I go again) that steel got shipped
from the eastern part of the U.S. to the midwest and western
states on a regular basis in the 1950's, and probably in the
gondolas of eastern roads like NYC, PRR, and B&O. Therefore it
would make sense for me to have several gondolas from each of
these roads running on my SSW-TNO-SP designed railroad, most
especially as bridge traffic.
Does this hypothesis hold water? Did in fact eastern road gons
make the trip out west with steel loads and then get sent back,
probably empty, to the steel mills? Anybody researched this?
At the 1948 AAR Superintendents' Convention, there was a discussion
about Gons and their traffic movements saying on page 78 of the
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION - "There is a continual movement of
traffic in gons, particularly mill-type, from steel mills in the Eastern
& Central States destined to the Western Territory resulting in a
preponderance of gons of the Eastern & Allegheny Roads terminating in
the Western Territory. The problem continually confronts the railroads
and the Car Service Division of obtaining a steady flow of these cars
returning to their home roads. There is little eastbound traffic from
the terminating territory requiring Gons; therefore eastbound movement
must be predominantly empty."
Gons can be roughly split into three groups based on their bottoms: 1)
solid; 2) side drop; and 3) center drop. Based upon this, one might
equate solid bottom gons with mill-type gons.
According to the April 1949 ORER, there were 305,501 gons. The table
below splits this geographically by type of bottom (in thousands):
EAST SOUTH WEST TOTAL
Solid Bottom 142 32 31 205
Side Drop 2 7 62 71
Center Drop 3 25 1 29
Total 147 64 94 306
In a Spring 1949 Wheel Report for the T&NO's primarily South Texas line
between Alice & Brownsville, there were 67 Solid Bottom Gons reported.
The movement of gons on this primarily agricultural branch was loads
southbound and empties north. 35 of the gons were owned by the eastern
roads; 3 by the southern roads; 17 by the western roads and 12 by the
home road, the T&NO. The primary commodity loaded on the Eastern Gons
was Pipe, with a couple of gons being loaded with Steel, Asphalt or
Rock. I assume that there was some infrastructure construction along the
line. For the Western Roads, there was one load of Steel (in a RI Gon),
and a lot of Rock and Asphalt. The T&NO's Gons toted Company Material as
well as Rock and Asphalt.
In a Fall 1947 UP Wheel Report between Rawlins & Laramie WY, there were
113 solid bottom gons reported: - 42 loaded westbound, 66 loaded
eastbound and 5 eastbound empties. These gons' geographic distribution
of ownership was 13 home road (UP), 79 eastern, 9 southern and 12
western. Contrary to what the AAR Superintendents thought, the UP could
load gons eastbound with lumber, scrap and company materials. Westbound,
the eastern gons carried steel, pipe, auto parts, machinery, etc..
In a Fall 1946 SOU Wheel Report between Pot Yard & Monroe VA, there 98
solid bottom gons reported: - 36 southbound loads; 14 southbound
empties; 22 northbound loads; and 24 northbound empties. The
distribution of ownership was 12 SOU (Home Road); 68 eastern; 13
southern; one western and 2 Class II. 19 of the 36 southbound loads were
steel with the remainder comprising scrap, rail, minerals, coal, lumber
& miscellaneous. Of the 22 northbound loads, 7 were lumber; five each
for minerals and engines, scrap, coal and miscellaneous. Once again, the
Railroad Superintendents did not know how their "mill-type" gons were
being used.
Of the 205,514 Solid Bottom Gons owned by Class I Roads in the US as per
the April 1949 ORER, 22,964 were less than 40' long (20,592 owned by the
PRR); 82,729 between 40' & 45' long; 50,135 between 45' & 50' long;
37,631 between 50' and 62' long; and 7,315 over 62' long. Those 65' Mill
Gons comprised only 3.6% of the National Solid Bottom Fleet.
Hope this helps, Tim Gilbert
Norman+Laraine Larkin <lono@...>
There was a blast furnace in Everett, Mass. that was part of the Eastern Gas
and Fuel Coke Works there.It supplied merchant pig iron to foundries in New
England. (~220,000 tons in 1949). It received coke from the in-plant EG&F
RR. Ore was received by ship on the Mystic River. The whole complex closed
in 1959. The complex was rail served outside by both the B&M and the B&A's
Grand Junction Branch to East Boston.
Regards,
Norm Larkin
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
and Fuel Coke Works there.It supplied merchant pig iron to foundries in New
England. (~220,000 tons in 1949). It received coke from the in-plant EG&F
RR. Ore was received by ship on the Mystic River. The whole complex closed
in 1959. The complex was rail served outside by both the B&M and the B&A's
Grand Junction Branch to East Boston.
Regards,
Norm Larkin
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim O'Connor <timoconnor@...>
To: <STMFC@...>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 10:19 PM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Mill Gondolas In Interchange
From: Tim O'Connor <timoconnor@...>
To: <STMFC@...>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 10:19 PM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Mill Gondolas In Interchange
There is still a very large, if mostly idle, complex of
foundry buildings in Syracuse New York. Both Rochester
and Syracuse are close to one of the Great Lakes, and
not far from the port of Buffalo either. They were many
north-south traffic lanes in upstate New York. Kodak in
Rochester has long been a large consumer of coal.There used to be bits of the steel industry in all sorts of unexpected
places - I was particularly startled to come across a photo of a blast
furnace in Rochester, NY, around the turn of the last century.
Does anyone know if there were many other such installations in such
unlikely places, and anything about their sources of materials (coal at
Rochester is obvious; was the iron from the Adirondacks?) or what they
shipped to where?
Thanks
Steve Delibert
Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> -->> NOTE EMAIL CHANGE <<--
Sterling, Massachusetts
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thompson@...
Tim Gilbert said:
gondola is considered a "side drop;" SP alone had over 5000 GS gons in
1949. Thus I would suppose that "center drop" means between the rails only,
not GS class.
Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 http://www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroads and on Western history
Gons can be roughly split into three groups based on their bottoms: 1)Something's fishy about this table, unless the usual GS (AAR class)
solid; 2) side drop; and 3) center drop.
According to the April 1949 ORER, there were 305,501 gons. The table
below splits this geographically by type of bottom (in thousands):
EAST SOUTH WEST TOTAL
Solid Bottom 142 32 31 205
Side Drop 2 7 62 71
Center Drop 3 25 1 29
Total 147 64 94 306
gondola is considered a "side drop;" SP alone had over 5000 GS gons in
1949. Thus I would suppose that "center drop" means between the rails only,
not GS class.
Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 http://www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroads and on Western history