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

by Thomas Curtis Clarke

The shipper delivers the goods at the receiving freight-house of the railway company. His cartman gets a receipt from the tallyman. This receipt may be sent direct to the consignee, or more frequently is exchanged for a bill of lading. There the responsibility of the shipper ends. His goods are in the hands of the railway company, which to all intents and purposes guarantees their safe and prompt delivery to the consignee.

The tallyman's receipt is taken in duplicate. The latter is kept in the freight-house until the freight is loaded in a car, and is then marked with the initials and number of the car into which the freight has been loaded. After that it is taken to the bill clerk in the office, and from it and others is made the waybill or bills for that particular car.

Where the volume of freight received at a given station is large, it is customary to put all packages for a common destination, as far as possible, in a car by themselves, thus making what are termed "straight" cars. This is not always possible, however, or if attempted would lead to loading a very large number of cars with but light loads. So that it becomes necessary to group freight for contiguous stations in one car, and again often to put freight for widely distant cities in the same car. These latter are known as "mixed" cars.

We will assume the day's receipt of freight finished, and most of the cars loaded. About 6 P.M. the house will be "pulled," that is, those cars already loaded will be taken away, and an empty "string" of cars put in their place. An hour later, this "string" will in turn be loaded and taken out, and the operation repeated, until all the day's receipt of freight is loaded. Meanwhile other freight will have been loaded direct from the shippers' carts on to cars on the receiving tracks. For all cars, there is made out in the freight-office a running slip or memorandum bill, which gives simply the car number, initials, and destination. These are given to the yardmaster or despatcher, and from them he "makes up" the trains.

To a very great degree, the good movement of freight depends upon the vigilance of the yardmasters and the care with which they execute their duties. In an important terminal yard, the yardmaster may have at all times from one to two thousand cars, loaded and empty. He must know what each car contains, what is its destination, and on what track it is. To enable him to do this, he has one or more assistants, day and night. They, in turn, will have foremen in charge of yard crews, each of the latter having immediate charge of one engine. The number of engines employed will vary constantly with the volume of the freight handled, but it is safe to assume that there will be at all times nearly as many engines employed in shifting in the various yards and important stations on a line as there are road engines used in the movement of the freight traffic.

The work of the yard goes on without intermission day and night, Sundays as well as week-days. The men there employed know no holidays, get no vacations. The loaded cars are coming from the freight-houses all day long, in greater numbers perhaps in the afternoon and evening, but the work of loading and moving cars goes on somewhere or other, at nearly all times. As often as the yardmaster gets together a sufficient number of cars for a common destination to make up a train, he gathers them together, orders a road engine and crew to be ready, and despatches them. In the make up of "through" trains, care has to be exercised to put together cars going to the same point, and to "group" the trains so that as little shifting as possible may be required at any succeeding yard or terminal, where the trains may pass. To accomplish this, a thorough knowledge of all the various routes is necessary, and minute acquaintance with the various intermediate junction yards and stations.

The train once "made up" and in charge of the road crew, its progress for the next few hours is comparatively simple. It will go the length of the "run" at a rate of probably twenty miles per hour, subject only to the ordinary vicissitudes of the road. At the end of the division, if a through train, it will be promptly transferred to another road crew with another engine, and so on. Each conductor takes the running slip for each car in his train. He also makes a report, giving the cars in his train by numbers and initials, whether loaded or empty, how secured; and detailed information in regard to any car out of order, or any slight mishap or delay to his train. These reports go to the Car Accountant. The running slips stay with the cars, being transferred from hand to hand until the cars reach their destination. At junction yards where one road terminates and connects with one or more foreign roads, a complete record is kept, in a book prepared especially for the purpose, of every car received from and delivered to each connecting road. A copy of this information is sent daily to the Car Accountant.

Freight Yards of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, West Sixty-fifth Street, New York.