Andy Sperandeo wrote:

Only two Santa Fe boxcars in the latest batch from Bill:

ATSF 146177, a Bx37 carrying bulk meal (with 12 grain doors!). This is
one of
the last batch of this large class, built in 1942. It's represented in
HO by a
Sunshine kit, and can also be modeled with modifications to the Red
Caboose
modified 1937 AAR standard boxcar. (I've also got one I built from a
Westrail
kit, if anyone besides Richard H remembers those.) Many of this class had
National B-1 trucks, but this particular car had ASF spring-plankless
trucks.

ATSF 270725, a Bx42 carrying bean meal. This is a 1944 graduate of the
Santa
Fe's program of rebuilding Bx9 and 10 1925 ARA standard
double-sheathed boxcars
into all-steel cars similar to the modified 1937 AAR standard. It's also
represented in HO by a Sunshine kit.

Andy,

What are the implications of the boxcar mixes of outbound traffic from
Swift's Soy Bean Processing Operation in Frankfort in 1948-1949 upon
your ATSF model (of Cajon Pass?) ? On your layout, the majority of
boxcars should not be ATSF, but foreign. What can be learned from these
NKP List of movements which can be used on your or anybody else's layout
of the 1945-1955 era?

Tim Gilbert

Tim Gilbert wrote:

What can be learned from these
NKP List of movements which can be used on your or anybody else's layout
of the 1945-1955 era?

That data are fun? There are plenty of folks who still need that lesson <g>.

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

Tim, the skeptic in me says "absolutely nothing"... But I suppose one
result may be that more waybills will be showing up on layouts listing
the cargo as "bean meal" whatever that is... :-)

Is bean meal what they used to make our C rations?

Tim O'Connor

Responding to:

What can be learned from these NKP List of movements which can be used
on your or anybody else's layout of the 1945-1955 era?

Tim Gilbert

Tim:

I learned the specifics of a steady source of loads that moved in both
directions out of Frankfort, IN on the MONON's Indianapolis branch
including the portion that I am modeling. It appears that some of the
moves were regular in nature. The data also allows me to pursue
modeling specific cars the appeared in this service and well as justify
others that "hopefully" appeared covering this work. So it works for me
and should do as well for anyone who's RR appears in the car routing
info.

Mont Switzer

Montford Switzer wrote:

Responding to:

What can be learned from these NKP List of movements which can be used
on your or anybody else's layout of the 1945-1955 era?

Tim Gilbert

Tim:

I learned the specifics of a steady source of loads that moved in both
directions out of Frankfort, IN on the MONON's Indianapolis branch
including the portion that I am modeling. It appears that some of the
moves were regular in nature. The data also allows me to pursue
modeling specific cars the appeared in this service and well as justify
others that "hopefully" appeared covering this work. So it works for me
and should do as well for anyone who's RR appears in the car routing
info.

Mont,

I am unclear of what you mean as a "steady source of loads." Is this an industry or equivalent? By "regular moves" do you mean specific cars (e.g. ABC Boxcar #123), or the industry, or do you mean regular shipments of goods in any suitable car available? If the answer above is specific cars, then what kind of car - boxcar, gon, hopper, etc., and what road name and car number?

There is nothing wrong about modeling "specific" cars which may have appeared once or sporadically over time on the prototype's line. For instance, if modeling a line like UP's Sherman Hill, any of the 720,000 different boxcars in the US could have appeared on that line. Most people's budget including Mike Brock's cannot afford 720,000 different boxcars. So a selective compression of the model boxcar fleet has to be done whereby ABC boxcar #123 represents itself plus, at another time ABC #456, or, perhaps, the neighboring road's DEF #789 if ABC and DEF do not own enough boxcars in the national boxcar fleet to warrant a separate model for each road.

Tim Gilbert

Hi Tim,

I think it's fun to identify Santa Fe boxcars, and it might help someone who wanted to include some Santa Fe cars on a Midwestern layout.

So long,

Andy


Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
Model Railroader magazine
asperandeo@...
Phone: 262-796-8776, ex. 461
Fax: 262-796-1142
www.modelrailroader.com

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

Mont,

I am unclear of what you mean as a "steady source of loads." Is this an
industry or equivalent? By "regular moves" do you mean specific cars
(e.g. ABC Boxcar #123), or the industry, or do you mean regular
shipments of goods in any suitable car available? If the answer above is

specific cars, then what kind of car - boxcar, gon, hopper, etc., and
what road name and car number?

Tim, As Bill continues to share this info I think we will continue to
see the same TYPES of cars moving from the same shipper to same
consignee transporting the same product - soy bean meal. As I plan my
operating scenario I will want to handle the same types of cars in that
service on a regular basis. I'm only modeling the portion of the moves
that were over the MONON.

There is nothing wrong about modeling "specific" cars which may have
appeared once or sporadically over time on the prototype's line. For
instance, if modeling a line like UP's Sherman Hill, any of the 720,000
different boxcars in the US could have appeared on that line. Most
people's budget including Mike Brock's cannot afford 720,000 different
boxcars. So a selective compression of the model boxcar fleet has to be
done whereby ABC boxcar #123 represents itself plus, at another time ABC

#456, or, perhaps, the neighboring road's DEF #789 if ABC and DEF do not

own enough boxcars in the national boxcar fleet to warrant a separate
model for each road.

Tim, Agreed. Specific cars would be a bonus. One could model a car
based on Bill's records and plop it on the layout at the right place
(interchange with NKP at Frankfort) and take it off after it empties out
and is reloaded toward it home road. Example, NKP interchanges ATSF
1234 to MONON at Frankfort for delivery to a point north toward Chicago.
When empty the car would be loaded for or forwarded empty to Chicago and
into staging. The car might be allowed to wander onto the layout at
some future time representing the entire series of car for that RR.

I like to build freight car models so I won't mind building one that is
not used all the time. Yes, it will have to represent other cars in
that same series that might should up anywhere else on the parts of the
MONON that I am modeling.

I certainly want to make sure my freight trains have all of the known
types of cars carrying the regular moves whether it be the daily
shipment of bean meal, RCA TV cabinets, coke, coal, etc. It is the
single car shipments that will be harder to deal with and may end up
getting cars at random for lack of more specific info.

Bill's data just solved another mystery as what was moving in MONON
freight trains to I can more accurately model them.

Mont Switzer







Yahoo! Groups Links

Montford Switzer wrote:

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

Mont,

I am unclear of what you mean as a "steady source of loads." Is this an
industry or equivalent? By "regular moves" do you mean specific cars
(e.g. ABC Boxcar #123), or the industry, or do you mean regular
shipments of goods in any suitable car available? If the answer above is

specific cars, then what kind of car - boxcar, gon, hopper, etc., and
what road name and car number?

Tim, As Bill continues to share this info I think we will continue to
see the same TYPES of cars moving from the same shipper to same
consignee transporting the same product - soy bean meal. As I plan my
operating scenario I will want to handle the same types of cars in that
service on a regular basis. I'm only modeling the portion of the moves
that were over the MONON.

Mont,

We are in agreement regarding type of cars. But what is the rhyme and reason behind the variety of car owners? Bill's data provides insight into some of the rhyme or reason of behind this variety of owners of boxcars and tank cars.

Each boxcar could carry a variety of commodities while tank cars were restricted to only a few, if not just one commodity. Hence, empty boxcars could be easily reloaded while empty tank cars generally had to return to their original point of loading before they could be reloaded. This difference is reflected in boxcars' loaded car miles being about 76% of total car miles in 1948-49 vs. the tank cars' loaded car mile percentage being only 50%.

Tank Cars were generally leased from private owners or owned by industries; thus, they were not free rollers - indeed, they earned mileage paid by the carrier to the owner instead of the per diem paid to the boxcar owner.

Because boxcars were free rollers because they were capable of showing up on any road different from the owner with a load originated on still another road- in Bill's latest sheet, CB&Q #26046 was loaded on the NKP with bean meal for AK Zinn, and routed NKP-Michigan City-NYC(MC)-Battle Creek. Another example was NP #26144 which was loaded with bean mail for the EW Bailey Co. in Montpelier VT and routed NKP-Toledo-DTSL-Detroit-GTW-Port Huron-CN-St. Albans VT-CV-Montpelier. (Incidentally, this would have been a "legal" routing of a Canadian car because of the transit through Ontario and Quebec.)

The distribution of ownership of Boxcars from the Swift Processing Plant resembles somewhat the distribution percentages of boxcar owners in wheel reports that I have parsed from the SOU's Washington Division in the Fall of 1946 and the UP's Wyoming Division in the Fall of 1947. They do not correlate perfectly with each other. But for modelers not having the advantage of a wheel report, or cars pulled from Frankfort, a good starting point in selecting what the owners of foreign boxcars should be on a layout would be based on the percentage of boxcars a specific railroad owned of the national fleet.

There is nothing wrong about modeling "specific" cars which may have
appeared once or sporadically over time on the prototype's line. For
instance, if modeling a line like UP's Sherman Hill, any of the 720,000
different boxcars in the US could have appeared on that line. Most
people's budget including Mike Brock's cannot afford 720,000 different
boxcars. So a selective compression of the model boxcar fleet has to be
done whereby ABC boxcar #123 represents itself plus, at another time ABC

#456, or, perhaps, the neighboring road's DEF #789 if ABC and DEF do not

own enough boxcars in the national boxcar fleet to warrant a separate
model for each road.

Tim, Agreed. Specific cars would be a bonus. One could model a car
based on Bill's records and plop it on the layout at the right place
(interchange with NKP at Frankfort) and take it off after it empties out
and is reloaded toward it home road. Example, NKP interchanges ATSF
1234 to MONON at Frankfort for delivery to a point north toward Chicago.
When empty the car would be loaded for or forwarded empty to Chicago and
into staging. The car might be allowed to wander onto the layout at
some future time representing the entire series of car for that RR.

I like to build freight car models so I won't mind building one that is
not used all the time. Yes, it will have to represent other cars in
that same series that might should up anywhere else on the parts of the
MONON that I am modeling.

I certainly want to make sure my freight trains have all of the known
types of cars carrying the regular moves whether it be the daily
shipment of bean meal, RCA TV cabinets, coke, coal, etc. It is the
single car shipments that will be harder to deal with and may end up
getting cars at random for lack of more specific info.

I guess that you will not be modeling CIL #1 at least between June 1947 and June 1948 because it was used to originate only one load, and terminate none on the MONON. Seriously though, gauging how many and what cars were loaded with merchandise or used team tracks is the bane of a prototypical modeler. What bails you in terms of ownership of boxcars is the starting point of percentage of boxcars owned by a road of the national boxcar fleet.

Bill's data just solved another mystery as what was moving in MONON
freight trains to I can more accurately model them.

I would think that Bill's data has helped you with boxcars and tank cars carrying bean oil; the data has not shown the distribution of owners among hoppers, gons, reefers or tank cars carrying different commodities than bean meal.

Tim Gilbert

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

Tim,

Your points are well taken. Do we know who determined what car was
loaded to what destination?

Note that there were no MONON cars loaded when I'm sure they were around
being that close to home rails and all. My guess is when the NKP got a
MONON car that close to home rails (MONON and NKP both ran through
Frankfort and the NKP had 2 other interchanges with the MONON within 30
miles) they returned it empty rather than pay charges while the car sat
at Swift for loading.

Also, take a look at the routing on the NKP owned cars. Those routings
look a lot cleaner to me, many totally on line or with significant miles
on the NKP.

Then look at what the MONON got:

- SR, GM&O cars of a 20 mile on line haul
- RI car south on the PRR via Indinapaolis
- NH, IC car to southern Indiana on a MONON branch
-SOO car to an NYC destination in Michigan

Car selection seems to be random except for the NKP cars/routings.

I would think that Bill's data has helped you with boxcars and tank cars

carrying bean oil; the data has not shown the distribution of owners
among hoppers, gons, reefers or tank cars carrying different commodities

than bean meal.

Yes, but I have other sources for this. Also, the MONON used a lot of
home road cars specially equipped for some of the regular moves. As I
mentioned among them were TV cabinets, coke, foundry sand and Indiana
coal on the Indianapolis line. I also need to work on GTW boxcars for
inbound newsprint.

Tim Gilbert





Yahoo! Groups Links

Mont and all,

One thing I've noticed about the 1948 Monon
conductor's log I'm going through is the lack of Monon
boxcars in general. Plenty of gons and hoppers, but
boxcars are under represented as a proportion of the
Monon fleet: only 4 cars out of 52. Even Air Dump
cars show up more often! Maybe this goes to Tim's
theory on boxcar usage.

Mike

ps-if I can get my confounded webmail to work, I found
some interesting Canadian boxcar moves-maybe later
today.

--- Montford Switzer <ZOE@...> wrote:

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

Tim,

Your points are well taken. Do we know who
determined what car was
loaded to what destination?

Note that there were no MONON cars loaded when I'm
sure they were around
being that close to home rails and all. My guess is
when the NKP got a
MONON car that close to home rails (MONON and NKP
both ran through
Frankfort and the NKP had 2 other interchanges with
the MONON within 30
miles) they returned it empty rather than pay
charges while the car sat
at Swift for loading.

Also, take a look at the routing on the NKP owned
cars. Those routings
look a lot cleaner to me, many totally on line or
with significant miles
on the NKP.

Then look at what the MONON got:

- SR, GM&O cars of a 20 mile on line haul
- RI car south on the PRR via Indinapaolis
- NH, IC car to southern Indiana on a MONON branch
-SOO car to an NYC destination in Michigan

Car selection seems to be random except for the NKP
cars/routings.

I would think that Bill's data has helped you with
boxcars and tank cars

carrying bean oil; the data has not shown the
distribution of owners
among hoppers, gons, reefers or tank cars carrying
different commodities

than bean meal.

Yes, but I have other sources for this. Also, the
MONON used a lot of
home road cars specially equipped for some of the
regular moves. As I
mentioned among them were TV cabinets, coke, foundry
sand and Indiana
coal on the Indianapolis line. I also need to work
on GTW boxcars for
inbound newsprint.

Tim Gilbert





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Montford Switzer wrote:

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

Tim,
Your points are well taken. Do we know who determined what car was
loaded to what destination?

Mont,

I suppose the Swift's shipping foreman had the final say. I could not find an example from the Bill's Jan/Feb 1948 list showing this explicitly, but I think the Jan/Mar 1949 List has an example of loading a PRR car for a non-PRR routing while another owner's boxcar was routed on the PRR on the same day. There are all sorts of boxcars owned by western roads being reloaded and sent east - so much for the Car Service Rule to reload and route empties in the direction of the home road only.

I am in process of entering Bill's data onto a spreadsheet - I have completed the Jan/Feb 1948 List, and am about to start the June 1948 List and then the Jan/Mar 1949 List.

Note that there were no MONON cars loaded when I'm sure they were around
being that close to home rails and all. My guess is when the NKP got a
MONON car that close to home rails (MONON and NKP both ran through
Frankfort and the NKP had 2 other interchanges with the MONON within 30
miles) they returned it empty rather than pay charges while the car sat
at Swift for loading.

I would make the same argument for why there so few boxcars owned by railroads of the Great Lakes Region (NYC, WAB, ERIE, DL&W, etc.. The CIL was part of the Central East Region.). This works only if there was an ample supply of empty boxcars in Frankfort. If this supply was critically low, then empty boxcars of the Great Lakes Roads and the MONON would be hoarded. At Frankfort, the supply of empty boxcars were augmented by cars released from the NKP's Frankfort Car Shops.

Incidentally, MONON #1 was in Frankfort on January 10th, 1948 loaded with drugs loaded at Bloomfield NJ and routed ERIE-Lima-NKP-TRRA-SSW-Corsicana-T&NO-El Paso-SP-San Francisco.

Also, take a look at the routing on the NKP owned cars. Those routings
look a lot cleaner to me, many totally on line or with significant miles
on the NKP.

Then look at what the MONON got:

- SR, GM&O cars of a 20 mile on line haul
- RI car south on the PRR via Indinapaolis
- NH, IC car to southern Indiana on a MONON branch
-SOO car to an NYC destination in Michigan

Car selection seems to be random except for the NKP cars/routings.

I do not see any such "favoritism" in the Jan/Feb 1948 List. There were five boxcar terminations on the NKP, but only one was in an NKP car - the others were ERIE, GN, MILW and PRR. Meanwhile, nine NKP cars were loaded by Swift: - three each terminated on the PRR and Michigan Central, and one each on the NKP, C&O and Toledo Terminal.

I would think that Bill's data has helped you with boxcars and tank cars

carrying bean oil; the data has not shown the distribution of owners
among hoppers, gons, reefers or tank cars carrying different commodities

than bean meal.

Yes, but I have other sources for this. Also, the MONON used a lot of
home road cars specially equipped for some of the regular moves. As I
mentioned among them were TV cabinets, coke, foundry sand and Indiana
coal on the Indianapolis line. I also need to work on GTW boxcars for
inbound newsprint.

Coke and Coal, I assume, were carried in hoppers which had much lower percent loaded of total car miles than boxcars (55% vs. 76%) which greatly reduced the opportunities for reloading empties before they were returned to the mines or ovens; thus, the percent of hoppers on home road lines of total hoppers on the MONON was greater than for boxcars. I assume foundry sand was bagged and loaded into boxcars as were the TV Cabinets. Were some of these commodities terminated on other roads? If so, I would expect the MONON lost control of the routing of these boxcars when they were unloaded just as they lost control of CIL #1 once it was delivered to the L&N in Louisville on June 17th, 1947.

What happened to boxcars carrying newsprint when they were unloaded? Were they returned to their owners empty, or were they reloaded with product, and routed wherever? There were no guarantees that GTW boxcars would be returned to the GTW once the newsprint was unloaded particularly in times when there were boxcar shortages. If the GTW wanted newsprint cars to return, CN cars should be used - assuming that the newsprint came from Canada.

Hope this helps, Tim Gilbert

Mike Aufderheide wrote:

One thing I've noticed about the 1948 Monon
conductor's log I'm going through is the lack of Monon
boxcars in general. Plenty of gons and hoppers, but
boxcars are under represented as a proportion of the
Monon fleet: only 4 cars out of 52. Even Air Dump
cars show up more often! Maybe this goes to Tim's
theory on boxcar usage.

Mike,

Not so much theory because, in the 1948 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AAR'S SUPERINTENDENTS' CONVENTION which provided January 1 data for percent home cars on line for both all types and boxcars. On 12/31/1947, there were 1,999,441 cars owned by Class I RR's and private car lines or shippers in the US, but there were only 1,901,963 freight cars on line in the US according to the ICC's 1947 ANNUAL REPORT OF STATISTICS OF RAILWAYS IN THE US. To keep things simple, I will use the 1,999,443 total in the table below:

Home Foreign Total % at Home
Total Freight Cars 799,776 1,199,665 1,999,441 40.0% Given
less: Privately Owned Cars - 265,250 265,250 0.0%
RR-Owned Cars 799,776 934,415 1,734,191 46.1% Calculated
less: Boxcars 142,468 584,414 726,882 19.6% Given
All Other RR Car Types 657,308 350,001 1,007,309 65.3% Calculated

Because the MONON was a short haul railroad, I suspect that the percentage of MONON Boxcars on the home line of total boxcars on the Monon was much less than the national 19.6% average. 4 MONON boxcars out of a total of 52 cars could be extraordinarily high once hoppers, gons, MOW cars, etc. were eliminated to determine how many boxcars there were in your Conductor's Log - more so if the Log recorded through freights.

Regarding your 1948 MONON Conductor's Log, can you advise what "division" of the MONON it covered? Were they through or local freights? Between what month and day did the Log begin and end?

Thanks, Tim Gilbert

Tim Gilbert asked:

What happened to boxcars carrying newsprint when
they were unloaded?
Were they returned to their owners empty, or were
they reloaded with
product, and routed wherever?

Tim,

From the 1948 Monon conductor's log I have the
following Canadian cars:

CN B 476658 XB Southbound to Limedale (PRR)
CN B 523832 XB Northbound to Laf. Jct. (NKP WAB NYC)
CN B 528176 CORN Southbound to Louisville
CN ? 464091 ? Southbound to Bloomington
CP B 246493 R WOOL Northbound to S. Hammond (Chicago)
CP ? 180528 RUBBER Northbound to Michigan City (CSSSB
PM NYC)
CP B 247203 PAPER Southbound to Bloomington

Any thoughts?

Regards,

Mike



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Tim,

Thanks for the information. I haven't done it, but it
will be interesting to see if the Monon boxcar
percentage in this log matched the national despite
being on the home road.

The log covers the middle division between Lafayette
and Bloomington. The first entry is from 8/21/48 and
the last I have input is 12/9/48. About a third of
the trains are locals, a third through-freights and a
third extras (likely through as well) This covers
about 23 trains and 690 cars. I have about half of
what I copied at the Monon Society put into excel.
Much of what remains are coal trains on the Midland
branch. If this is useful to anyone, I'd be happy to
post it.

Regards,

Mike Aufderheide

--- Tim Gilbert <tgilbert@...> wrote:

Mike Aufderheide wrote:

One thing I've noticed about the 1948 Monon
conductor's log I'm going through is the lack of

Monon

boxcars in general. Plenty of gons and hoppers,

but

boxcars are under represented as a proportion of

the

Monon fleet: only 4 cars out of 52. Even Air

Dump

cars show up more often! Maybe this goes to

Tim's

theory on boxcar usage.

Mike,

Not so much theory because, in the 1948 PROCEEDINGS
OF THE AAR'S
SUPERINTENDENTS' CONVENTION which provided January 1
data for percent
home cars on line for both all types and boxcars. On
12/31/1947, there
were 1,999,441 cars owned by Class I RR's and
private car lines or
shippers in the US, but there were only 1,901,963
freight cars on line
in the US according to the ICC's 1947 ANNUAL REPORT
OF STATISTICS OF
RAILWAYS IN THE US. To keep things simple, I will
use the 1,999,443
total in the table below:

Home Foreign
Total % at Home
Total Freight Cars 799,776 1,199,665
1,999,441 40.0% Given
less: Privately Owned Cars - 265,250
265,250 0.0%
RR-Owned Cars 799,776 934,415
1,734,191 46.1%
Calculated
less: Boxcars 142,468 584,414
726,882 19.6% Given
All Other RR Car Types 657,308 350,001
1,007,309 65.3%
Calculated

Because the MONON was a short haul railroad, I
suspect that the
percentage of MONON Boxcars on the home line of
total boxcars on the
Monon was much less than the national 19.6% average.
4 MONON boxcars out
of a total of 52 cars could be extraordinarily high
once hoppers, gons,
MOW cars, etc. were eliminated to determine how many
boxcars there were
in your Conductor's Log - more so if the Log
recorded through freights.

Regarding your 1948 MONON Conductor's Log, can you
advise what
"division" of the MONON it covered? Were they
through or local freights?
Between what month and day did the Log begin and
end?

Thanks, Tim Gilbert



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Mike:

First, look as when the Monon bought steel boxcars. The second group of
steel cars (1 - 500) was coming on line at about the time of Bill's
data. That second group still made the total less than 1000. The wood
boxcar fleet was in bad shape and it is doubtful they ran far from home
in very large numbers.

I think your conductor logs are from Mr. Query whom I have met long ago.
Take into consideration the trains that he ran on. On the MONON I think
the train assignment would have a lot to do with what cars were seen.
Remember the through freight (I don't recall the number) that did not
handle open top cars?

As far as the dump cars go, I seem to recall Cookie or Ron Marquardt
talking about a steady move of some sort of rubble or stone byproduct
from around the quarries at Monon, IN shipped a couple of cars loads at
a time in dump cars.. I think they ended up on local trains and the
cars were dumped by the local crews as fill along the right of way or at
a construction site. A nice touch from an opertions standpoint. I need
to find my notes on that one.

You are right through, the MONON didn't have a lot of boxcars, but
surely some of them got to Frankfort on the NKP. That was the closest
point to return on the NKP from the east.

Mont Switzer

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

I would make the same argument for why there so few boxcars owned by
railroads of the Great Lakes Region (NYC, WAB, ERIE, DL&W, etc.. The CIL

was part of the Central East Region.). This works only if there was an
ample supply of empty boxcars in Frankfort. If this supply was
critically low, then empty boxcars of the Great Lakes Roads and the
MONON would be hoarded. At Frankfort, the supply of empty boxcars were
augmented by cars released from the NKP's Frankfort Car Shops.

I believe the NKP traffic balance was primarily westbound which would
cause the west end of the system to generate empties. Since Frankfort
was a major west end terminal for the NKP it seems that an abundant
supply of empties from all sorts of roads would be available.

Incidentally, MONON #1 was in Frankfort on January 10th, 1948 loaded
with drugs loaded at Bloomfield NJ and routed
ERIE-Lima-NKP-TRRA-SSW-Corsicana-T&NO-El Paso-SP-San Francisco.

Do you think #1 was an accurate summary of freight car activity or
something the RR PR departments tampered with as they saw fit. I know
the MONON did several photos Op's with #1 even if it wasn't there. They
just took a similar car and re-numbered it. We MONON modelers finally
caught on after we modeled the wrong door a few times.

Also, no 1 carried just about all of the paint schemes so it got
repainted more often than most.

Coke and Coal, I assume, were carried in hoppers which had much lower
percent loaded of total car miles than boxcars (55% vs. 76%) which
greatly reduced the opportunities for reloading empties before they were

returned to the mines or ovens; thus, the percent of hoppers on home
road lines of total hoppers on the MONON was greater than for boxcars. I

assume foundry sand was bagged and loaded into boxcars as were the TV
Cabinets. Were some of these commodities terminated on other roads? If
so, I would expect the MONON lost control of the routing of these
boxcars when they were unloaded just as they lost control of CIL #1 once

it was delivered to the L&N in Louisville on June 17th, 1947.

If it was Indiana coal from on line mines I would think most of it ran
in MONON hoppers. Although I don't have specifics I believe during that
period there was a law that state supported institutions had to burn
Indiana coal.

Coke was handled in special cars. In the late 1940's they were
converted composite gons and composite boxcars. Both looked like stock
cars without roofs. Later they went to steel gondolas with open top
lift out containers.

I'm not positive, but I think the sand was shipped in bulk in boxcars.
Later covered hoppers took over.

What happened to boxcars carrying newsprint when they were unloaded?
Were they returned to their owners empty, or were they reloaded with
product, and routed wherever? There were no guarantees that GTW boxcars
would be returned to the GTW once the newsprint was unloaded
particularly in times when there were boxcar shortages. If the GTW
wanted newsprint cars to return, CN cars should be used - assuming that
the newsprint came from Canada.

I'm not sure what happened to the GTW cars when empty in Indianapolis.
Freight to and from Indianapolis not balanced so outbound load
opportunities were not great. Probably the best bet for a load
northbound was grain and then only in season.

Mont Switzer

Mike Aufderheide wrote:

From the 1948 Monon conductor's log I have the

following Canadian cars:

CN B 476658 XB Southbound to Limedale (PRR)
CN B 523832 XB Northbound to Laf. Jct. (NKP WAB NYC)
CN B 528176 CORN Southbound to Louisville
CN ? 464091 ? Southbound to Bloomington
CP B 246493 R WOOL Northbound to S. Hammond (Chicago)
CP ? 180528 RUBBER Northbound to Michigan City (CSSSB
PM NYC)
CP B 247203 PAPER Southbound to Bloomington

Mike,

How many of these cars above can we assume were loaded in Canada, or terminated in Canada? Plus were the two empties being routed towards Canada? With this data, we can probably assume that the paper load of CP Box #247203 came from Canada? The Northbound Rubber Load, I assume was being routed MONON-CSSB-South Bend-PM-Buffalo-NYC which would be in compliance with the "Rule" because of the PM transit through Ontario. The empties I am not concerned with because it was still possible for the cars to be reloaded for Canada.

Tim Gilbert

Montford Switzer wrote:

Responding to Tim Gilbert:

I would make the same argument for why there so few boxcars owned by
railroads of the Great Lakes Region (NYC, WAB, ERIE, DL&W, etc.. The CIL

was part of the Central East Region.). This works only if there was an
ample supply of empty boxcars in Frankfort. If this supply was
critically low, then empty boxcars of the Great Lakes Roads and the
MONON would be hoarded. At Frankfort, the supply of empty boxcars were
augmented by cars released from the NKP's Frankfort Car Shops.

Mont responded:

I believe the NKP traffic balance was primarily westbound which would
cause the west end of the system to generate empties. Since Frankfort
was a major west end terminal for the NKP it seems that an abundant
supply of empties from all sorts of roads would be available.

Between 1946 and 1950 per the ICC's OPERATING STATISTICS OF LARGE STEAM RR's, the NKP's eastbound loaded freight car miles as a percent of total loaded car miles was 65.5% in 1946, 65.0% in 1947, 64.0% in 1948, 61.4% in 1949 and 58.2% in 1950 - these percentages reflect the effect of the W&LE which began to be consolidated with the NKP staring in 1949. The difference between east and westbound percent loaded car miles of total car miles is reflected below:

PERCENT LOADED FREIGHT CAR MILES
Year Eastbound Westbound Both Directions
1946 89.6% 49.9% 70.3%
1947 87.8% 48.0% 68.1%
1948 86.5% 51.2% 69.3%
1949 78.2% 50.7% 64.7%
1950 75.7% 56.8% 66.5%

Overall, more empties were going westbound than eastbound on through trains through Frankfort.

(Incidentally, the MONON was never considered to be a Large Steam RR by the ICC so I don't know its operating statistics unlike the NKP.)

Mont wrote:

Incidentally, MONON #1 was in Frankfort on January 10th, 1948 loaded
with drugs loaded at Bloomfield NJ and routed
ERIE-Lima-NKP-TRRA-SSW-Corsicana-T&NO-El Paso-SP-San Francisco.

Do you think #1 was an accurate summary of freight car activity or
something the RR PR departments tampered with as they saw fit. I know
the MONON did several photos Op's with #1 even if it wasn't there. They
just took a similar car and re-numbered it. We MONON modelers finally
caught on after we modeled the wrong door a few times.

No doubt the numbering of MONON #1 was a publicity stunt by John Barringer. #1's itinerary, however, as published in the ad on pages 56-57 of the September 1948 TRAINS, however, was fact. Was #1's itinerary a "typical" one for a boxcar in 1947-1948? No it was not, but it was not too far off the "typical" boxcar in 1947-48.

The "average" boxcar in the US traveled about 22,000 miles per year of which 75-80% of those miles were loaded. The "average" boxcar was loaded 25 different times a year.

In comparison, CIL #1 traveled about 27,000 miles with over 95% of those miles being loaded. CIL #1 was loaded about 33 times with 20 different commodities, and traveled in 36 different states by 41 different railroads. This is not photographic evidence, but results of tabulations from the data in the TRAINS ad.

Modelers of the MONON RR operations should not be that concerned about CIL #1 because it was on its home road only about 500 miles in the June 1947 to June 1948 period. Those miles included the initial load of merchandise from Crawfordsville to Louisville (L&N) on June 13-17, 1947, and between December 17 and December 24, 1947 when #1 carried a load of syrup which was loaded on the B&O Chicago Terminal in Chicago for a consignee served by the Indianapolis Union RR. (On December 26th, it was loaded with auto parts on the IURR for delivery on the ERIE in Bloomfield NJ.) CIL #1 only returned to the MONON in June 1948 because Management asked the B&O to return the car empty so it could be gussied up for the Chicago Rail Fair.

Mont wrote:

Also, no 1 carried just about all of the paint schemes so it got
repainted more often than most.

After CIL #1 stint at the Chicago Rail Fair, I don't know what happened to #1.

I wrote:

Coke and Coal, I assume, were carried in hoppers which had much lower
percent loaded of total car miles than boxcars (55% vs. 76%) which
greatly reduced the opportunities for reloading empties before they were

returned to the mines or ovens; thus, the percent of hoppers on home
road lines of total hoppers on the MONON was greater than for boxcars. I

assume foundry sand was bagged and loaded into boxcars as were the TV
Cabinets. Were some of these commodities terminated on other roads? If
so, I would expect the MONON lost control of the routing of these
boxcars when they were unloaded just as they lost control of CIL #1 once

it was delivered to the L&N in Louisville on June 17th, 1947.

Mont responded:

If it was Indiana coal from on line mines I would think most of it ran
in MONON hoppers. Although I don't have specifics I believe during that
period there was a law that state supported institutions had to burn
Indiana coal.

The use of the home road hoppers serving mines on the home road was the usual practice throughout the country albeit there were some exceptions.

Mont wrote:

Coke was handled in special cars. In the late 1940's they were
converted composite gons and composite boxcars. Both looked like stock
cars without roofs. Later they went to steel gondolas with open top
lift out containers.
I'm not positive, but I think the sand was shipped in bulk in boxcars.
Later covered hoppers took over.

I wrote:

What happened to boxcars carrying newsprint when they were unloaded?
Were they returned to their owners empty, or were they reloaded with
product, and routed wherever? There were no guarantees that GTW boxcars
would be returned to the GTW once the newsprint was unloaded
particularly in times when there were boxcar shortages. If the GTW
wanted newsprint cars to return, CN cars should be used - assuming that
the newsprint came from Canada.

Mont responded:

I'm not sure what happened to the GTW cars when empty in Indianapolis.
Freight to and from Indianapolis not balanced so outbound load
opportunities were not great. Probably the best bet for a load
northbound was grain and then only in season.

If no loads were available in Indianapolis, the GTW boxcars would have been returned empty towards the GTW. These boxcars could be plucked from trains on their way home, reloaded and routed to God knows where much like the NKP did with CIL #1 around Erie PA in August 1947 when #1 was loaded with tomato juice for Nashville TN.

Mont later amended his statement about GTW boxcars carrying newsprint to CN and CP newsprint cars.

Tim Gilbert

Mike Aufderheide wrote:

Tim,

Thanks for the information. I haven't done it, but it
will be interesting to see if the Monon boxcar
percentage in this log matched the national despite
being on the home road.

Mike,

The ICC did not include the MONON in its Operating Stats of Large Steam RR's so I cannot tell you what the percentage of home road cars to total cars on line was for that line. I cannot even tell you what the Daily Average of Total Cars on the MONON was in any year.

On December 31, 1947, the MONON reported to the ICC that they owned 989 boxcars, 72 flats and 1,161 hoppers & gons for a total of 2,222 freight cars. I have no idea of what percentage those 2,222 cars were of the Daily Average of Total Freight Cars on the MONON, but I suspect that the number of total cars on the MONON was in excess of 2,500.

I have no idea of what how many boxcars, both home and foreign-owned, flats, hoppers & gons, stock cars, reefers tank cars, etc. were part of the daily average of total cars on the MONON in 1947 or 1948 (or for any other year). I suspect, however, that in 1947-48, the MONON owned less boxcars than were total home and foreign boxcars on the MONON - this is pretty much my gut feel based upon observation of other roads as they correlate with what traffic I think the MONON had.

Given this, how many boxcars were there that you could use to get the January 1, 1948 19.6% national average of home road boxcars to estimate the number of MONON boxcars at home?

The log covers the middle division between Lafayette
and Bloomington. The first entry is from 8/21/48 and
the last I have input is 12/9/48. About a third of
the trains are locals, a third through-freights and a
third extras (likely through as well) This covers
about 23 trains and 690 cars. I have about half of
what I copied at the Monon Society put into excel.
Much of what remains are coal trains on the Midland
branch. If this is useful to anyone, I'd be happy to
post it.

I don't think the STMFC's Files has room for your EXCEL spreadsheet. I, for one, would be interested in seeing it.

No doubt if I get it that I will cross reference with a contemporary ORER, classify car types, and regionalize the ownership, separate loads vs. empties, and north vs. southbounds for each car reported. Those would be the least massaging I would do. And then I would aggregate so that I can summarize and analyze the data. This is more or less what I have done with UP, SOU and T&NO Wheel Reports I have parsed.

Take Care, Tim Gilbert

Mike,the 1952 CPR Summary of Equipment shows CP180528 as a 36 foot steel frame box car, one of 16,030 similar cars in service on CPR in that year. That would be the "Dominion" or "Fowler" type single sheathed wood car, built between 1909 and 1913.

Hope this helps
Doug Rhodes