There were several Military Ordinance Facilities served by the CB&Q. The
Iowa Army Ammunition Plant at Dayman has been mentioned as well as Savanna
Army Ammunition Depot north of Savanna Ill. We shouldn't forget Lines West
either. There was a small ammunition plant east of Wahoo NE that I believe
was served by a now abandoned CB&Q branch. The Cornhusker Army Ammunition
Plant was just west of Lincoln NE. There was a large Naval Ammunition
Depot east of Hastings NE. The Rocky Mountain Arsenal used to be just
northeast of Denver. All the facilities in NE and CO were served by both
the UP and CB&Q. ( For those concerned about homeland security all these
sites other that he Iowa Army Ammunition plant are no longer used by the
military.)
If you are not familiar with them these facilities are large 1000+ sites
that had many miles of railroad serving them. Ordinance is heavy, and
dispersed storage for the finished product and component parts is desirable
for safety reasons. Up until the '50s or '60s rail was the preferred
method to move material around these large sites. Most of the sites would
have 2 to 6 Department of Defense locomotives, and small fleet of boxcars
and other equipment.
I have no first hand information, but I guess that these box cars were
leased by the CB&Q to as a convenient way to allow them into interchange
service. There may have been a shortage of cars to haul ammunition, or
they may have had special equipment to haul particular items. I doubt that
they were released for general service. Normally such information is
listed in the ORER, but in this case they may have chosen not to publish the
information.
Stephen Craven
-----Original Message-----
From: Rupert and Maureen [mailto:gamlenz@ihug.co.nz]
Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2004 7:06 PM
To: CBQ@YahooGroups.com
Subject: [CBQ] USA boxes
Following a discussion with one of its members, I raised the following query
on the Steam Freight Car List -
"For about 12 months during 1947 and 1948, there were 40 boxcars on the CB&Q
numbered 24167 - 24210 (excluding four numbers) but with "USA" reporting
marks.
The cars are listed with an inside length of 36' 6", width of 8' 6", height
of 7' 10" and a capacity of 2432 cu. ft.
They are shown as being operated under lease by the Q and are not included
in the total of freight car ownership. These reporting marks don't seem to
appear in the ORER's for this period."
The response was that these cars were owned by the U. S. Army. USA
reporting marks were used on cars in captive service on military bases and,
as these cars were not used in interchange, they did not appear in the War
Department listings in the
ORERs.
Which left open the question of "Why were they leased?" It has been
suggested by Rob Adams that they might have been assigned to the Iowa
Ordinance Plant at Dayman, IA, near Burlington. Can anyone confirm this or
offer other suggestions? As they were listed on the ORER, would that
indicate that they were available for general usage rather than solely for
military loads?
Thanks
Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Yahoo! Groups Links
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
$4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/8ZCslB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
CBQ-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|