I recently acquired the car seal record book from Ottumwa covering Dec "31
thru Dec "67. Did a little distilling of the data and will share here. If
you need more detail let me know. As for doing further yrs, will depend on
whether this is of interest to anyone on the list or to be put in the
category of my pics of tank car interiors! :-) The upcoming Zephyr
(going to mailer this week along with B.B, I understand) has a mention of
carseals as a collectible - mayhaps this will whet your appetite. Most seals
applied here were coded U for Oyumwa, a couple were E for Lines East. A
couple entries were challenging - I checked with a local re'td Milw Road
station agent (40+ yrs experience) and was going to email Bob Brown but
understand he's in the hospital - sure we all hope all goes well for him.
His books on depots and towers, etc are super!
Now for the data. Am covering 4 &1/2 yrs this go around (Dec "31 to May
"36). If we assume that cars that needed seals (either because they were
found unsealed or had broken/improperly installed seal, etc.) we have a
representative sample of all loaded cars except open tops of course. The
standard Q carseal book, when properly filled out, has car initials & #,
what train it was on, why it had to have seal, contents, etc.
NOTE: Not in this time frame but one I scanned in the 1960's, was a tank car
requiring a seal - I asked my Milw agt & he guessed it was probably grain
alcohol (Q served Hiram Walker in Burlington).
130+ seals applied; 78 to CB&Q equipment, 37 to private owner and 17 to
foreign road. You can figure the ratios of the consists. Bear in mind some
of these cars were going to/from John Morrell.
Of the Q equipment, several really jump out - 3 were issued to an Engineer
Frickey at various times for loco's 5322, 5355 & 5605 (for speed recorders
or ???); 1 to a conductor for a first-aid kit and 1 to baggage/mail car
#1822 traveling in a frt (applied by Enginee Frickey again). Also one
applied to MoW Box #212023 with company materials (something of value!) and
several to cars of soda ash (116971 & 130615 - per my 5-31 ORER 40 & 41' box
cars) - was shipped in bags apparently in those days. There was also a
revenue box with company matl from Galesburg (#114644). There was also
#47225, a 50's auto boxcar with autos inside (brand not shown); #112343 with
cowhides interchanged from the Milw; 58790, a 35' stock car with hogs from
Lamoni (going to John Morrell) and 109952, carrying LCL which included a
leaking carton of glue. (I toss that in due to recent discussion of LCL -
lucky for the Q the leaking box did not impair other frt per the agent).
Stock #57972 was carrying cattle. Either I can't read the agt's writing or
he made an error as he also showed a box car #131027 carrying horses. (more
on horses in the foreign roads). Another box consigned to cowhides was
112066. (NOTE: IN later years the Q and other RR's would note in the ORER
if a car was assigned to hide loading because once they were, it was
difficult to load them with anything else; thus they were/are dedicated cars
and usually older, less valued ones). There is also a 48538 shown as BREX
but such a # does not show up in BREX #'s in my ORER (they were 75000-78000
at the time) nor is it a valid Q frt car #. Thoughts??? Also there are
entries when seals were given to the local "cinder dick" (Special Agt H.C.
Stanfield) and to a BREX rep. (Assume one was assigned to Ottumwa & did a
good job as no BREX cars needed resealing except the one mystery # - perhaps
a leased car?).
An interesting note was a set of 5 cars needing seals coming in on a
"derrick extra" Aug. 7, 1932 as they were carrying "spuds" and sugar
recovered from derailment #62 @ MP259.52 - figure the derailment was the day
before give or take a day. It's not clear if the #62 referred to a train #
or to the sequential annual list of derailments - am sure someone out there
will know.
There were no FtW&D cars listed but one C&S made it: #14226, a 40' box. Now
foreign roads:
Milw 5; SOO, NP & C&NW - 2 ea; PRR, B&O, N&W, SP, B&M, MKT & SL-SF - 1 ea.
One SOO was a seal replacement so horses could be watered, ditto for a Milw
and for a SP except here the agent says a "Stallion" (perhaps a single race
or breeding horse getting special attention but then again racing stock
usually went on head end of passenger trains). The Katy stock car had cattle
fed (apparently not stopping @ Morrell). A PRR reefer had a faulty heater;
1 Milw car carried tile, a C&NW carried cans of paint. One set of reporting
marks, shown twice (different dates and very clear writing) are "CRL" -
cannot find them listed as RR or private owner (he sometimes dropped the "X"
after private owners; i.e. FGEX is just shown FGE which was common). Any
ideas?
Now Private owners:
ART 10; FGE 7; NRC (Northern Refrig - a GB&W subsidiary) 6; WFE 5; URTX 4;
HCTX 2 (couldn't find this rptg mark); MTTX (Mather) 2 and UFEX 1.
Interesting here was when seals were given to the "Banana Messenger"
accompanying 2 of the ART reefers. One FGE was carrying potatoes going to
the Wabash and another was opened & resealed as there was a concern the
contents were frozen (was Jan and car had a heater).
Most train #'s were 67, 74, 78, 79 80,& 88
That's all for now..... Gerald
Gerald A. Edgar
230 W. 5th St.
Garner, IA 50438-1404
(641) 923-2573
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