Date
21 - 25 of 25
War Emergency Hoppers
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Tim O'Connor <timoconnor@...>
Shawn Beckert wrote
My problem is nailing down the type of traffic that movedFrom my "Report on the Alton Railroad Company", there is a table showing that "transcontinental traffic"* for 1920's-30's (1) Tonnage split about 68% eastbound, 32% westbound (2) About 39% of eastbound tons were perishable foods (3) About 38% of eastbound tons were lumber and wood products (4) About 15% of westbound tons were iron, steel products (5) About 19% of westbound tons were autos, trucks, parts (6) Other westbound traffic was manufactured products which included merchandise, paper, foods, beverages That sounds about right to me for bridge traffic on the SSW. Coal would have been received by the SSW at St Louis, Memphis and other points for distribution all over its lines, but not as bridge traffic. I think IC, GM&O, L&N, NC&StL, Southern, B&O, C&O, Wabash, CB&Q, MP, C&EI, RI, and even NYC coal cars would not be unusual on the SSW between St Louis/Memphis and Pine Bluff. What you need is a list of SSW online customers to see which ones received coal, and from whom! [ * The table is not entirely clear about how it defines traffic to be transcontinental or not. My guess is that it may simply mean freight conveyed from western roads to eastern or midwestern connections. The book is chock full of data and I haven't studied much of it closely. ] Timothy O'Connor <timoconnor@mediaone.net> Marlborough, Massachusetts
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Tim O'Connor <timoconnor@...>
The Santa Fe used their WE hoppers for coal service on the eastern partI don't have any evidence from the 1940's, but I do have plenty of photos from the "Front Range" of Colorado in the 1960's showing a lot of hoppers from distant owners, and lots of mixed up consists. The beet harvest in Colorado and Wyoming was quite intense, and everyone seemed to get a piece of the action. Cars were shanghied as needed, evidently. Pueblo (CF&I Steel) received coke from the east, resulting in L&N and Southern Railway and IC hoppers. C&NW hoppers are in abundance too. But Richard is no doubt correct in the sense that 99% of Q and AT&SF hoppers were probably on home rails 90% (or more) of the time. Timothy O'Connor <timoconnor@mediaone.net> Marlborough, Massachusetts
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thompson@...
Mike Brock says:
I believe that most photographic evidence will show that during the steamNot based on the C&O photos I've browsed--though I can't claim to be anything like an expert on C&O. Here, things get a bit tricky. The Prince book shows...and there is aI don't claim N&W (or any particular road) didn't send hoppers off line. What I do say is that, aside from traffic like coal to the Great Lakes, it was only in small groups in MOST cases. Documentation needed in general. My all time favorite, of course, is that damnedNote: one lonely hopper in each case. If you want oddballs, I have a photo of a Reading (empty) hopper in LA in the early 1950s. Am I going to model it? Hell no. 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@signaturepress.com Publishers of books on railroads and on Western history
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Garth G. Groff <ggg9y@...>
Tony,
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Via-a-vis the C&O, the purity of their coal trains varied with different parts of the system. In Virginia, published photo evidence shows that in the late steam era the trains were about 99% C&O. The major exception was for Berwind hoppers. A modest fleet of these was mixed with the C&O's, and indeed they were maintained at Newport News. In western West Virginia and Kentucky, the situation was quite different. The C&O had joint operations with the Virginian and the NYC (the details of which I no longer have). There are published photos showing Virginian cars in C&O trains from this area. Cars from these two roads, at least, would not have been rare, though probably not so common on the C&O either. More likely they would have been loaded on joint lines for a specific destination on their home roads, picked up in a local or sweeper train, and then marshalled into cuts for interchange to their home roads. Of course, freight cars themselves were almost never photographed by fans in those days, unless they just happened to be behind some monster steam locomotive. This tends to skew the value of photos as evidence. I agree that conductors' books are better sources, but you would still need a pile of them from different men, since a conductor with seniority might always be on the same run with the same car mix (or lack of mix) for years at a time. Kind regards, Garth G. Groff
Not based on the C&O photos I've browsed--though I can't claim to be
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Ted Culotta <ted@...>
Garth wrote:
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Of course, freight cars themselves were almost never photographed by fans in those days, unless they just happened to be behind some monster steam locomotive. I would agree with him and also add that many photographers may have photographed freight cars because of the shock value to that particular photographer, thereby making the extremely rare seem commonplace to subsequent would-be historians examining the photos. I'm sure that there are many instances (and I don't use this example literally, but rather illustratively) of a photographer snapping a picture of the one pickle car he's ever seen rather than the thousands of seemingly mundane hoppers that were always 'in the way' when he peered through his viewfinder. Ted
-----Original Message-----
From: Garth G. Groff [mailto:ggg9y@virginia.edu] Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 5:19 AM To: STMFC@egroups.com Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: War Emergency Hoppers Tony, Via-a-vis the C&O, the purity of their coal trains varied with different parts of the system. In Virginia, published photo evidence shows that in the late steam era the trains were about 99% C&O. The major exception was for Berwind hoppers. A modest fleet of these was mixed with the C&O's, and indeed they were maintained at Newport News. In western West Virginia and Kentucky, the situation was quite different. The C&O had joint operations with the Virginian and the NYC (the details of which I no longer have). There are published photos showing Virginian cars in C&O trains from this area. Cars from these two roads, at least, would not have been rare, though probably not so common on the C&O either. More likely they would have been loaded on joint lines for a specific destination on their home roads, picked up in a local or sweeper train, and then marshalled into cuts for interchange to their home roads. Of course, freight cars themselves were almost never photographed by fans in those days, unless they just happened to be behind some monster steam locomotive. This tends to skew the value of photos as evidence. I agree that conductors' books are better sources, but you would still need a pile of them from different men, since a conductor with seniority might always be on the same run with the same car mix (or lack of mix) for years at a time. Kind regards, Garth G. Groff Not based on the C&O photos I've browsed--though I can't claim to beTo unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: STMFC-unsubscribe@egroups.com
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