[Genma Saotome]

keystoneaholic, on 20 November 2022 - 01:13 PM, said:

You can never have too many X29s! Even if you are not in Pennsy country the chances of seeing them regularly was high. There were so many of them around that a significant proportion of photos of freight trains or yards will feature at least one.

There is an interesting fact that explains that: Both box and flat cars were free rolling; that is to say once unloaded they could be loaded again and sent farther away from home rails. There was a magazine ad from MONON that documented how their first, ummm, IIRC PS-1 boxcar left home rails and did not return for 4 or 5 years. This effect on a national scale meant free rolling cars would be dispersed across the US in proportions roughly equal to the percent each owner contribute to the national fleet. IOW, back in the day PRR had 12% of the US boxcar fleet; Data from wheel reports*, when added up, shows PRR boxcars were roughly 12% of the foreign road boxcars you'd see on any railroads mainlines. NYC had 10% an its cars were 10% of the foreign road boxcars seen and on down the list.

Of interest are CP and CN. They had the 2nd and 3rd largest fleet of Boxcars in North America but only about 10% of Canadian loadings went south of the border. Looking at sighting of foreign road boxcars, their road names showed up only 10% as often as one would expect if there was no border.



*(...wheel reports): I have this data and did the original analysis for the above. Wheel reports were used instead of photos as wheel reports show the whole train out on the road and photos either show hte locomotive and a few head endcars or oddities that inspired a whoa-look-at-that photo. The topic was hotly debated on the Steam Era Freight Car list (STMFC) and when the dust settled there was general agreement that it was a valid understanding. WWII was the great mixer, the Koren War did it again. I do not have wheel reports from the depression or the late 50's so I have nothing concrete to say about them but I will speculate that the need for boxcars in the great plains to move grain often called for cars from across the nation -- mixing, and the rise of covered hoppers in the national fleet in the 50's had the opposite effect.

[scottb613]

pnrailway, on 20 November 2022 - 12:21 PM, said:

Scott,

Those two recent locomotives of your's look real good. Now if only I can find the time to run some trains but I have been so busy here of late, had 48 projects in my architectural firm so far this year and I have been like a one arm paper hanger with the hives trying to keep up with all of them.

Hi Paul,

Thanks - it seems our interests are aligned pretty well. Nice to see you posting. Enjoy.


Regards,
Scott

[Weter]

Boxcars are one of most universal stock.
They even might have hatches or scootles for loading grain as well here.
But each of cars (no matter, which type) is recorded as one of station's property.
So, often, along with "owned by N station of X railroad" we can see "return to M station of Y railroad ASAP" text on cars.
Otherwise, some industries may be the owner, so their "base" stations are mentioned as M in that case.

The railway cars turnaround is quite scientific discipline. There where much calculations.

[ErickC]

Genma Saotome, on 20 November 2022 - 07:35 PM, said:

Of interest are CP and CN. They had the 2nd and 3rd largest fleet of Boxcars in North America but only about 10% of Canadian loadings went south of the border. Looking at sighting of foreign road boxcars, their road names showed up only 10% as often as one would expect if there was no border.

I wonder how much of this is due to CP's status as an international road and the taxation issues that come with it. CP bought a bunch of PS-1 boxcars, but they couldn't be loaded in Canada because CP didn't pay any Canadian excise taxes on them. So they were stamped "International of Maine Division" and roamed the rails in the US Midwest. They could be unloaded in Canada, just not the other way around. So they would have to be shipped "home" empty... which sounds like a good reason to me to keep US cars from coming to Canada, but doesn't really explain Canadian cars not coming to the US. Perhaps these cars were the majority of that 10% figure and most of CP's "Canadian" cars never really ventured south?

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CP "International of Maine" examples

Bear in mind that CP already had a sizeable US operation in the Soo Line (which they have owned since the 19th century). I suspect that given that they already had a fleet of cars tied to US soil and an entire US subsidiary, there just wasn't much need to send Canadian cars south. I'd also wager that CP and CN had enough utilization of their Canadian boxcars hauling Canada's sizeable grain harvest that there just wasn't any justification for sending them elsewhere. Many of those boxcars were refurbished with government funds specifically for hauling Canadian grain. There's a great article about Canada's grain boxcar fleet here: http://tracksidetrea...et-boxcars.html

[Genma Saotome]

ErickC, on 25 November 2022 - 06:33 PM, said:

I wonder how much of this is due to CP's status as an international road and the taxation issues that come with it. CP bought a bunch of PS-1 boxcars, but they couldn't be loaded in Canada because CP didn't pay any Canadian excise taxes on them. So they were stamped "International of Maine Division" and roamed the rails in the US Midwest. They could be unloaded in Canada, just not the other way around. So they would have to be shipped "home" empty... which sounds like a good reason to me to keep US cars from coming to Canada, but doesn't really explain Canadian cars not coming to the US. Perhaps these cars were the majority of that 10% figure and most of CP's "Canadian" cars never really ventured south?

03.JPG
CP "International of Maine" examples

Bear in mind that CP already had a sizeable US operation in the Soo Line (which they have owned since the 19th century). I suspect that given that they already had a fleet of cars tied to US soil and an entire US subsidiary, there just wasn't much need to send Canadian cars south. I'd also wager that CP and CN had enough utilization of their Canadian boxcars hauling Canada's sizeable grain harvest that there just wasn't any justification for sending them elsewhere. Many of those boxcars were refurbished with government funds specifically for hauling Canadian grain. There's a great article about Canada's grain boxcar fleet here: http://tracksidetrea...et-boxcars.html

All I know is what I read in the Canadian Government documents at Northwestern University. It said 10% of all boxcar loadings in Canada were destined for the US. Per the wheel report data I have the sightings of CP/CN cars on US mainlines were 90% fewer than what I expected from fleets as large as theirs. So while the assumption that ALL US bound Canadian origin shipments were made in CP/CN cars is highly unlikely it is clear there was something preventing the free roaming of CP/CN cars out of Canada. With further research I did find a US tax position that said if anyone loaded a Canadian Car in the US for another US destination it must be understood the railroad doing the loading had just imported that car and had to pay import duties on it. Sending it back to Canada, empty or loaded, did not have any financial hit. So obviously they were not free rolling in the US. I have no idea what was going on inside of Canada.

Something else I learned from documents at Northwestern -- there was a huge flow of US traffic between Buffalo and Detroit on the north shore of Lake Erie. Very little of it was dropped off in rte. Apparently this was both shorter and faster than moving along the south shore. IIRC the majority of the traffic was carried by the Wabash. I'm sure I could have learned this via other sources but the Wabash never caught my interest.


IIRC the name of the source material was published by the Dominion Bureau of Railway Statistics... several publications can be obtained off the web.