Freight car type - breakdown by RR lines for 1940, 1950, 1960 eras

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Somewhere a while back, I had run across some figures (percentages?) for what part of the cars on a railroad were from that RR line, what were from immediately connecting (secondary) lines, and what part were from other lines. The figures I had broke it down by boxcars, flats, hoppers, etc. - general car type - and had percentages for the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s (with different percentages as the years progressed, natch).

Anyone know where that information can be found? Preferably, I’d like something online rather than one more book I have to buy (since funds are very limited currently). I was looking for the figures to have more realistic composition of the types of cars on my layout. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Or if someone from Kalmbach is reading here, there’s an addition to your Freight Cars book… (hint, hint).[;)]

Blessings,

Jim in Cape Girardeau

2

In a general sense, the annual ORER’s are what you’re looking for. These listed the number and types of cars each railroad owned during that year. They’re great references, but aren’t online. Westerfield sells several of them on CD-ROM, and the NMRA has two published in book form. The originals are getting pricey.

As an alternative, the NEB&W website lists compilations of this same data on their website:
http://railroad.union.rpi.edu
It’s a pay site, but full of more information than you can buy in the printed word for it’s annual fee. Join monthly, and it’s the cost of a magazine.

3

Thanks, Roy, but those would only list for one RR at a time - the info I recalled showed it in terms of something like this (say for 1940’s in this example):
-------------(such as, ATSF)—(like SP, UP, WP)
----------------Main road---------Connecting road------Other roads
Boxcars-------52%-----------------29%----------------------19%
Flatcars-------47%-----------------32%----------------------21%
…

(etc.)

The figures I recall having found showed what the usual distribution by lines was - within each time period, by each type of car.

Still looking… [sigh]

Blessings,

Jim in Cape Girardeau

4

The information you are looking for is also in Moody’s Transportation Manuals and Moody’s Steam Railroads. These large hard bound books may be available at larger reference libraries.

5

But would the data be useful? I assume you would want to build your car fleet in a prototypical ratio of car types but different roads would have different mixes. I would guess that the DM&IR is 90% or better ore cars and that coal pipelines like the C&O, N&W and L&N would have a far greater proportion of hoppers than, say, SP or Santa Fe.

6

I’ve heard a good rule of thumb was to have 50% home road cars and 50% foreign road cars.
For the types of cars, especially if the railroad you model is regional, the home railroad’s ratio of car types would probably be representative of the ratios of foreign road cars on the line as the industries on the line will drive that freight car ratio type and the home road will have cars in line with the industries they serve. Of course, this is just a generality. I would assume that this does not apply to coal and iron ore hoppers. Those cars would be mostly from the roads that service the mines.

7

You can crunch statictics about car types and ownership all you want, but that will never tell you what mix you should have to be prototypical at a given location (or even a general area) and time period.

The only reliable data would be the actual train consists and switch lists. This info can be hard to find but some is available. There are also some railfans who occasionally record car type and/or reporting number information on trains they see. I have also seen videos which show an entire train.

The relationship between railroads which interchange may be cooperative or competing depending on the location and type of traffic and specific industries served. This affects the mix of car ownership that would be seen. Railroads don’t want to give business to a competitor. As observation, in no way definitive, in the early 1980’s, I saw a few SP cars on the WP and can’t remember ever seeing a WP car on the SP although they could interchange at numerous points. Also I don’t remember seeing a WP train with anything close to 50% home road cars. Some but not all SP were probably well over 50% home road if you count subsidiaries.

8

[:(]Yes you’re right. The figures stated would have been gross generalisations anyway as the volatile 40’s included specific cause and effect of where cars would be- economic, military, legal, car type shortages, expiry periods and operational interventions ALL impact on a month to month, year to year and seasonal basis.

HOW MANY types of car a road owned bears a POOR RELATIONSHIP to WHERE those cars may be found, except as cited for very sepcific reasons and periods (i.e. dates).

I monitor about 25 rr related yahoo elists/ groups as well as here and other forums and am amazed at, tho not surprised (as I am a stats man anyway), the ‘dipersion of cars’ and causes of it.

Soome groups to join and search for selective data would be
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wplist/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nscale1930-75/
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/citrusmodeling/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Reefer-madness/

hope this helps your search,
dave
[:p]

9

Finally found the figures I had on the distribution by (general) kinds of freight cars for time periods, and the usual portions by Home RR line, primary connecting line, secondary connecting line, and other lines. Never did find out where I got these breakdowns, so take them with a grain (or two) or salt, and adjust as you see fit. As others have already mentioned here, the figures are different with lines where there is a very dominant type of industry (such as DM&IR, etc.)

In the first (Early 1940’s) ‘table’, I’ve put the calculated percentages for each car and line, but it shouldn’t be too hard to have a spreadsheet set up to calculate things for you. Put an entry area near the top (of the ‘table’ for your RR’s time period) where you can plug in how many total cars you want/have for you, and let the spreadsheet calculate what the numbers of cars for your line, the primary connecting line, etc. will be (how many boxcars in your line, how many boxcars for ATSF (if that’s your primary connecting RR), how many SP boxcars, how many D&RGW, etc. The column for your Home RR will be 50% of the total (leftmost column) of that type of car (boxcar or hopper, or…), and the Primary column will be 25% of the car type total, the secondary line’s column will be calculated at 15% of the leftmost column’s number of cars of that type. For the others, I just listed the breakdown by percentage totals for the types of cars

So, hope this will make it easier to ‘see’ what I was writing about:

Early 1940’s: [Total # of cars here]
Percent (of total cars)-----------------------Connecting lines
-----------Type of car-------Home RR-----primary-----2ndry------Other

44.0%–Boxcar ---------------22%----------11%---------6.6%------4.4%
20.0-----Hopper---------------10%-----------5%----------3%--------2%
0.5-----Cov. Hopper---------0.25%------0.125%----0.075%----0.05%

10

Hi Jim,
well at least you have the right kinda 'puter… [:D]

Apart from a basic starting point for a completely new, unresearched or fictional model railroad, the data looks like bunkum to me…

44.0%–Boxcar ---------------22%----------11%---------6.6%------4.4%
is just a linear extrapolation of extremely subjective/ or at least selective representation and unlikely combination. There are significant defects in the ‘assumptions made’ like most rr didnt own [many] tank cars, shippers did; a lot used leased reefers and had no own-named stock, etc. and as you’ve said takes no account of regional differences…
great discussions on the Yahoo groups about the PRR gons fleet, where reefers got to in the East, why loaded coal hoppers passed each other in Pens. etc.
I think you’re better off without that particular info jim,
regds
dave

11

[:D]
Jim ,
heres a copy of info from Steam Era Yahoo elist… trust it will help-
not of my making but a really interesting dissertation that I archived to make use of-

From: “Mike Brock” <brockm@…t>
Subject: Characteristics of RRs
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 00:19:33 -0400
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There was no such thing as a “typical” railroad for that would imply the

“typical” railroad to be merely the “average” railroad. So what you

really mean may be better phrased as a “multi-dimensional” railroad. So

let’s explore a few of the statistical averages of a few

multi-dimensional railroads with the National average in 1947 and note

the differences between them. (I like to use 1947 because that year

combined civilian traffic with hardly any freight car surpluses.)

1947 AVG RR PRR NYC SOU UP AT&SF

% Car Miles Loaded 66.4% 66.9% 64.5% 70.2% 66.5% 67.6%

" - Eastbound 76.0% 81.6% 84.5% 83.9% 72.8% 69.0%

" - Westbound 56.9% 52.1% 45.7% 56.6% 60.3% 66.3%

% Loaded Car Mi - East 57.1% 61.2% 63.5% 59.7% 54.7% 50.5%

" - Westbound 42.9% 38.8% 36.5% 40.3% 45.3% 49.5%

Ton Mi/Loaded Car Miles 32.6 34.8 31.9 28.7 29.5 26.5

Cars per Train 52.3 58.4 57.1 3

12

You also need to know which train you are trying to model. Scheduled trains usually had a distinct car mix and would make them easily distinguished.

A couple of examples that I know. The NE87/NE84 pair that ran on the RDG/LV/D&H/B&M was a southeastern to New England (thus the NE) train. It was always very heavy with CP, CN, CV, BAR, MEC, and SOU box cars. It also had quite a number of clay and bleach tank cars for the paper mills. The other example is The Bethlehem Star which the Reading ran from Rutherford to Bethlehem and back. It was completely consigned to Bethlehem Steel and the train consisited almost entirely of gondolas from RDG, LV, CNJ, PRR, and the Bethlehem Steel Roads. It also had a number of RDG covered hoppers (for the flux) and quite a number of B&O and WM open hoppers (for metallergical coal). Both trains could not be mistaken for any other.

There are lots of other examples, like RDG trains coming off of the Wilmington & Norhern Branch were full of chemical tank cars. Reading trains coming from the Newberry interchanges would have lots of NYC and EL cars. Certain Pennsy hotshots into Philly would frequently have one or more of the 87 foot long cattle cars, while others would never have a cattle car.

If you want to accurately model trains you need to get some train order sheets, or conductor’s lists so you can see what mix of cars and roadnames were common on the trains you want to model.