Leo
I knew I could depend on you to continue the covered hopper discussion. I
too have seen the piles of commodity under CH's in yards.
The case you mentioned was what we in the claims business referred to as a
"clear record car" ie no "reported" leakage. In the event that there was
reported leakage the claim, of course, was paid at full value. Faces were
kept straight at all times.
Also thanks for mentioning the hanging paper grain door metal straps. They
were not only annoying, but potentially dangerous, maybe even fatal, under
the right circumstances.
I also thought that you would remember the WWIB. I don't know what their
function was under the CUS, but, I never saw any organization that generated
or kept as much paper as that group did. I have spent many an hour in their
Chicago Union Station Office building offices as well as their district
offices. I think that they were paid by the pound of paper they could
create.
One of their main functions was to handle tarrifs as you mentioned. Talk
about an arcane subject. They also handled auditing of the waybills for
"transit" shipments ie grain, milling in transit, lumber and other
commodities which were handled under transit arrangements. Talk about a
paper generator.
I don't know whether the transit concept is still around, but for those who
don't know in as short a description as I can give here's an example.
A load of wheat comes into Minneapolis from Fargo ND and is unloaded at a
flour mill to be made into flour. Said flour is then shipped out to a
grocery warehouse in Oklahoma City. Now you would think that the shipper
would pay a freight charge of x dollars from Fargo to Minneapolis and then
the milling company would pay another freight charge of y dollars to Oklahoma
City. Tain't so simple.
Under transit rules the shipper is entitled to the through rate from Fargo,
ND to Oklahoma City, which is less than the sum of the local rate from Fargo
to Minneapolis plus the local rate from Minneapolis to Oklahoma City. The
traffic departments of the flour and grain people kept track of all the
inbound and outbound shipments and figured out what the additional charge for
the outbound flour would be. Of course the wheat shipped into the mill is
not the same wheat that is made into the flour being shipped out. The WWIB
kept track of all the inbound and outbound shipments and the rates and
audited these bills to be sure that it was done correctly.
There were other commodities that could be stored in transit. That's another
story.
WWIB is probably more responsible than any other organization I know of for
killing of trees. They would have been a prime target for Al Gore.
Leo tell us about lumber stored in transit (in the cars). If that was before
your time say so and I'll do a diatribe on that. It was the worst thing I
ever saw as a railroad ripoff. It was being done in the late 1950's and
early 60's, but think that it ended probably by mid to late 60's.
Pete
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