Freight station

“ No less than shippers in the prompt loading of cars, can those who receive freight conserve railway service, and therefore the national wealth, by promptly unloading shipments received in carloads, and by promptly removing their freight from the station sheds when it comes in less than carloads. Carelessness about this is one of the evils at which the railways in former times connived under stress of competition. ”

“ There is a large station for freight in each of the terminal cities, and at reasonably regular intervals along the road there are wayside stations with stables of good size, and with quarters for the station-keeper and attendants. ”

“ Regular freight-trains must make provision to leave the track clear for the passengers, while the extra freights, which have no regular schedule, creep from station to station as best they can, giving all the other trains a clear track—a sort of yellow dog which every one is privileged to kick.
All the regular trains, passenger and freight, run by the time-card. That is, each of them has its regular time for reaching and leaving every station on the road, and as long as all the trains are on time, things move smoothly and the dispatcher has an easy time of it. ”

“ It costs today as much to haul a ton of farm produce ten miles to a railway station as it does to haul it a thousand miles over a heavy-traffic trunk-line railway. It often costs more today to transport a ton of merchandise from its arrival in a long train in the freight yard on the outskirts of a great city to its deposit in the warehouse of a merchant four or five miles away than it has cost to haul it over a thousand miles of railway line. ”

“ There should be, if possible, at least one telegraph office between those at which opposing trains receive meeting-orders.
Orders should not be sent an unnecessarily long time before delivery, or to points unnecessarily distant from where they are to be executed. No orders (except those affecting the train at that point) should be delivered to a freight train at a station where it has much work, until after the work is done. ”

“ Agents or other officers of railroads and other transportation companies whose duty it is to receive freights shall receive all articles of the nature and kind received by such company for transportation whenever tendered at a regular depot, station, wharf, or boat landing, and every loaded car tendered at a side track, or any warehouse connected with the railroad by a siding, and shall forward the same by the route selected by the person tendering the freight under existing laws ”

“ The loading and unloading tracks being limited much of the freight must pass through the depot necessitating double handling. Again, in the large cities a considerable percentage of land in the business section, stated to be from 25 to 30 in Chicago, is occupied by the railroads for tracks, road and station purposes. This land is worth from $10 to $50 a square foot, and if freight cars stand upon it intermittently for the receipt and discharge of l.c.l. freight, it is not earning continuously but, on the other hand, it is spending every minute in interest, taxes and maintenance. ”

“ You have only to drive it to the railroad station, roll it on an automobile freight car with a door at the end, as in a small garage, take the next passenger train yourself and skip as many or as few miles as you choose. In America, automobile freight is wonderfully efficient, and is about as fast as ordinary express. (At least the Santa Fé service is.)
We spent only two days at the Grand Canyon and the car arrived in Los Angeles at the same time we did. There is only one deterrent to frequent freight shipments: the cost. Automobiles weigh a good deal and the freight charges are by the pound. ”

“ The problem of trucking is one of the great problems of each of our large cities, and, in order to eliminate this as far as possible, the railroad, under the stimulus of competition, will establish freight stations at each point where any considerable volume of traffic is likely to originate. ”

“ If the tracks are only on one side of the building it is designated a side freight house, but if there are tracks on both sides it is designated as an island freight house. Terminal freight houses differ from local freight houses in their greater size, in their more substantial construction of brick and steel, and in their arrangement for handling incoming freight, outgoing freight, different classes of freight, etc., in separate departments, and in having the storage space separate from the spaces devoted to the handling of transient freight. ”

“ The passenger terminals may have all the magnificence in which we have seen them, but the freight terminals are the real core of a railroad’s entrance into any town. For when you come to even the roughest figures, you find that in extreme cases—such as the New Haven’s, where there is a congested territory, closely filled with thickly populated cities and towns—the passenger receipts will hardly do more than approach a balance with those from freight. ”

“ In every considerable town, there are whole fleets of wagons that reach to the outermost limits, both for collection and for distribution. In this service the automobile truck has begun readily to displace the older type of horse and wagon. The wagon service brings the express package, no matter how small or how large, to a central distributing depot, where all are gathered together and sent, in through railroad cars, to their destinations, being handled very largely as we have seen the L. C. L. freight handled in the great transfer houses of the railroads. ”

“ In addition to the freight facilities offered by any individual railroad, there are what are known as fast freight lines. These agencies enable through and prompt shipment from inland points in our own country to inland points in another. An individual railroad may operate in connection with several such agencies. A certain railroad, 215 for example, is combined with nine fast freight lines. Freight agents of local roads in the principal towns usually represent the fast freight lines and are prepared to transact business. ”

“ It may be an important point for lake, river, or ocean traffic; and in such a case, the industries at docks and docking facilities of every sort form other busy functions. There will be coal or ore wharves, elevators, and car-floats to enter into the scheme.
So you see the railroad’s freight terminal in any large city is like the fingers of its extended hand. The long tendons reach into every productive centre, gathering and distributing at from a dozen to fifty points, aside from the private sidings. It is obvious that these must be caught together somewhere ”

“ Between the shifts and modifications of the passenger schedule, the freight trains play a game of their own. They have no right to the track at any given time, but are supposed to be on it when it is free, and to make the best time they can between passenger trains. A freight train, on a single-track road, gets anywhere at all only by stealing bases. ”

“ There are solid coal trains bound in and out of New York, of Philadelphia, and of Boston, that pass him empty and filled, and only change engines and cabooses at his command. There are through freights, bound from one seaboard to the other, from the Far East to the Far West, that do likewise. But the majority of the freight movement has the sorting out within his domain, his four humps are busy day and night with an ordinary run of traffic, and you shudder to think what must be the condition when business begins to run at high tide. ”

“ There is the commerce done. There the freight comes to a clearing-house. Manufacturing may increase and probably will upon the outer rims of the district. But distribution will remain close to its heart.
Consider for a moment, if you will, with me the antiquated freight facilities of the heart of what long since became the second city of the world, and which to-day, commercially, at least, is its first. Upon the long, slender island of Manhattan but one steam railroad has direct rail freight facilities. ”

“ With sub-stations so established, the principle of standardized interchangeable motor-truck bodies and chasses working to so definite an end, there remains little or no use for downtown freight terminals in a city like Cincinnati, save perhaps an occasional team-track yard for heavy car-load shipments. In the flats at the edge of the town the railroads can, and in my opinion eventually will, establish new and generous-sized freight-houses and other terminal appurtenances. ”

“ The train is practical only because the railroad company maintains freight and passenger stations, foreign and domestic agents, and all the detailed [Pg 277] force that a modern railroad requires. Furthermore, it sends its trains over certain routes at certain specified intervals, ready to move freight and passengers as they are ready to be moved. So must a shipping line be operated. Ships must be where they are needed, else freight accumulates or is diverted to other lines. ”

“ The rolling stock and the locomotives are not nearly so heavy as those used in the United States; the railway beds and track equipment, on the whole, are probably the best in the world. Freight rates are considerably higher than on the corresponding classes of merchandise in the United States. The public highways are most excellent, but the means of street traffic in the cities are very poor.
The harbor facilities at the various ports are of the best. The docks and basins are usually arranged so that while the import goods are being landed the export stuffs are made ready to be loaded. ”

“ The number of employees engaged in track work by American railways averages about 150 per 100 miles of line.
Buildings. Railway operations require the use of buildings in vast numbers. Of these passenger stations and freight depots are among the most important because of their number and cost. Passenger stations vary in size and character from small combination depots used at local stations of minor importance to large terminal stations of masonry and steel, and often of almost monumental magnificence. ”

“ The destination set out in the railroad bill of lading is the forwarder's break-bulk point. At that point the carload is broken up; some shipments may be distributed locally, some sent by truck to off-line destinations, and some consolidated into carloads for reshipment to further break-bulk points. The railroad has no knowledge of the contents of the car, the identity of the individual shippers, or the ultimate destinations of the consignments. The forwarder has an unqualified right to select the carrier and route for the transportation of the freight. ”

“ The express companies have practically a monopoly of the transportation of the smaller packages of goods requiring quick transit and immediate delivery, but the longer, heavier, and slower freight are in the hands of the railroads, and where it can be done, and time is not a first factor, the steamboat takes the place of the train. ”

“ In 1919 the entire property, including controlled lines, embraced more than 13,000 miles of main track, besides about 5000 miles of extra tracks; over 200,000 freight cars are in use on the system, and every year upwards of 200,000,000 tons of freight are transported. ”

“ Here traffic is relatively thin, the track with dirt ballast is less solid, hauls are many times longer, and single track is the rule. Moreover, we frequently have merchandise, implements, machinery and other high-class freight in one direction, and such perishable stuff as live stock and dressed meats in the other. ”

“ A railroad is a complex proposition. Seldom can we discuss one of its problems independently. So ramified are its activities that the penumbra of one shadow coincides with the outline of the next. Studied from the broadest view of railway administration, freight claims are found too often doing duty as a shadow which hides the real substance, poor operation. It was formerly the almost universal practice on American railways for freight claims to be handled and settled by the freight traffic department. ”

“ The railway is predominantly a carrier of freight. The freight traffic consists to a large extent of raw products such as sugar beets, milk, tomatoes and peas moving to factories, canneries or processing plants, and of the manufactured products moving outbound from the plants to connecting railroads. ”

“ The freight house in this terminal city is one of his biggest problems. His biggest local freight yard is in a narrow valley between high hills; and these, together with fearful realty values, absolutely circumscribe its area. The traffic is growing all the while, and all the local freight for his road—running in strongly competitive territory—comes to this terminal. Three hundred and fifty cars must be despatched every night for different points, and yet a dray coming into the yard must be able to find any one of those cars without an instant’s delay. ”

“ The owners of freight, therefore, have a responsibility for creating suitable facilities for loading and unloading freight promptly and for warehousing it in structures of their own, rather than in railway-cars, because the railway-car is the most expensive warehouse that can be used. A box- or a coal-car costs from $700 to $1000, and a refrigerator-car costs from $1200 to $1500. ”

“ In Seatrain's service, freight is transported to the company's dock in railroad cars, the cars and their contents are then lifted onto Seatrain's vessels, and at destination the cars are unloaded and delivered by rail to the consignee. This rail-water-rail service is similar to railroad boxcar service, in that it permits carriage from shipper to consignee without breaking bulk when both shipper and consignee are located on railroad sidings.
Railroad 'piggy-back,' or trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) , service is like that provided by Sea-Land. ”