Freight yard

“ It was agreed that a railroad yard is a system of tracks within defined limits over which movements of engines and cars not authorized by timetable or train order may be made, subject to prescribed signals and rules or special instructions. It was further agreed that the 'yard-service employees' or 'yardmen' working in a yard perform such functions as switching, making and breaking up trains, moving and storing cars, inspecting cars and freight, repairing cars, maintaining equipment, sending and receiving messages, keeping records and making reports. ”

“ A freight train is backed into a yard or sidetrack, and by reason of rough handling or carelessness a small collision occurs, and several cars loaded with valuable merchandise are jammed down and off the end of the track into the swamp. ”

“ Her decks, encumbered with harbour gear and tackle, are given over to the rude hands of the longshoreman; a lumber yard for harbour refuse, a dumping ground for the ashes of the bustling dock tugs. On the hatch covers of her empty holds planks and stages are thrown aside, left as when the last of the cargo was dragged from her; hoist ropes, frayed and chafed to feather edges, swing from the yardarms; broken cargo slings lie rotting in a mess of grain refuse. The work is done. There is not a labourer's pay in her; the stevedores are gone ashore. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a group of working men and women sat on the west bank of the river, waiting impatiently for the return of the ferryboat, they saw, from minute to minute, carriages drive up the lawn avenue, discharge the occupants at the main entrance of the house, and then roll off to the stable yard in the rear. ”

“ There are a few carts and a good many donkeys with panniers upon their backs, but heavy freight, like lumber, bales of merchandise and such things are carried from one place to another by men. It is a common thing to see eight, twelve or sixteen men with long poles staggering under a load of dry goods, hardware, iron rails or timbers for the construction of houses. ”

“ The entire premises occupy about thirty-five acres of land, and comprise building yard, tidal basin, yard workshops, and engine and boiler works. When in full operation the establishment gives employment to over 4,000 workmen. The yard possesses eight building slips, laid out for the largest class of vessels, and owing to their situation—facing the river Cart, which here joins the Clyde—excellent facilities for the launching of vessels are afforded. ”

“ A great freight-house, almost Venetian in type, floats upon the surface of the silent river and becomes part and parcel of the pier itself. After that it is quick work to open each of the cars—to wheel out sample barrels of potatoes, of cabbage, of celery, of lettuce, of cauliflower—all the growing things of country farms that go to feed the hungry city. ”

“ Continuing our perambulation of the yard we encounter the shunters, watchmen, carriage finishers, painters, washers-down, and cushion-beaters. The old canal claims a moment’s attention, then we pass on to the ash-wheelers, bricklayers, road-waggon builders, and the wheel-turning shed. Leaving them behind we come to the “field,” where the old broad-gauge vehicles were broken up or converted, and proceed thence into the din of the frame-building shed and study some portion of its life. ”

“ Immense freight-wagons, with ponderous wheels and axles, heavily laboring under prodigious loads of ore for the mills, or groaning with piles of merchandise in boxes, bales, bags, and crates, block the narrow streets. Powerful teams of horses, mules, or oxen, numbering from eight to sixteen animals to each wagon, make frantic efforts to drag these land schooners over the ruts, and up the sudden rises, or through the sinks of this rut-smitten, ever-rising, ever-sinking city. ”

“ The most pressing demand of the day connected with our inland waterways is for navigation and carriage of freight. The need is urgent. The notably reserved and cautious Interstate Commerce Commission has just declared:
It may conservatively be stated that the inadequacy of transportation facilities is little less than alarming; that its continuation may place an arbitrary limit on the future productivity of the land ”

“ There is accommodation for the unloading of the animals from the vessels at any height of the tide all along the front of the import warehouses, and this operation can be carried on at the same time as the unloading of parcels and the perishable goods traffic from the same boats, while, close at hand, is a covered pen set apart for the reception of lame and distressed animals who are unfit to walk to the cattle yard, such animals being loaded up and taken by an engine to the yard. ”

“ 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 ”

“ This whole business of conveying fruit to distant markets by steamboat and rail, is thoroughly systematized. It is an immense item in the general freight-list of the great seaboard railroads, constantly growing, and as surely enriching both grower and carrier. For the former it insures a sale of all his products in the highest markets, and in fact brings them to his very door. ”

“ Agricultural pursuits occupy the attention of the people, the raising and tending of cattle and live stock being by far the most important industry. Frey Bentos and Colon are both well-known ports upon this river, at which the steamer comes to anchor. At the numerous stopping places small tenders, row boats, and canoes come alongside, and put on or take off passengers and their baggage, small freight, and mails, very little time being occupied by the operations. ”

“ That our water-courses act as levelers of interstate rates is apparent from the fact that railroad rates invariably rise with the freezing of the water-ways and fall with the opening of river and lake navigation. By connecting, wherever feasible, our large Western rivers with the great lakes, the Government could greatly extend the reign of competition in transportation, and thereby keep freight rates within reasonable bounds. ”

“ Everywhere one sees the long gray sides of freighters, destroyers, merchant ships, and oil tankers heaving like the mailed ribs of sea animals basking [Pg 41] on the shore. Practically every single operation, from the most stupendous to the most delicate, necessary for the complete construction of these vessels, is carried on in this yard. The eighty acres look small when we realize the extent and variety of the work achieved within its limits. ”

“ And then along comes a fast freight which slows up a little at the town; and off of it drops a black bundle that rolls for twenty yards in a cloud of dust and then gets up and begins to spit soft coal and interjections. I see it is a young man broad across the face, dressed more for Pullmans than freights, and with a cheerful kind of smile in spite of it all that made Phœbe Snow’s job look like a chimney-sweep’s. ”

“ The cheapness and ease of river travel have tended to check or delay the construction of highroads and railways, where facilities for inland navigation have been abundant, and later to regulate railway freight charges. Conversely, riverless lands have everywhere experienced an exaggerated and precocious railroad development, and have suffered from its monopoly of transportation. ”

“ The facilities for reaching these country homes are already adequate for general purposes, and will be increased every year, as the demand for them grows. Railroads and steamboats are built and run for the purpose of profit on freight and passenger transportation. According to the general law of trade, the supply will equal the demand, and as the population increases along our lines of travel, the facilities and accommodations for transit will be multiplied. ”

“ They also contract to make the embankment at the river from the excavation of the road, provided the haul shall not exceed a distance of eight hundred feet from the eastern termination of the said embankment; all other portions of the hauling together not to exceed an average of eight hundred feet; and for any distance exceeding the said average the price is to be one and a half cents per cubic yard for each hundred feet. ”

“ These lines are all connected for freight purposes by a belt road, over which pass about 5000 freight cars daily. This belt road also does an enormous business for the stock-yards, and its convenient line is rapidly filling up with manufacturing establishments. As a consequence of these facilities the trade of the city in both wholesale and retail houses is good and increasing. ”

“ Work is progressing, however, and it will not be long until it will no longer be necessary for vessels to anchor out in the open, and for both passengers and freight to be brought ashore either in launches or row boats. Thus will one of the annoyances as well as one of the big items of expense at this port be eliminated. Along the line of warehouses, and parallel with the harbour line, an avenue has been laid out that is more than three hundred feet in width. This gives abundant room for railroad tracks, tram tracks and driveways for both wagons and pleasure vehicles. ”

“ The railroad company alleges that its increased traffic requires, in the city of Washington, additional accommodations for receiving, storing, and transferring freight, and that it has purchased the two squares mentioned for that reason, and that it intends to build a freight depot on square 233, as being at once convenient for the company and more out of the way of the travel, current business, and residences of the citizens than any point within reasonable distance of the line of the road. ”

“ Before Papa got his freight line from Hamlin to Stamford, he had one truck and was looking for anything to haul that would help us make a living. He took one job of hauling that shouldn't happen to a dog. There was a man buying maize heads one summer and shipping them by rail to somewhere. This was the surplus maize farmers had left from last year's crop, after they had used all they needed for feed through the winter and spring. The man bought the maize from farmers and then told us where to go pick it up. Then we hauled it from the farms and loaded it into railroad boxcars. ”

“ Where there are abundant water-ways to compete with the railroads, the freight, which seeks the easiest routes, goes to them, and the railroads have to rely more largely upon passengers; where water-ways are more rare, as on the great Continental plains, the freight is of necessity carried on the railroads, and they find in it the source of their most lucrative business, by the side of which the passenger traffic may sink into relative insignificance. ”

“ Along their three thousand three hundred and eighty-five miles of United States shore line will be built this year more than one half of the tonnage constructed in America, and over their highways will travel at least six times as much freight as all the nations of the world carried through the Suez Canal in 1908. ”

“ They dug the ditches, built the railroad embankments, and toted the freight on the river. Since that time they have wonderfully developed; in the present day, very few even of the emigrants handle pick and shovel, and none handle freight as river deck hands. They are the trainmen and policemen of the country, and their sons are our mayors and aldermen, our judges and law-makers. The dirt-handling on the railroads is passed on to the Italians and the Huns, while the river freight-handling, what little there is of it, is done by the lower class of negroes. ”

“ While this is the condition of business in the city on the land, the river and its branches are crowded with vessels of all kinds, sailing craft and steamers, boats, barges, and tugs, moving backwards and forwards, and loading and unloading. Along the banks there are docks, warehouses, elevators, and all the appliances for shipping and reshipping goods. To these vessels the unrestricted navigation of the river and its branches is of the utmost importance; while to those who are compelled to cross the river and its branches the bridges are a necessity. ”

“ 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. ”