Other lines are in the nature of corporations, being owned by stockholders and operating on a system of roads in accordance with some agreement or contract. Others, again, are organized for some special freight, and are owned wholly by firms or individuals, such as the various dressed-beef lines and some lines of live-stock cars. These are put in service simply for the mileage received for their use, and in many cases the railway companies have no interest in them whatever.
The movement of "straight" cars and "solid" trains is comparatively simple. But there is a very large amount of through freight, particularly of merchandise, that cannot be put into a "straight" car. A shipper in New York can depend on his goods going in a straight car to St. Louis, Denver, St. Paul, etc., but he can hardly expect a straight car to any one of hundreds of intermediate cities and towns. Still less is it possible for a road at a small country-town, where there are perhaps but one or two factories, to load straight cars to any but a very few places. To overcome this difficulty, transfer freight-houses have to be provided. These are usually located at important terminal stations.
Coal Car, Central Railroad of New Jersey.
To them are billed all mixed cars containing through freight. These cars are unloaded and reloaded, and out of a hundred "mixed" cars will be made probably eighty straight and the balance local. This necessarily causes some delay, but it is practically a gain in time in the end, as otherwise every car would have to be reloaded, and held at every station for which it contained freight.
The variety of articles that is offered to a railway company for transportation is endless. Articles of all sizes and weights are carried, from shoe-pegs by the carload to a single casting that weighs thirty tons. The values also vary as widely. Some cars will carry kindling wood or refuse stone that is worth barely the cost of loading and carrying a few miles, while others will be loaded with teas, silks, or merchandise, where perhaps the value of a single carload will exceed twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars. The great bulk of all freight is carried in the ordinary box-cars, coal in cars especially planned for it, and coarse lumber and stone on flat or platform cars. But very many cases arise that require especial provision to be made for each. Chicago dressed beef has made the use of the refrigerator cars well known. These cars are also used for carrying fruit and provisions. They are of many kinds, built under various patents, but all with a common purpose; that is, to produce a car wherein the temperature can be maintained uniformly at about 40 degrees. On the other hand, potatoes in bulk are brought in great quantities to the Eastern seaboard in box-cars, fitted with an additional or false lining of boards, and in the centre an ordinary stove in which fire is kept up during the time the potatoes are in transit.
An improvement on this plan is afforded by the use of cars known as the Eastman Heater Cars. They are provided with an automatic self-feeding oil-stove, so arranged that fire can be kept up under the car for about a fortnight without attention. These are largely used in the fruit trade.
Unloading a Train of Truck-wagons, Long Island Railroad.