Freight Statistics I--1945 California

Santa Fe carried a lot of freight for the war effort.  It's annual report to the California Railroad Commission documented that effort in the amount of carloads and tons of freight carried.  The table below is a summary of freight handled by the Santa Fe in California during 1945.  Within the borders of the Golden State, Santa Fe handled a whopping 721,392 cars of carload freight.  Of this total, 40% originated on the Santa Fe within California.  They received an unknown portion of their traffic from other carriers originating in state and a good portion from out of state sources.  They terminated 60% of their traffic on line in California handing off the other 40% to other carriers or moving it east themselves.  

ATSF California State Commodity Summary 1945

1945	California in state statistics, ATSF	Originating on line		Other freight carried		Total freight carried		Terminating on line
Class	Commodity	Carloads	Tons	Carloads	Tons	Carloads	Tons	Carloads	Tons
800	TOTAL. Products of Agriculture	103414	2365067	32494	974161	135908	3339228	35186	1082122
810	TOTAL ANIMALS AND PRODUCTS	5472	130414	23562	378747	29034	509161	21803	357684
820	TOTAL PRODUCTS OF MINES	24297	1262770	46299	2231025	70596	3493795	52990	2787305
830	TOTAL PRODUCTS OF FORESTS	2254	71183	21905	761133	24159	832316	19424	677114
840	TOTAL MANUFACTURES AND MISCELLANEOUS	153479	4646817	308216	7951428	461695	1.3E+07	301187	7955216
850	GRA.ND TOTAL, CARLOAD TRAFIC	288916	8476251	432476	1.2E+07	721392	2.1E+07	430590	1.3E+07
710	All L. C. L. freight		115779		89031	0	204810		133870
850	GRA.ND TOTAL, CARLOAD AND L. C. L. TRAFIC	288916	8592030	432476	1.2E+07	721392	2.1E+07	430590	1.3E+07
701A	Forwarder traffic included in Class 701	2135	36771	29404	442229	31539	479000	28488	435939

Source:  1945 ATSF Annual Report to CA RR Commision, CA State Archives

These are enormous numbers.  Lets take a look at the daily averages so we can begin to understand the magnitude of the traffic.  Not accounting for weekends and holidays, there was a war on, the daily volume in California was shown below:

ATSF Average Daily California Car Loadings

1945	California in state statistics, ATSF		Cars per Day			To others/
Class	Commodity	Originated	Others Ca	Tot Carried	Terminated	out of CA	% off/out
800	TOTAL. Products of Agriculture	283.3	89.0	372.4	96.4	276.0	74.11%
810	TOTAL ANIMALS AND PRODUCTS	15.0	64.6	79.5	59.7	19.8	24.91%
820	TOTAL PRODUCTS OF MINES	66.6	126.8	193.4	145.2	48.2	24.94%
830	TOTAL PRODUCTS OF FORESTS	6.2	60.0	66.2	53.2	13.0	19.60%
840	TOTAL MANUFACTURES AND MISCELLANEOUS	420.5	844.4	1264.9	825.2	439.7	34.76%
850	GRA.ND TOTAL, CARLOAD TRAFIC	791.6	1184.9	1976.4	1179.7	796.7	40.31%
701A	Forwarder traffic included in Class 701	5.8	80.6	86.4	78.0	8.4	9.67%

Some of these numbers scale out well for an ops session.  Forwarder traffic originated in two main centers, San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Dividing the traffic evenly between them means that it is reasonable to have 1-3 cars per day loaded at the forwarding companies.  Others are not so easy.  The Agricultural Products are well known, Potatoes from the Central Valley north of Bakersfield made up most of the 20,152 car loads originated.  Santa Fe carried an additional 3414 cars of potatoes, but only terminated 6326 in state.  Most moved to eastern markets in GFX blocks.  This was an average of 55 cars a day over the year, but that's not how they shipped.  In the month or two of the spud rush, the entire crop moved to California users and out of state customers.  Citrus was similar with a longer season, with the majority moving east.  Hogs moved in the other direction, with none originating in California during the year and 5.8 cars a day terminating little piggies at CA destinations for the dining pleasure of Californians.  Logs were insignificant with less than 30 cars handled over the entire year.  Lumber, big through traffic with 34 cars terminating each day, 4 originating, and 39 coming from other carriers or out of state.  One example was a car originating on the California Western, shipped over the NWP to Tiberon, Santa Fe to San Diego for delivery to a customer on the San Diego and Arizona Eastern.  Knocked down autos and trucks were also significant with 2.4 cars per day originating and 17.4 terminating in state of the 27.2 carried every day.  This is not surprising, given that many trucks were crated for shipment overseas and several of the depots were served by the SP and PE.  One other commodity directly related to the war effort shows up for the first time since 1941, explosives.  Santa Fe carried 39.1 cars each day in 1945, originating 10.2 and terminating 12.3 cars while handing off or moving out of state 26.9 cars.   Given the interchange to the Government RR at Port Chicago, a major munitions loading point, this traffic is another must for my modeling.  A number of the originations would have come from the Hercules Powder Company near Pinole.  

More in the future.

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

19 June 2014