Hello everyone,
I was wondering if anyone could fill me in on how railroads interacted with frieght accross the country. Let’s say 70-80’s time period, If I wanted to move freight from Los Angeles, to Detroit, I am interested in the railroads that handled the frieght, and how it was transferred. How was frieght handed off from one railroad to the next, and if possible, also provide specific railyards and cities?
Thanks in advance,
Jeremy
In the two areas I am most familiar with, interchange was fairly staight forward. In the case of the New Haven, a large receiving and classification yard was maintained at Maybrook, NY. The western roads, such as the Erie, brought the freight into the receiving tracks and the power then went to the departure tracks and took the west bound freight. The New Haven classified it as to destination and they went on their way over the Poughkeepsie Bridge spanning the Hudson River to the various destinations. Most of it ended up in the huge Cedar Hill classification yards where it was again broken down for destination and sent on the way to the B&M, Central Vermont, or whatever.
Some interchange was very simple. In New London the NH dropped off Vermont Central traffic and picked up incoming for distribution to the west.
In Chicago, most roads maintained huge receiving and classification yards. They either received their own incoming freight or freight destined for other areas were transferred by a Belt Line Railroad which lugged the cars from one railroad’s yard to the other.
In some areas, such as where two lines crossed, there was a wye track arangement and sidings where freight was dropped off and picked up by the other railroad and vice versa. A train would pull past the crossover and drop the cars back into the siding and be on its way. If there were cars to be picked up they would do so.
The whole objective was to keep the freight on the move.
And stick the next guy with the car hire fee. [8D]
Nick
A couple thousand total.
A minimum of 2 railroads and as many as 3 or 4, depending on the exact route the shipper specifies.
The traffic is “interchanged”. The shipper specifies the route (or the reciever or the origin road) and the car is moved on that route. The route specifies the railroads and junction points (not necessarily rail yards). The routing instructions are on a “waybill”. Each railroad on the waybill routes the car over thier railroad to the junction point listed and gives the car to the connecting railroad at that junction. the information on the waybill or the waybill itself is given to the connecting railroad and they move the car from the point they recieved the car to their junction or the customer. By the late 1970’s much of the waybill information was exchanged electronically.
So a route from LA to Detroit might be ATSF-Chicago-CO or it might be UP-Fremont-CNW-Chicago-BO or SP-El Paso-TP-Texarkana-MP-St Louis-BO. The routing doesn’t say where the cars are switched, just which railroads and which junction points. The railroads are free to handle the car and switch it as they see fit on their own railroad. Each railroad has a “transportation plan” that determines how they route business over their own railroad.
Dave H.
The originating railroad is going to charge mileage based on the ability to keep the car on their road for the longest distance. Use an LA to NY car as an example. UP or BNSF probably has the shortest route to Chicago where it would be interchanged so that determines how many miles that are charged to the shipper. If you are a competing railroad say the SP/CRIP in days gone by your distance is going to be greater but you have two choices. Interchange with one of the above somewhere close to the source and only get paid for a local move or route thecar through Tumcumcari New Mexico and then CRIP to Chicago. The car will travel more mileage but you will get paid based on the shortest route and you will get paid a lot more before handing it off to the PRR or NYC for delivery the rest of the way. Don’ forget it’s a business and its purpose is to make the maximum amount of money for its owners. So the rule is keep it on your rails as long as possible.
Thank you everyone who has answered my questions! This is a great help in modeling the railroad world.
Thanks again,
Jeremy
Its not that they “charge” mileage, its a portion of the “division of revenue” is based on mileage. So under “tarriff” rates (everything pre-Staggers bill) there was a fixed rate between origin destination pairs. So the same rate applied to flour, milled, in 100 lb bags between LA and Detroit, no matter what route was taken or how long the route was. If you went direct on the ATSF, its was 10 cents a 100 lbs, if you went via new Orleans, it was 10 cents a pound. Obviously the railroads wanted to maximize the length of haul since they got a higher percentage of the revenue. The originating road got a bite for having the origin, the terminating road might get a bit for terminating it and the remaining road haul was split on a mileage basis (more or less) So the object of the railroad was to haul it the most direct route (minimizing cost) that was the most miles on their railroad (maximizing division).
Dave H.
As far as how the cars were handed off. Chicago has many yards, railroads would run transfers or the Indiana Harbor Belt would transfer the cars for them (which I believe was most of the transfers in Chicago). As stated in another post, ATSF could take it all the way to Chicago, UP/CNW or SP handed off to one of the other RRs. Once in Chicago, IHB transfers to cars to Conrail, CSX or one of the Canadian RRs (not sure which ones served Detroit).
On a similar note, some hot frieghts may just switch power or crews in Chicago and the entire train goes on into Detroit.
Rick
It’s less complicated than I might have though. I am also thinking of trains which are split to several parts of the country, such as 40 boxcars of Coca-Cola. I have a pretty good idea how one train gets handled by other railroads to deliver the goods. The only gray area I might have in a prototypical sense, is trackage rights. Specifically, does it regard the paint on the locomotive, or the crew operating it?
Thanks again for everyone’s detailed responses.
Jeremy
Trackage rights are a contract between two railroads where one railroad gets to operate its trains over the other railroads track on a certain route (often with restrictions) for a fee (i.e. per mile or per car). The railroad with the rights operates thier trains with “their” power and their crews. The locomotives and cars are not interchanged and they stay in whichever railroad owns the train’s account.
So if the BNSF is excercising trackage rights over the UP then a BNSF train with BNSF power and a BNSF crew will operate over the UP’s tracks. The UP provides the track and dispatching, but the BNSF has the rest.
Dave H.
Thanks again, Dave. [:)]
Although very rare, there are instances where trackage rights include the rights to serve some or all of the customers along the line. The fee for this type of trackage rights is much greater then simple overhead rights, and is typically only imposed by the government to maintain some form of competition.
Nick
I was going to bring up essentially the same point.
I was taking an economics class through the University of Maryland when I was stationed in Germany in the early '70s and I was doing some research for an oral presentation and I encountered an article in Forbes or Fortune or whatever talking about the (possible) deregulation of the railroads and the author deliberated for some length on this ‘division of revenue’. I had never given much thought as to how the railroads made money and this article went far towards explaining it.