When more than one railroad connected two points via roughly parallel routes, there were sometimes (and may still be) agreements on how much of the traffic between those points would be handled by each road. Shippers could, of course, specify the routing for their traffic but, if the shipper did not specify the routing, these agreements came into play.
Does anyone recall what these agreements were called. “Traffic sharing” agreements just doesn’t sound right to me although it’s a descriptive term. While you’re at it, I’ve got a couple of other questions about these agreements:
- How were they actually implemented on the ground?
- Most of these agreements, I believe, specified the division of traffic on a percentage basis; you get 30%, I get 30%, and another road gets 40% (he has more capacity?). Were any other bases used?
- Did these agreements typically apply equally to all carload traffic or were other factors like commodity or ultimate destination considered?
- How were these agreements monitored and enforced?
Thanks for any information you can supply.
I think the term you’re looking for is “pooling” agreements. The one I’ve heard most about is the Iowa Pool in the late 1800s. The railroads that connected with the UP at Council Bluffs pooled eastward trafffic. I’ve read a little about it, but don’t know enough to say how it worked.
In Council Bluffs, there is still a small yard in the UP’s complex still referred to as the “pool” yard. Individual tracks are still referred to by the railroad that received interchange traffic i.e., the Q track for CB&Q, the Rock track for the RI. I believe the yard was still used for interchange with the various roads long after the pool was abolished, but the name stuck. (Didn’t the ICC act or related laws make these pools illegal?)
Today, it’s just another part of the yard. The IAIS still delivers and picks up traffic, but the BNSF and CN transfer runs are just as likely to use other parts of the yard for interchange.
Jeff
The term you are looking for is pooling.
Enforcement was such a problem that pools were seldom effective. IIRC pools were outlawed by the original Act to Regulate Interstate Commerce of 1887.
The best study I know of a particular pool is the book The Iowa Pool by Grodinsky. Should be available used on Amazon. Spelling of name is from memory so check by title.
Mac McCulloch
I think you’re both right on the term. “Pooling” sounds more familiar in this context than “sharing”.
You may be right, Mac, about pooling being outlawed in 1887, but I seem to recall some reference to pooling in the Twenties or Thirties. My memory, too, is of pooling between Omaha and Chicago. That would be supported by Jeff’s “Pool Yard” at Council Bluffs; I know things change with glacial slowness in the railroad industry but I doubt an informal name like that would last for more than 100 years.
Googling “Iowa Railroad Pool” shows the book Mac mentioned as available. The pool only lasted into the 1880s and I think was outlawed. Even though the pool was abolished, the yard still was the interchange point for many years afterward. To the guys doing the work, shoving cars to the Q or the Rock or the MILW was no different whether under the pool arrangement or not. I think that’s why the name stuck for so long.
Jeff
PS At Boone there is still a track called the cinder pit. Steam has been gone (except for specials) since the 1950s, yet the name remains and probably always will.
As a general practice, pooling was outlawed under the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887. However, it was allowed under certain circumstances and required the approval of the Commission. An example that comes to mind was the pooling of iron ore traffic out of the Upper Peninsula by MILW and C&NW.
Another way to look at it when two rail lines essentially parallel each other between two points is they will use one line’s track for east bound and the other for west bound traffic (where the lines are single track) A couple of examples that come to mind are the Southern Pacific/Western Pacific in Nevada and the Canadian National/Canadian Pacific in the Fraser river canyon.
In these cases (and there are several others), each railroad carries its own traffic, sharing the track with no consideration for how much of the total that traffic represents. With the kind of pooling I’m talking about, the railroads involved decided beforehand the proportion of the total that each would handle (on their own rails). Sharing the track has no impact on revenue but supposedly reduces costs. Pooling traffic essentially shared the revenue but had only a minimal effect on costs.