The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and Appliances

by Thomas Curtis Clarke

I.
THE WANDERINGS OF A CAR.

On the 14th of December, 1886, there was loaded in Indianapolis a car belonging to one of the roads passing through that city. It was loaded with corn consigned to parties in Boston. The car was delivered to the Lake Shore road at Cleveland on the 16th; but, owing to bad weather and various other local causes, it did not reach East Buffalo until December 28th. It was turned over by the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad to the West Shore road the next day, and by this company was taken to Rotterdam Junction, and there delivered on December 31st to the Western Division of the Fitchburg Railroad, or what was then known as the Boston, Hoosac Tunnel & Western. They took it promptly through to Boston. After a few days the corn was sold by the consignees for delivery in Medfield, on the New York & New England Railway. The car was delivered to this road on January 24, 1887, and taken down to Medfield. There it remained among a large number of other cars, until it suited the convenience of the purchaser to put the corn into his elevator.

On the 17th of March the car was unloaded, taken back to Boston, and delivered to the Fitchburg road to be sent West, homeward. That company took it promptly, but instead of delivering it to the West Shore road at Rotterdam Junction, as would have been the regular course, either through some mistake of a yardmaster at the junction station, or in pursuance of general instructions to load all Western cars home whenever practicable, the car was not delivered to the West Shore, but was turned over to the Delaware & Hudson Canal Co's. Railroad, taken down to the coal regions, and on March 31st delivered to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, by whom it was loaded with coal for Chicago. That company promptly delivered it to the Grand Trunk at Buffalo, and on April 10th the car reached Chicago. It was immediately reconsigned by the local agents of the coal company to a dealer in the town of Minot, 523 miles west of St. Paul, on the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad. To reach that point, it was delivered to the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific on April 10th, then to the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern, Minneapolis & St. Louis, St. Paul & Duluth, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba, arriving at its destination on the 14th of April.

Winter still reigned in that locality, and the car was promptly unloaded, and returned to St. Paul, where it was loaded with wheat consigned to New York. It left St. Paul on the 26th of April, was promptly moved through to Chicago, and delivered to the Grand Trunk. Coming east, in Canada, the train of which this car formed a part, while passing through a small station, in the night ran into an open switch. The engine dashed into a number of loaded cars standing on the siding, and the cars behind it were piled up in bad confusion, a number of them being destroyed, and the freight scattered in all directions. Our car, whose history we are tracing, suffered comparatively slight damage. The drawheads were broken, and some castings on one truck, not sufficient to affect in any way the loading of the car. It was sent to the shops of the road; and it became necessary for them, on examination, to send to the owners of the car for a casting to replace that broken on the truck. This resulted in serious detention. The requisition for this casting had to be approved by the Superintendent and by the General Manager, and was forwarded, after a considerable delay, to the officers of the road owning the car. There it was sent through a number of offices before it finally reached the hands of the man who was able to supply the required casting. This in turn was sent by freight, and passed over the intervening territory at a slow rate; the whole involving a detention which held the car from April 28th, when it was delivered at Chicago to the Grand Trunk, until July 18th, when finally the Grand Trunk delivered it to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western at Buffalo. It came through promptly to New York, the grain was put in an elevator, the car was sent back once more to the mines at Scranton, and again loaded with coal for Chicago. On August 9th the record says the car was delivered by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western to the Grand Trunk, and on the 12th of August it was in Chicago.

About this time the owners of the car began to make vigorous appeals to the various roads, urging them to send the car home. One of these tracers reached the Grand Trunk road while they still held the car in their possession; so that orders were sent that the coal must be unloaded at once, and the car returned. In order to unload it, it was necessary to switch it to the Illinois Central for some local consignee, and it was unloaded within four days and delivered back to the Grand Trunk at Chicago. This was on August 16th. During the few days that had elapsed since the order was given to send this car home, there had been an active demand for cars, and knowing that this one had to be sent to Buffalo in order to be delivered to the Lake Shore road, from which it had originally been received, the car was loaded for that point. This again resulted in detention, for we find that the car was held on the Grand Trunk tracks at Black Rock, awaiting the pleasure of the consignee to unload the freight, until the 27th of September; and then, instead of being unloaded and delivered to the Lake Shore road, as had been the intention of the Grand Trunk officials, the consignee sold the wheat in the car to a local dealer on the line of the Erie Railway, and the car was sent down on that road on October 1st, and not returned to the Grand Trunk again until the 10th day of October.

Unfortunately, the Erie was as anxious at that time to load cars west with coal as the other roads, and when they brought the car back to the Grand Trunk, they brought it once more filled with coal, and back the car went to Chicago, reaching there on the 13th of October.

It had now been away from home and diverted from its legitimate uses for nine months, and apparently was as far from home as ever. The delivery of the coal this time at Chicago put the car in the hands of the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railway, and they promptly gave it a lading by the southern route to Newport News; for we find the car delivered by the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago to the Chesapeake & Ohio route on October 28th, and at Newport News on the 10th of November. The owners of the car were meanwhile not idle. The occasional stray junction cards which came in notified them of the passage of the car by different junction points, giving them clews to work by, and they were in vigorous correspondence with the various roads over which the car had gone, urging, begging, and imploring the railway officers to make all efforts in their power to get the car back to its home road.

On its last trip from Chicago to Newport News, the car passed through Indianapolis, the very point from which it began its long journey and many wanderings. Unfortunately, however, it passed there loaded, without detention, and the owners of the car did not discover until it had been for some time at Newport News, that the car had been anywhere near its home territory. By the time they made this discovery the car had been unloaded, and had started west once more. The records of the movement of the car here become dim. It was apparently diverted from its direct route back, which would have taken it once more to Indianapolis, and so home, for we find, after waiting at Newport News for some time to be unloaded, it was delivered to the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, next on the Western & Atlantic, and so down into Georgia and South Carolina. Again, on January 14, 1888, the car was reported on the Richmond & Danville. They sent it once more down into South Carolina and Georgia. From there it was loaded down to Selma, Ala., on the Atlanta & West Point Railroad. They returned it promptly to Atlanta, and so to the Central Railroad of Georgia; and the car, after being used backward and forward between Montgomery and Atlanta and Macon, finally appeared at Augusta, Ga., where it stood on February 11, 1888. Here the car remained for some time, long enough for the owners to get advices as to its whereabouts, and communicate with the road on whose territory the car was, before it was again moved. An urgent representation of the case having been laid before the proper authorities, they agreed, if possible, to load it in such a way that it should go back to Indianapolis. This could not be done at once, however; but about the 12th of March the car was sent to a near-by point in South Carolina loaded, and worked back over the Georgia road and the Western Atlantic, delivered to the Louisville & Nashville on April 3d, and finally, after its many and long wanderings, was by that road delivered to the home road at Cincinnati on the 17th of April; having been away from home sixteen months and one day.

This is a case taken from actual records, and is one that could be duplicated probably by any railroad in the country.