I have not written much of late and last touched this topic
in June 2014 before I moved to DC. You
can see my five prior posts on the topic of building a representative WWII fleet
at:
and I first wrote on this topic with an explanation of how I
was setting the home road portion at:
A couple years back I obtained the CD copy of the Jan 45
edition of the ORER from Westerfield to supplement the Apr 43 and Oct 45 hard
copies that I picked up in the 80’s. The
electronic edition has become my stick in the sand for what ran on US rails on
my modeling era, right at the end of 1944.
The Apr 43 issue didn’t cover the war built cars and the Oct 45 included
stuff that didn’t show up till after VJ day.
Having both hard copy editions made it possible for me to check a lot
(and I do mean A LOT!) of things, but left me guessing and having to
interpolate just a little too much. I am
an engineer, you know, and good data is golden!
The CD consists of TIFF image scans of the individual pages,
with the owner name as part of the file name.
This works well if you are working from you CD drive on a desk top
computer, but I had grown used to the layout of the hard copies. So I made a PDF shortly after I acquired it
and ended up with a whopper of a single file, but one that I could use a lot
easier on the laptop, Kindle and a portable drive for other computers. I set it up to put the RRs in the front and
the Private Owners in the back like the originals, but, as I discovered, the
alphabetical scan names are not how the ORER is arranged. It is somewhat easy to remember that ATSF is
a lot closer to the front alphabetically than the Wyandotte. It worked, but was clumsy. I use the “Index of Railroads and Private Car
Owners” in the hard copies to navigate the books, but there are three problems
with using that method with the CD.
First, almost none of the scans includes the original page number,
probably a limitation of the size of the scanner bed. Second, the file names of the pages are keyed
to the RR, not the original page, and some of the smaller roads that took up less
than a page have separate scans to make the XYZ easier to find from your
Windows file directory. Third, the disk
is not a complete ORER. All of the roads
that had cars are covered, at least I think they are as it is very
comprehensive. But the front matter and the Editorial section at the end didn’t
make the disk. I grant that much of that
info is ho-hum to most modelers, but some of it is useful to operators, like
the recapitulation of box, auto and flat cars or the car service rules. Also the List of Reporting Marks Assigned
changed fairly often, so it would have been nice to have. But I made due.
After copying the ATSF data into an Excel spread sheet and
expanding the entries to account for the ATSF classes by using the excellent
ATSFRRH&MS reference books, I plodded along guessing what page Erie and
Pennsy started on. By the way, you
Pennsy guys have it easy with the ORER as it lists your classes along with the
number series. Oh, I guess it makes it
easier for us non-Pennsy guys to get it right too. Or not, I bought a Sunshine X26C in December
2014 that if I’d checked a little closer, would have discovered it was built
AFTER my era before I bid. Oh well . . .
Back to the matter at hand. I decided an
index was a good idea for my PDF conglomeration. Before I left California in the summer of
2014, I obtained a copy of the index pages from the California State Railroad
Museum (CSRM) Library. I wish I’d
thought to grab the List of Reporting Marks at the same time as it would have
been more valuable to me, another lesson learned. I had used the capabilities of my full copy
of Adobe Acrobat to put footers on each page that include the page number. Progress!
Now I had a reasonable starting point.
I started out with a simple Table of Contents in Excel showing the start
and stop page, reporting mark, road name and total car count. After a couple sessions, it became clear that
I had an opportunity to expand the usefulness of this project if I included
just a little more data. Requirements
creep had set in, but in a good way. I
resisted the urge to digitize ALL of the individual line entries as I had for
the ATSF. That would still have me doing
a very long data entry task for marginal gain.
Being able to sort on cubic capacity or inside height can tell you a lot
about similar cars on different lines, but. . . I’d rather know how many short
box cars I need for my planned 600 car fleet.
I discovered a relatively fast way to do that. I noticed in my first couple data entry
sessions that many of the larger entries had recaps of the owner’s fleet broken
down by car length for box and auto cars.
I changed my TOC to become more of a database of car types by road with
what page I could find the entry on.
Killing two birds with one stone, I went back and added the info to my
previous entries to complete the data set.
It took a bit longer, but I think the effort was worth while.
I finished the data entry phase last month and had a grand
total of 2,236,560 freight cars listed in the Jan 45 ORER give or take a couple
hundred. I tried to QC my entries and
they are pretty good, but I know I had one that the recap and the page totals
differed and I couldn’t figure out the correct number from the scanned images
and didn’t want to manually add each line entry for 10,000 cars. A couple percent on that one entry is way
below the threshold of reasonable.
Nearly all of the other entries did up, most exactly, but a few were
within 2-10 cars. Again, I can live with
that out of 2.2 Million. Gee, that quote
is three orders of magnitude higher than the worst known error. There is one thing not accounted for and you
will see an example of it in my selected cars:
not all private owners registered in every ORER edition. The List of Reporting Marks has a dingbat that
indicates which ones opted out of that edition.
TOCX, True’s Oil Company, wasn’t in the Private Owner listings on the
CD. It is in both of my hard copies that
bracket the CD date, so I am confident that TOCX 10 was really plying the rails
in Dec 44 despite it not having an entry in the Jan 45 edition. The number of missing cars is likely to be
small compared to the total, so I am not too worried about that as it comes to
choosing the fleet.
So how does the Jan 45 fleet break down? Of the 2.2 M cars, 2.05 M were in the US,
REPORT
MARKS
|
BX
|
BH
|
BR
|
XM3
|
XM4
|
XM5
|
XA3
|
XA4
|
XA5
|
XA7
|
|
874
|
US TOTAL
|
1674
|
29
|
3703
|
57917
|
543007
|
13679
|
1642
|
75517
|
35951
|
1
|
944
|
ORER TOTAL
|
1674
|
29
|
4195
|
119727
|
602318
|
13679
|
1643
|
79768
|
35965
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
REPORT
MARKS
|
V
|
S
|
G
|
F
|
H
|
T
|
R
|
L
|
B
|
LOG
|
|
874
|
US TOTAL
|
12729
|
57416
|
342920
|
58825
|
508100
|
154137
|
140607
|
12660
|
14958
|
14491
|
944
|
ORER TOTAL
|
12729
|
64789
|
357241
|
70393
|
516685
|
162484
|
146961
|
12671
|
18539
|
15069
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
REPORT
MARKS
|
Tot Box
+ Auto |
XM
|
XA
|
X&V
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
874
|
US TOTAL
|
729388
|
614603
|
113111
|
742117
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
944
|
ORER TOTAL
|
854775
|
735724
|
117377
|
867504
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
REPORT
MARKS
|
CARS
|
|
-H,LOG
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
874
|
US TOTAL
|
2049963
|
|
1529203
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
944
|
ORER TOTAL
|
2236560
|
|
1707204
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The prototype fleet is humongous and the distribution of
short box and auto cars is significant, more so than the 50 footers that Life
Like/Walthers has over tempted me and my modeling budget. Statistically non-existent was the 70 foot
auto car, 1 in 2.23 million. But if your
city needed a LaFrance Ladder Truck, you were going to see that car, so it
wasn’t as rare as the numbers make it out, but it was a special delivery like
the Naval Rifles on the PRR or MILW gun flats.
ATSF interchanged traffic by barge directly to Mare Island, having
handled 3,345 carloads via barge under contract with Crowley Launch &
Tugboat Company between July 1940 and March 1944 (Baldwin 44-page 30). That might not have been the route for the
big gun, but the Port Chicago interchange with the SP could have gotten it
there without an en-route sailing. But
those will be special movements, not common every ops session. What will be common during ops sessions is
steel, lots of it for the shipyards; petroleum products to and from the
refineries; chemicals for Dow and the industries on the SP; merchandise cars,
scads of them; auto parts for the war plants at Ford in Richmond and Chevy in Hayward
via the SP in Oakland; not to mention boatloads of box cars of supply for the
San Francisco Port of Embarkation and lots of vehicles in XAs or on flats &
gons. I figure that I will need an
overage of the free running percentage for XAs and flats to account for the war
traffic. Maybe all those 50’ XAs are OK
after all?
So how have I set up my target fleet? I started with the last numbers listed above
and subtracted my home road cars from the totals without the hoppers or log
cars. I then divided my proposed fleet
size into home road and foreign portions.
In my case, I used 1/3 and 2/3 based on the CSRM equipment survey
document mentioned in the fourth post of this series and photos showing about
that proportion in 1943. I had
previously set my Santa Fe cars modeled to 1/250 for all but XAs and FMs which
are at 1/125 to account for the specialties needed above. This gives me a slightly larger than 33% home
road fleet, but with adjustments for cars less needed like reefers and stock
cars, its still a 60/40 split even though the total has crept up a bit.
Mark
|
TOT
|
Name
|
XM3
|
XM4
|
XM5
|
XA3
|
XA4
|
XA5
|
XA7
|
V
|
S
|
G
|
F
|
H
|
T
|
R
|
L
|
B
|
|
685
|
GRAND
TOTAL
|
29
|
215
|
10
|
1
|
35
|
44
|
1
|
4
|
24
|
136
|
43
|
4
|
68
|
59
|
2
|
9
|
|
100%
|
INCL For @
20%
|
4%
|
31%
|
1%
|
0%
|
5%
|
6%
|
0%
|
1%
|
4%
|
20%
|
6%
|
1%
|
10%
|
9%
|
0%
|
1%
|
39%
|
264
|
ATSF NBL
CARS
|
10
|
73
|
6
|
|
15
|
22
|
|
|
16
|
45
|
22
|
4
|
14
|
30
|
2
|
5
|
60%
|
411
|
NON-ATSF
US NBL
|
16
|
139
|
4
|
1
|
20
|
22
|
1
|
4
|
8
|
90
|
20
|
|
54
|
28
|
0
|
4
|
600 F FLT
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1/3 HOME
|
398
|
G-N
NON-ATSF US
|
15
|
142
|
3
|
0
|
20
|
9
|
0
|
4
|
14
|
91
|
15
|
|
42
|
35
|
3
|
4
|
ATSF
|
206
|
G-N ATSF
US
|
7
|
67
|
4
|
0
|
5
|
6
|
0
|
0
|
21
|
31
|
7
|
7
|
9
|
37
|
0
|
3
|
So how does that break out with the other railroads? Even without the hoppers, Pennsy and NYC are
the largest component. Fewer reefers are
used than the home road percentage of SFRD cars because other than Middle
River, produce and fruit weren’t big originating commodities although produce
arrived at Bay area canning plants from the central valley and LCL, magazines
and other clean cargo cut down on empty miles for reefers returning to the West
Coast.
Mark
|
TOTAL
|
XM3
|
XM4
|
XM5
|
XA3
|
XA4
|
XA5
|
XA7
|
V
|
S
|
G
|
F
|
H
|
T
|
R
|
L
|
B
|
PRR
|
44
|
|
18
|
|
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
|
1
|
19
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
NYC
|
30
|
1
|
15
|
1
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
10
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
B&O
|
18
|
|
10
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
5
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
SP
|
16
|
|
7
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
|
1
|
|
0
|
1
|
UP
|
16
|
|
6
|
1
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
CB&Q
|
14
|
1
|
5
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
4
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
MILW
|
14
|
|
7
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
GATX
|
13
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
11
|
2
|
|
|
CNW
|
13
|
|
7
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
GN
|
12
|
|
6
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
IC
|
12
|
|
4
|
1
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
4
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
SR
|
12
|
4
|
3
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
L&N
|
11
|
2
|
2
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
4
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
MP
|
11
|
1
|
5
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
2
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
UTLX
|
11
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
11
|
|
|
|
RI
|
10
|
|
5
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
2
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
PFE
|
10
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
10
|
|
|
NP
|
9
|
|
5
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
ACL
|
7
|
|
1
|
|
|
2
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
C&O
|
6
|
1
|
2
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
N&W
|
6
|
|
2
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ERIE
|
5
|
1
|
2
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SBD
|
5
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
SLSF
|
5
|
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
WAB
|
5
|
|
2
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FGEX
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
|
DRG&W
|
4
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MDT
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
|
|
CG
|
3
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DL&W
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EJ&E
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
GTW
|
3
|
1
|
|
|
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NKP
|
3
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SHPX
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
|
|
|
SOO
|
3
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WLE
|
3
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ART
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
|
|
BM
|
2
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CNJ
|
2
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
D&H
|
2
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LV
|
2
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NATX
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
NH
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SDRX
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
|
T&P
|
2
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WFEX
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
URTX
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
ARLX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
NRC
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
A
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
AOX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
BMX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
C&EI
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CGW
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CIL
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CONX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
COSX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
CSOX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
DOWX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
DUPX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
EBAX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
GM&O
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GRCX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
HHCX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
LUX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
M&StL
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MEC
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MKT
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MPCX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
MPLX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
NC&StL
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PSPX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
SCCX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
SLSF
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
SUNX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
TOCX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
UCR
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
UOCX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
URR
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USOX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
USQX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
VGN
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WEOX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
WM
|
1
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WRNX
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
CPCX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DPX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DRX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GCX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ISTX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
KTX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
OZKX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PTLX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SCOX
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
US SUB
TOTAL
|
411
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CN
|
4
|
1
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
CP
|
4
|
2
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
N de M
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
For Sub
|
9
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
I need to validate the tank car numbers to account for Dow’s
home point at their Pittsburg plant and cross check the UTLX proportion given
the 50% share of the documented Port Chicago interchange traffic. The Ethyl Corp’s EBAX cars also need to be
represented on a frequent basis to carry antiknock compound to the refineries
on the Carquinez strait making AVGAS for the war effort. I can’t duplicate the image of a string of
Phillips 66 tanks with a singleton either.
But those are for further research and future blog posts.
John Barry
Arlington VA