Heavy Duty Mystery Flat-Solved, now for sale.

I found this in some cars acquired from an estate sale.  It is lettered "SP" and numbered 500603.  

Click on any of the images to enlarge.

It has two double truck bogies which have roller bearings.  The capacity is listed as 395,000 Lbs.

 It is rather heavy and seems to be of metallic construction, die cast? Brass?

The car has two brake reservoirs. 

Any ideas what either the model or it's prototype is?  I could not find an SP 500xxx flat in the 43, 45 or 53 ORER.  According to the Railgoat's SP flat page 500603 is one of the ex 44091 F-200-1, 16 wheel flats.  That would be great, but the photo's show a shorter fishbelly and no end platforms.  The photo of the F-200-3 with the end platforms seems a closer match and their numbers were 500605/6.

Thanks to Tony Thompson for confirming the prototype mismatch with the car number and to Brian Ehni for IDing this as a Walthers car and Steve Schiffman the specific model, 932-5648, 16 wheel HD flat.  The website lists a RTR model for SP with this number (List $31.98 Sold Out ).  It also lists detail parts provided but not installed.  The brake wheels did not come with the car when I purchased it from the estate dealer.  The car is a very nice MODERN HD flat, too new for my 1944 era layout.  It is missing one coupler spring and has one bent end stirrup.  With it's heavy weight, it should make a great addition to some modern modeler's operating layout.  Now offered for sale at $25 plus shipping from 95268.   

I accept USPS money orders, PayPal with small fee ships immediately, or Personal Check (ships after cleared)

Please contact me at NorthBayLines@att.net.

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

Sierra Rail Road Car Loadings 1945

I enjoyed operating John Zach’s Sierra last month.  I especially liked seeing a freight car fleet that matched my era and had a number of signature cars that I will have to duplicate. 

Looking for info on the Santa Fe and SP California car loadings at the state archives, I came across som of the Sierra's annual reports to the Cal RR Commission.  Several of them are filed in a box with the part of the SP's reports and I just had to peek when the archivist brought the whole box.  Traffic on the Sierra was a lot lower than that of the SP or ATSF and many of the commodities didn’t make it to their rails.  Since John was such a gracious host, I transcribed the 1945 data into the spreadsheet that I’m using to analyze the Santa Fe traffic and sent him a copy.  A recent OPSIG post mentioned 1952 Sierra conductor’s books and most of the traffic was lumber.  I went back and looked at my transcribed data and it fits the OPSIG observation.

Below is a summary of the carloads and tonnages by commodity class.

Things to note:

1. No thru or bridge traffic.  Makes sense as the Sierra ran from a junction with the SP and ATSF in Oakdale up into the Sierras.
2. Almost no online to online shipments, 11 carloads of 4509 handled
3. Shipped almost five times as many cars as they received.
4. Forrest products were 64% of their outgoing business
5. LCL volume was almost seven times higher inbound than outbound, shipping 453 tons and receiving 3093 tons.
6. Average car count 87/week or 12/day.

I’ve placed a full .xls version of the spreadsheet version of their 1945 freight traffic on Google Drive for your use.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Ussn0SB6pfcGJNZ0NNQnpRNkU/edit?usp=sharing

If you download it, you can see that the 11 carloads of animals were horses or mules, and that lumber and lath made up the bulk of the forest shipments.

This was an interesting set of data to analyze as it represents what would be typical on a branch line and you just don’t get this kind of detail for short sections of the Class I railroads.  With the average car count of 12/day, this is a traffic level that could be modeled without compression. 

John Barry

5 July 2014

Cameron Park, CA

In Memoriam Richard Hendrickson 1931-2014

Author, Aviator, Teacher, Freight Car Historian Richard Hendrickson departed this world too soon for those of us left behind during the last week of June. 

Richard in his study, 2006, courtesy John Signor

I knew Richard for over twenty five years, but did not know him well enough and was a fool for not getting to know him better. Our first and last face to face encounters were at Santa Fe conventions, the first in the late 80s where I was afraid to approach this great guru, the last in Flagstaff last year.  That was as always too short, with interruptions at such events as everyone seemed to want a piece of his time. I had a chance to exchange a few words with Richard and Tony Thompson as we moved through the buffet for dinner.  I did come to know him better through exchanges of email, the last where I asked his advice on QC’ing my input for painting this current Shake_n_Take project.  Richard confirmed my synopsis, but gently suggested one detail that I had forgotten.  I did update my post http://northbaylines.blogspot.com/2014/06/colors-markings-of-2014-shake-take.html to incorporate that extra detail.  We will no longer be able to make those casual queries that were answered so completely and rapidly.  

Richard surprised me earlier this year when he purchased one of my excess brass locomotives.  He had done the original data package for it back in the 60's and wanted an intact one for his diorama.  In packing it, I noticed it was missing a step.  The conversation about what to do was the first I had with Richard by phone.  Fortunately I had a second loco of this class, although it had foam residue which we agreed to substitute as he had to have it stripped to paint anyway.  

Richard was very generous of his time and knowledge, and gave me advice on interpreting hand scrawled notes of freight car numbers in response to a query I made of him regarding correcting sources last year.  That advice came with an unsolicited photo of a two dome tank car that was very likely as sister to the one that I had enquired about.  My original post can be seen here: http://northbaylines.blogspot.com/2013/05/sources.html and  Richard’s reply to me follows:  

John, those of us who have worked with conductors' time books, switch lists, etc. well know that the handwriting of trainmen and switchmen was often obscure and sometimes illegible, and those errors have often made their way into transcriptions made from those handwritten documents.
So I have no doubt that what was seen as an "N" was in fact a "W" and that the car in question was a WEOX car, especially since the number matches.

White Eagles was, of course a Kansas City-based subsidiary of the Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. (that is, Standard Oil Co. of New York).  The cars of all the S-V midwestern subsidiaries later were combined into a single fleet with SVX reporting marks, and still later the name was changed to the Mobil Oil Co. with MOBX reporting marks.  Car numbers, however, often did not change, and I'd be willing to bet that the attached photo of MOBX 228 shows a car in what was formerly the WEOX  200-249 series.  At any rate, it was a two compartment 8,000 gal. car (and those are pretty rare) and was built by GATC in the mid-1920s.

In 1943 Mobil did not market retail products in the Pacific Coast states, but of course tank cars were pooled under the wartime authority of the federal government, so at that time a WEOX car could have been routed anywhere.

Richard Hendrickson

 MOBX 228 Courtesy Richard Hendrickson

WEOX 238 was interchanged from the ATSF to the SP at Port Chicago in November 1944.  It will become a fixture on my eventual layout.  

The above interchange demonstrates the thoughtful, gracious, generous person that he was.

We will all miss Richard for who was, a friend, fellow flier, historian, modeler and teacher.  He taught us much throughout his life and has left a legacy through his work, his friends, and his admirers.  He continues to teach us from the great beyond through his legacy.  But even his sudden departure has a lesson in it, that life is unpredictable and that we should live it well as any day could be our last.  That is a lesson that I have failed to heed in the past and resolve to pay it more heed.

My deepest sympathies to Richard’s wife Sandra, their family and friends.

John Barry

With great sadness this Independence Day 2014

Cameron Park, CA

Third District Bridges-Morello Avenue

I decided to take the long way home from the BAPM meet and do a little rail fanning on my chosen prototype.  Although I model 1944, seventy years later, some of those same structures are still in place.  But they are disappearing fast.

One such place is the Morello Avenue overcrossing just outside Martinez.  In 1952, it was designated Bridge A1170, a 35foot Ballast Deck Deck Girder (BDDG) bridge on the main with a 37 foot BDDG on the passing siding.

Vine Hill 1952 Track Chart

By 1992, the bridge had not changed, although the track chart no longer depicts Vine Hill siding and the bridge had been redesignated as Bridge 1169.1 in accordance with then current ATSF and still current BNSF practice.

Vine Hill 1992 Track Chart

I first discovered this bridge on an expedition to the East Bay in June 2011,  Here’s how it looked from the north.

B1170/1169.1 North Face 11 June 2011

Note the Grand Canyon Line Bridge Slogan

B1170 South Face

Note the absence of a Slogan and the absence of the passing track bridge

Hoping to get a bit more detail, I swung by the location after trying to duplicate the view of the Muir trestle.

Bridge 1169.1 South Face, 21 Jun 2014

So much for any more 1944 era details.  I’m sure the replacement made good sense to the BNSF in terms of maintenance, as the 2011 photos showed a need for a repaint.  I’m glad I caught the water tank and A-frame signal bridge at Bellemont, AZ back in 1988, as it too is long gone.  The old stuff is fast disappearing, shoot as much as you can today, because it may not be there tonight as the Tehachapi Depot fire proved.  Unlike 98 when I was shooting a combination of slide and print film, photons are free and digital storage not much more expensive. 

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

23 June 2014

Adding a Fifth Dimension to Passenger Operations

Those of us who operate model railroads are playing what my friend an mentor, Paul Catapono, calls four dimensional chess.  Paul calls Time Table & Train Order operations that because of our three dimensional models and the movement of them over the layout over time.  I posit that Paul is correct about the game, but it has a Fifth Dimension: Purpose.  Why did we move a string of empty hoppers to the mines?  Why did we pick up a flat with a transformer load?  We all do it.  And those of us doing it with freight cars use a variety of techniques to direct our car movements.  Some of them ignore the content and tell us to move all the red box cars to siding A and orange reefers to industry C, but even the simplest and least detailed methods has at its root a Purpose for getting some car to some spot on the RR.  More advance schemes add varying levels of detail, but the Purpose remains the same: a reason to move Car A from B to C. 

Well, what about Passenger Ops?  Most folks with operating layouts use freight ops as their basis and passenger trains as something to add interest by providing something for the local to dodge out of the way of.  Or they use them as a way to break in newbies to their form of operation, be it CTC or TT&TO.  A superior train getting High Greens all around is a great way to see and experience a large, complicated layout the first time and learn which station follow which.  But what about an experienced crew?  You may find that your passenger trains go late in the bid because they lack interest.  What follows is a proposal of a scaleable way to add that Fifth Dimension of Purpose to your Passenger Operation.

To add realism to your operation and “Play Value” to your operators, many, including Andy Sperandeo, have advocated adding switching operations to your passenger trains.  This is great for locations like Kansas City, Tracy or Barstow where Train A would leave a car for train C, cars would be set out for diverging routes, etc.  But what about operations on a branch or in the middle of a main line division with no consist changes?  Fresno did see regular drop offs of Baggage and Express cars in the Oakland bound trains from Barstow, but what about other points?  The contents of the rail cars provided the purpose behind moving them. 

What did the contents of our prototype RRs use to get from A to Z?  Freight traveled on a Way Bill, Passengers traveled on a Ticket.  In both cases, the Conductor took possession of the travel document while on the train.  Today, it might be an electronic copy read from the screen of your smart phone or a computer generated train manifest.  In the past it was a physical copy of the document, often the original that would be used for accounting purposes.  In the model freight system using Car Cards and Waybills, the Waybill contains the destination of the car and often some description of the contents, even if it is “Empty for Loading”.  That fully describes the Purpose of moving that car.  Our scale passengers also have some purpose of moving from A to Z over our layouts.  Their full scale prototypes purchased tickets or had passes to keep from getting thrown off the train for bumming a ride.  We can use this to our advantage as a starting point to add the Fifth Dimension to our passenger ops.

Real trains had real tickets for each passenger or group.  We can selectively compress that into passengers who are through for the entire run, and those who get on or off on the modeled portion of our layout.  So for a train with two 52 seat coaches and three Pullmans of varying capacities, we have reduced the number of tickets from about 150 (way too in the weeds for our part time hobbiest conductors) to a half or a third depending on the traffic you model.  We can further compress that into the number of station stops on the layout.  We now have a very modelable level of detail for our conductors to work with.  Passenger trains run by schedule regardless of operating authority.  This allows the public to know when they have to be there to catch a train.  Whether CTC, DTC, TT&TO, passenger trains did not leave scheduled stops early.  They also needed appropriate authority to occupy the Main Track, but that is not the point of this discussion.  So our model now has a ticket representing a passenger or a group of passengers for each destination.  Destinations with no debarking passengers have no tickets in the conductor’s purse.  At each scheduled stop, the conductor picks up tickets from the waiting room and drops off the tickets for those getting off there.  If you have a diverging route, some passengers may debark and reboard a train to a destination on that diverging route.  The conductor puts that ticket in the waiting room and the train going to the diverging route picks up the passenger and ticket.  For a passenger going to a FLAG stop, the conductor will inform the engineer that he has a customer for Port Chicago if you are using a two man crew.  Since the number of passengers did vary on the prototype, you can vary the number of tickets you model.  This is where the scalability comes in.  For an orientation level run, make it one ticket with all through passengers or only a couple to show how passengers get handled at a single, scheduled stop.  As your operators gain experience with the idea of simulating passenger traffic, increase the complexity.  Its supposed to be FUN.  At some point, introduce the FLAG STOP Pickup.  At one of your flag stops, place a Ticket in the waiting room for a passenger to a destination served by your passenger train and display a flag to signal the train to stop.

Example Flag for Flag Stops

Setting up “Waiting Rooms” at Stations. 

This can be as simple as putting a cardboard divider into an existing bill box at your freight stations.  Put the passenger tickets behind the divider and you are ready to add passenger ops.  You can add dedicated “Waiting Rooms” as another dedicated bill box at appropriate stations.  You can divide them into East bound and West bound to simplify things for your crews.  You can add the complexity of a multi-spot stop at a short station by using coach and Pullman tickets, spotting first one, then the other at the short platform to embark and discharge passengers.  For diverging routes, you can have separate waiting rooms for each diverging direction. 

Sample Passenger Ticket

  

The Age of Aquarius is upon us, suddenly there’s an understanding. . .

Welcome to the Fifth Dimension of Passenger Operations.

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

23 June 2014

2014 Bay Area Prototype Modeler’s meet

The Rail Druids of Northern California gathered on the Summer Solstice yesterday in Richmond for their annual homage to modeling the prototype.  It was my first time to attend, despite now living farther from St. David’s School than I have for the last seven years.  The day started with a quicker than expected transit on the 101 mile journey.  A good thing since I was half an hour later than I’d planned.  The lack of construction on the “Fix 50” in downtown Sacramento gave me back that time and I arrived and parked just before opening time at 0900.  The journey’s highlight was an interesting contrast between Stonehenge and Manhattan in a short piece on Morning Edition.  Manhattanhenge set the tone for this post. 

On entering the hall, I was confronted with a decision, how many raffle tickets to buy, and which raffles to enter.  The second was easy, not an N scaler, cross that off; separate brass car auction, maybe, oh darn, its an SP baggage car, not so much; HO scale, Ok that fits well.  Now how many?  You want to be in on the action, but most of the goodies are soooooo modern, and I model 44, 1944 not 2044 and the prize table is laden with a great choice of ExactRail’s current production and other modern goodies, there are a few that might fit my era, the gift cards give you a choice, there were some cool decal sheets, but nothing I wanted to spend my mom’s inheritance on.  $1 each or six for $5.  I lay down an extra $5 with my entry fee. 

Into the sacred space to greet my fellow worshipers and find some of the high priests.  I belong to the Santa Fe sect, seems a majority of the attendees adhere to that heretical Southern Pacific branch.  Unlike Sunni and Shia, there were no car bombs or suicide belts present and we all learned from each other. 

The model displays were impressive, Henry Baez had some beautifully weathered BNSF Diesels.  I was so engrossed listening to him describe his techniques of building up from the bottom and using a short, very thin brush to apply weathering to seams and door latches that I totally forgot to photograph them. 

The first Santa Fe item to catch my eye was Phil Villalobos’ former business car 2^nd 10 in its final incarnation as Bunk Car 203739.

Bill Vaughn, an active BNSF train service crewman, began his career as a  switchman at Richmond.  His conversion of a Proto 2000 single door box to a Fe-21 is inspiring. 

I need one of these unique Santa Fe single door 50' box cars.

I displayed three of my in progress passenger cars.  Walthers 8-1-2 and Branchline 14 section in modification with Tom Madden roofs and Steam Ejector Air Conditioning as well as a BR 12-1 converting to a 13 section non-AC car, also with one of Tom’s fine roofs. 

In the first three worship services that I attended that day,  High priest of the State Belt, Bill Kaufman, delivered an informative talk on his very small sect.  Well done and I learned a few more things about the switching district that connected to my modeled area via car float.

Harry Wong, one of the several SP Mullahs, presented a VERY detailed look at their SDP-45s.  And yes Fenton, there is a Santa Claus, as some kind soul taped his presentation. 

Blair High Priest (vice president) of Production for ExactRail also gave an interesting talk on their business practices that brought a warm glow to the friends of the freight car.  I was impressed with his candor and commitment to their business model that includes a high fidelity to prototype.  Unfortunately for me (but fortunate for my bank balance), one little detail of his presentation will make it difficult for me to obtain many of ER’s high quality models in the future.  To achieve this level of detail, they extensively measure and photograph an actual specimen before constructing the molds.  Great for accuracy, but not so much for extinct species, many of which I need on my layout.  You modern guys have it lucky in that regard.  Fortunately, several specimens of interest have been conserved in zoos (aka museums) so I have some hope to contemporaries to their Rib Side car of which I could use a couple.  Blair actively sought input, suggestions and feedback from the congregation.  After the service when I had a chance, I did suggest an X-3 tank, as UTLX had gobs and served the Standard Oil Refinery at Richmond that Santa Fe switched.  Blair confirmed Supreme Ayatollah Richard H’s remarks at the Naperville conclave that ER did have an X-3 in work.  It won’t be out this summer, but he said the research is pretty much done and it is next in the pipeline.  That is good new for the pocketbook also as it gives time for accumulating wealth.  Anyone have the winning lotto numbers?  I forgot to ask if they give case and gross discounts.  I need a LOT of X-3 tanks.

I met some old friends whom I’ve not seen in a long time, including Charlie Slater, himself a High Priest of my Santa Fe sect.  Charlie is also a retired railroader and offered a comment after Harry’s service that “If it worked, they put it on.” And that during the rebuild of the Santa Fe’s FP45s at San Bernardino, “When a unit was ready, they would use a crane and pull the top hood off the stack to mate with the frame.  If the numbers didn’t match, they’d just repaint them.”  A good explanation for the profusion of horn types seen.

As the day came to a close the second an final auction numbers rang softly through the display hall.  My comments to Blair about X-3s were interrupted when I thought I heard 1568.  Deaf in the right ear and not sure that my cross hearing aid had conveyed my winning #, I asked for a repeat.  Alas, it was what I thought I heard, I had won one of the door prizes, one of the very few I could actually use, a Fox Valley B&O wagon top box in the express green scheme.  A lovely parting gift.

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

The day after the summer solstice 2014

Evolution of the Richmond Sand House

Richmond had at least three different sand houses during the steam era and now has modern diesel sanding facilities.  The modern stuff is outside the scope of this post.  These three houses were built as replacements for each other.  The first, circa 1900 with the original facilities.  

In a recent post on Locomotive Sand, I showed a 1903 view of the round house with what looks like a large rectangular sand tower and pile mounted water tank to its left.  The 1912 Station plat shows the relative locations of the sand house & bin, round house and other structures in the engine servicing area at Richmond. 

 1912 Station Plat, California State Archives, RR Maps 177-42

Richmond 1900 Sand House circa 1903

The original layout did not include a means to unload sand into the bin alongside the Round House other than shear muscle power.  This may have been OK in 1903 when the typical locomotive was a 2-8-0 with a small sand dome, traffic was light, and manpower was cheap.  It was still OK in 1918 when the next sand house was built. Photos from circa 1940 show it in the same general location as its predecessor.  The Coast Lines Terminal Division Building records document this house as having a 58x16' sand bin, shortened to 40' under authorizations C-272-28 in 1928.  The 1918 sand house was 50'x16', including the drying room on the north side.  It sat on a concrete foundation, was of wood construction with a tin shingle roof.  The peak of the sand tower portion had a nearly 1:1 pitch with it's axis perpendicular to the tracks.  

1918 Sand House and bin

1918 Sand House in 1941

     But by 1944, the situation was different.  Rosie was riveting away in the adjacent shipyards as most of the men had marched off to war.  Locomotives had increased in size, with the large 3400 class Pacifics doing the honors on the daily trans-continental passenger trains, 3500 class Pacifics were at the head of the freight pool, and plans were afoot to bring heavier power to the Valley Division as the FTs displaced steam in the desert divisions.  To aid the servicing of this power, the locomotive facilities at Richmond were remodeled with an extended turntable to accommodate turning the longer locomotives.  Elevating the track to the sand bin would mean one operator could empty a full GS gondola of sand directly into the supply in a matter of moments rather than hours of effort by a crew of laborers with shovels.  But the layout as shown above would not allow such a track as it would run into the turntable.  How to solve that problem?  Move the bin to the other side where a longer grade was possible.  As shown below in a 1952 track chart sketch, the wooden water tank was gone, the oil tanks replaced by three vertical ones, and the sand house and bin (#28 below) rebuilt and relocated RR west of the earlier location.

  

ATSF 1952 Track Chart

The 1944 annual report to the California RR commission shows an expenditure for a new sand house in Richmond as well as the turntable extension documented in the Warbonnet turntable article.

1944 ATSF report to Cal State RR Commision

The final steam era sand house is nearly a mirror image of the 1918 version with the drying room on the south side away from the round house.  It has a large sand bin supplied by an elevated trestle as shown in my earlier post Locomotive Sand at Richmond.

1944 Sand House in 1947

Modeling the 1944 Sand House:  

Mountaineer Precision Products produced a laser cut kit, number MTN990HO, of the San Bernadino Sand House as modified in the late 40s.  This kit is very similar to the 1944 Richmond sand house and could be modified with little difficulty. 

Unfortunately, MPP's owner had some health issues a couple years back and MPP has ceased production.  If any of you have a spare sand house, I missed out and am in need.

Modeling the 1918 Sand House:

To the best of my knowledge there is no commercial kit.  But you can use the Standard Sand House Plans published in Vol 3 of the Systems Standards, originally by Kachina Press, republished by the ATSFH&MS.  Dated 1918, they appear on page 365 and are a good match to the photos and the dimensions shown in the building records.

Modeling the 1900 Sand House:

The photos posted here are the best I have available.  Any die hard 1900 modelers have a significant scratch effort in front of you.  Good Luck 

I hope you have enjoyed this little bit of locomotive servicing history and its evolution at Richmond.

John Barry

Cameron Park, CA

20 June 2014

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