Port Chicago is more important and handled more diverse traffic than I originally thought. I was aware of the Naval Magazine and its receiving boxcars of munitions for the Navy in the Pacific. But until my recent visit to the National Archives San Francisco, I was unaware of the significant tank car traffic handled there. Most of the refineries in the Bay area (Union Oil, Oleum; Shell Oil, Martinez ; and Tidewater Associated Oil, Avon ) are along the Carquenez Straight on the SP and I had discounted them as sources or sinks for ATSF traffic. I figured that the Standard Oil of California refinery at Richmond would be my big user of tank cars. It will still be my largest, but the Office of Defense Transportation commissioned a car detention report that gives a new dimension to that interchange, one that is easily modeled on my layout.
The ICC surveyed cars arriving Port Chicago on the Santa Fe for the Tidewater and Shell refineries during the last ten days of November 1944 and tracked them until they returned to the Santa Fe for return routing. Attached to their memo was a three page table showing car number, lading, origin, destination, dates and final destination. 96 cars arrived and 92 departed Port Chicago during the 10 days. Cars arriving via ATSF at the interchange before the 21st or after the 30th of November were not included. The table below shows cars handled on the various dates arrived on ATSF, placed for SP pickup and returned to ATSF:
Date
|
For TW
|
For Shell
|
To TW
|
To Shell
|
From TW
|
From Shell
|
11/20
|
9
|
9
| ||||
11/21
|
11
|
1
| ||||
11/22
|
4
|
11
|
8
| |||
11/23
|
1
| |||||
11/24
|
6
|
10
|
9
| |||
11/25
|
20
|
6
|
7
|
6
| ||
11/26
|
2
|
11
|
4
| |||
11/27
|
7
|
15
|
10
|
15
|
11
| |
11/28
|
3
|
13
|
12
| |||
11/29
|
4
|
13
|
4
|
6
| ||
11/30
|
4
|
15
| ||||
12/1
|
4
|
13
| ||||
total
|
62
|
34
|
62
|
34
|
58
|
34
|
Although the average was 9.6 cars in and 9.2 car out per day. The low was 0 in or out and the max was 26 arriving, 25 to SP and 19 from SP. Realism dictates that you mix up the number of cars each day and ops session to ops session.
The original document showed the originating and destination stations, but not the shipper or consignee. From other sources I inferred the missing data and made a stab at the car routing for a subset of the traffic.
Info for inbound loaded waybills:
Mark
|
#
|
Contents
|
SHIPPER*
|
Origin
|
CONSIGNEE
|
Destination
|
ROUTING*
|
COSX
|
140
|
CUMENE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
KCS
| |||
UTLX
|
2068
|
CUMENE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
KCS
| |||
OELX
|
3004
|
CUMENE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
KCS
| |||
RPX
|
3502
|
CUMENE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
KCS
| |||
EBAX
|
397
|
MOTOR FUEL
|
ETHYL CORPORATION
|
BATON ROUGE, LA.
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
MP HOUSTON ATSF
| |
PSPX
|
281
|
GASOLINE
|
PHILLIPS PETROLEUM CO.
|
SHELL OIL CO.
|
ATSF (PHSF)
| ||
SWLX
|
368
|
GASOLINE
|
PHILLIPS PETROLEUM CO.
|
SHELL OIL CO.
|
ATSF (PHSF)
| ||
UTLX
|
17225
|
GASOLINE
|
LATONIA REFINING CO
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
L&N MEMPHIS SLSF AVARD ATSF
| ||
UTLX
|
38293
|
GASOLINE
|
LATONIA REFINING CO
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
L&N MEMPHIS SLSF AVARD ATSF
| ||
TIDX
|
1286
|
CUMENE
|
CITIES SERVICE CO.
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
ATSF
| ||
EBAX
|
623
|
MOTOR FUEL
|
ETHYL CORPORATION
|
N. BATON ROUGE, LA
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
MP HOUSTON ATSF
| |
GATX
|
5053
|
GASOLINE
|
SHAMROCK OIL & GAS CO
|
SHEERIN,
|
SHELL OIL CO.
|
CRIP ETTER JCT ATSF
|
Info for return waybills:
Mark
|
#
|
Contents
|
SHIPPER*
|
Origin
|
CONSIGNEE
|
Destination
|
ROUTING*
|
COSX
|
140
|
Empty LCN
CUMENE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
CITIES SERVICE CO.
|
ATSF
| ||
UTLX
|
2068
|
Empty LCN
CUMENE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
ATSF
| |||
OELX
|
3004
|
Empty LCN
CUMENE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
PHILLIPS PETROLEUM CO.
|
ATSF
| ||
RPX
|
3502
|
Empty LCN
CUMENE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
ATSF
| |||
EBAX
|
397
|
Empty LCN
MOTOR FUEL
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
ETHYL CORPORATION
|
N BATON ROUGE, LA
|
ATSF
| |
PSPX
|
281
|
Empty LCN
GASOLINE
|
SHELL OIL CO.
|
PHILLIPS PETROLEUM CO.
|
ATSF
| ||
SWLX
|
368
|
Empty LCN
GASOLINE
|
SHELL OIL CO.
|
PHILLIPS PETROLEUM CO.
|
ATSF
| ||
UTLX
|
17225
|
Empty LCN
GASOLINE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
HUMBLE OIL AND REFINING CO
|
ATSF SWEETWATER MP
| ||
UTLX
|
38293
|
Empty LCN
GASOLINE
|
TIDWATER ASSOCIATED OIL CO.
|
LATONIA REFINING CO
|
ATSF AVARD SLSF
| ||
GATX
|
5053
|
Empty LCN
GASOLINE
|
SHELL OIL CO.
|
SHAMROCK OIL & GAS CO
|
SHEERIN,
|
ATSF ETTER JCT CRIP
|
More later, I plan to visit the archives again tomorrow.
John Barry