Part 22

The _theory_ of the use of foreign cars is that they are permitted to run through to destination with through freight, on condition that they shall be promptly unloaded on arrival at destination; that they shall be returned at once to the home road, being loaded on the return trip if suitable loading is available; but by no means allowed to be used in local service, or loaded in any other direction than homeward.

The _practice_ of many agents, and many roads, too, unfortunately, is hardly in keeping with this theory. Agents, especially if not closely watched, are prone to put freight into any car that is at hand, regardless of ownership, being urged to such course by the importunities of shippers and, at times, by the scarcity of cars. Frequently such irregularities are the result of pure carelessness, agents using foreign cars for local shipments, simply because they are on hand, rather than call for home cars which it may take some trouble and delay to procure. In this way at times a large amount of local business may be going on on one part of the road in foreign cars, while but a few miles distant the company's cars may be standing idle. The Car Accountant from his record can at once put a stop to this, and prevent its recurrence.

Another valuable use to which the Car Accountant's Office may be put is to trace and keep a record of the movement of freight, locating delays, and tracing for freight lost or damaged. By a moderate use of the telegraph wire the Car Accountant can keep track of the movement of special freight-trains concerning which time is important, and so insure regularity and promptness in their despatch and delivery. From the mileage records may be obtained the work of each engine in freight service, the miles run, the number of loaded and empty cars hauled; and by considering two, or perhaps three, empty cars as equivalent to one loaded car, the average number of loaded cars hauled per mile is obtained. The information is often valuable, as on many roads the ability of a Superintendent is measured to a considerable extent by the amount of work performed by the engines at his command.

In many other ways the resources of the Car Accountant's office will be found of the greatest value to the Superintendent. When the office is once fully organized and systematized, and all in good working order, the Superintendent will find that his capacity for control of his cars has been more than doubled, while the demands on his time for their care has been really lessened. He has all the information he needs supplied at his desk, far more accurate than any he was ever able to secure before, and in the most condensed form; while, at the same time, he will find his freight improving in time over his line, his agents will have cars more promptly and in greater abundance than ever, and last, and most gratifying of all, his monthly balance-sheets will show a steady decrease in the amount his road pays for foreign-car mileage, until probably the balance will be found in his favor, although his business and consequent tonnage may have increased meanwhile.

III.

USE AND ABUSE OF CARS.

A package of merchandise can be transported from New York to Chicago in two days and three nights. This is repeated day after day with all the regularity of passenger service. So uniform is this movement, that shippers and consignees depend upon it and arrange their sales and stocks of goods in accordance therewith. Any deviation or irregularity brings forth instant complaint and a threatened withdrawal of patronage. This is true of hundreds of other places and lines of freight service. To accomplish it, there is necessary, first, a highly complicated and intricate organization, and, next, incessant watchfulness.

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.

A road is expected to receive back from a connecting line any car that it has previously delivered loaded. It becomes very necessary to know just what cars have been so delivered. Without such a record a road is at the mercy of its connections, and may be forced to receive and move over its length empty foreign cars that it never had in its possession before, thus paying mileage and being at the expense of moving cars that brought it no revenue whatever. The junction records put a complete check on such errors, and by their use thousands of dollars are saved annually.

* * * * *

To still more expedite the movement of through freight, very many so-called fast freight lines exist in this country, as, for example, the Traders' Despatch, the Star Union, the Merchants' Despatch Transportation Company, the Red, the White, the Blue, the National Despatch, etc. Some of these lines are simply co-operative lines, owned by the various railway companies whose roads are operated in connection with one another. Their organization is simple. A number of companies organize a line, which they put in charge of a general manager. Each company will assign to the line a number of cars, the quota of each being in proportion to its miles of road. The general manager has control of the line cars. He has agents who solicit business and employees who watch the movement of his line cars, and report the same to him. He keeps close record of his business, and reports promptly to the transportation officer of any road in his line any neglect or delinquency he may discover. The earnings of the line and its expenses are all divided _pro rata_ among the roads interested. Such a line is simply an organization to insure prompt service and secure competitive business, and the entire benefit goes to the railway companies.

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.

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.

For carrying milk, special cars have to be provided, as particular attention has to be given to the matter of ventilation in connection with a small amount of cooling for the proper carrying of the milk. Not only the cars but the train service has to be especially arranged for in particular cases.

As an instance, the Long Island Railroad Company makes a specialty of transporting farmers' truck-wagons to market. For this purpose they have provided long, low, flat cars, each capable of carrying four truck-wagons. The horses are carried in box-cars, and one farmer or driver is carried with each team, a coach being provided for their use. During the fall of the year, they frequently carry from 45 to 50 wagons on one train, charging a small sum for each wagon, and nothing for the horses or men. These trains run three times weekly, and are arranged so as to arrive in the city about midnight, returning the next day at noon. The trains by themselves are not very remunerative, but by furnishing this accommodation, farmers who are thirty or forty miles out on Long Island can have just as good an opportunity for market-gardening as those who live within driving distance of the city. This builds up the country farther out on the island, which in turn gives the road other business.

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The movement of freight is not always successfully accomplished. In spite of good organization, every facility, incessant watchfulness, accidents will occur, freight will be delayed, cars will break down, trains will meet with disaster. The consequences sometimes fall heavily on the railway companies. The loss is frequently out of all proportion to the revenue. The following instance is from the writers own experience:

Some carpenters repairing a small low trestle left chips and shavings near one of the bents. A passing train dropped some ashes. The shavings caught fire and burnt one or two posts in one bent. The section-men failed to notice the fire. Toward evening a freight train came to the trestle, the burnt bent gave way, and the train was derailed. Two men were killed, one severely injured, and eighteen freight cars were burned. The resulting loss to the railroad company was $56,113. Of this amount, the loss paid on freight was $39,613.12. As a matter of interest, and to show the disparity between the value of the commodities and the earnings from freight charges received by the railway company, the amount of each is given here in detail, taken from the actual records of the case:

+-----------------+------------------ Property destroyed. | Amount paid by |Freight charges on |railroad company.| the same. ------------------------------+-----------------+------------------ Butter, 200 pounds at 35 cents| $70.00 | $0.50 Ore, 75.9 tons at $3.50 | 265.80 | 56.91 Paper, 4,600 pounds | 269.10 | 8.74 Pulp, 10,400 pounds | 160.00 | 12.65 Shingles, 85 M | 192.50 | 11.00 Horsenails | 2,986.06 | 37.44 Lumber | 252.00 | 18.40 Apples, 159 barrels | 508.80 | 15.26 Hops, 209 bales, 37,014 pounds| 34,908.86 | 59.22 ------------------------------+-----------------+------------------ | $39,613.12 | $220.12 ------------------------------+-----------------+------------------

This was during the fall of 1882, when hops sold in New York for over $1 per pound.

The plan of payment for car service by the mile run, without reference to time, has the merit of simplicity and long-established usage. It is, however, in reality, crude and unscientific, and has brought with it, in its train, numerous disadvantages.

The owner of a car is entitled, first, to the proper interest in his investment, that is, on the value of the car; second, to a proper amount for wear and tear or for repairs. The life of a freight car may be reasonably estimated at ten years, so that ten per cent. on its value would be a fair interest-charge. The average amount for repairs varies directly as to the distance the car moves, and may be put at one-half cent per mile run.

It will be seen that by the ordinary method of payment the car-owner is compensated for interest at the rate of ¼ of a cent for the time that the car is in motion, but receives nothing for all the time the car is at rest. If cars could be kept in motion for any considerable portion of each twenty-four hours, this would prove ample. But in practice it is found that few roads succeed in getting an average movement of all cars for more than one hour and a half in each twenty-four. This gives about five per cent. interest on the value of the car, only one-half of what is generally conceded to be a fair return. Still further, there is no inducement to the road on which a foreign car is standing to hasten its return home. On the contrary, there is a direct advantage in holding the car idle until a proper load can be found for it, rather than return it home empty. The most serious abuses of the freight business of the country have grown from this state of affairs. It costs nothing but the use of the track to hold freight in cars; consequently freight is held in cars instead of being put in storehouses, frequently for weeks and months at a time.

There is but little earnest attempt made to urge consignees to remove freight; on the contrary, the consignees consider that they can leave their freight as long as they choose, and that the railroad companies are bound to hold it indefinitely.

One special practice has grown up as a result of this condition, that of shippers sending freight to distant points to their own order. This practice is most prolific of detention to cars, and yet is so strongly rooted in the traffic arrangements of the country that it is most difficult to put an end to it. Cars "to order" will frequently stand for weeks before the contents are sold and the consignee is discovered, during which time the cars accumulate, stand in the way, occupy valuable space, and have to be handled repeatedly by the transportation department of the road, all at the direct cost of handling to the road itself, and loss of interest to the owner of the car.

Only two methods have so far been suggested to abate or put an end to the evils which have been but slightly indicated above. The first is a change in the method of payment for car service to a compensation based upon time as well as mileage, which is commonly known as the "per diem plan."

This plan consists in paying for the use of all foreign cars a fixed sum per mile run, based on the supposed cost of repairs of the car, and a price per day based upon what is estimated to be a fair return for the interest on its value. This plan was originally suggested by a convention of car accountants, and was brought up and advocated by Mr. Fink, the Chairman of the Trunk Line Commission, in New York, in the fall of 1887. At his suggestion, and largely through his influence, it was tried by a few of the roads (the Trunk Lines and some of their immediate connections) during the early part of the year 1888; the amounts as then fixed being one-half cent per mile run, and fifteen cents per day. The results of this experiment, while they were quite satisfactory to the friends of the proposed change, yet were not sufficiently conclusive to demonstrate the value of the plan to those who were indifferent or hostile to it.

For various reasons, chiefly local to the roads in question, the plan was discontinued after a few months' trial. The experiment resulted, however, in the collection of a large mass of statistics and other data, the study of which has led many to believe that the plan is the proper solution of the difficulties experienced, and, if adjusted so as not to add too much to the burden of those railway companies who are borrowers of cars, that it would meet with the approval of the railway companies throughout the country. It certainly provided a strong inducement to all roads to promptly handle foreign cars, and in that particular it proved a great advance over the existing methods of car service. The charge per day of fifteen cents was found too high in practice. Ten cents per day and a half-cent per mile would produce a net sum to the car-owner very slightly in excess of three-fourths of a cent per mile run. While this appears but small, yet it would be quite sufficient to amount in the aggregate to a considerable sum, and would serve to urge all railway companies to promptly unload and send home foreign cars. This plan would result, if generally adopted, in largely increasing the daily movement or mileage of all cars, or, what would be equivalent, would practically amount to a very considerable increase in the equipment of the country.

The plan has recently been approved by the General Time Convention, and there is strong probability that it will be very extensively adopted and given a trial by all the railways during the year 1890.