LCL Maybe it was profitable at one time, but it came to be the "bane of the existence" of the Freight Claim Agent. There was the matter of "concealed damage"..We had just one desk in the Feight Claim office when I went there in 64 which handled nothing but LCL claims. Fortunately and to my personal relief the RI got out of the LCL business in 65.
Just so "ya know" Concealed damage is damage that is found after the package is opened and the contents is found to be damaged when there is no visible damage to the outside of the package.
Another matter is the matter of "Warehouse damage"..This "in house" damage was supposed to be segregated from the "Carrier damage" in the recoopering room...But GUESS WHAT???? It didn't always happen that way. Railroads paid for many thousands of dollars of warehouse damage every year.
Maybe someday I'll do piece on "Freight Claim Calamaties" when the backlog of articles awaiting publication subsides...Freight Claims seems like a boring subject, but my years as Manager Freight Claims for the RI was the most fun job I ever had. I was on my own...Nobody knew what I was doing so I just did whatever I wanted...within reason, of course.
RI was the first railroad to completely computerize the claims operation..We went online January 1, 1969. I wrote a couple of articles for Railway Age and presented some talks before Shippers Advisory Boards. The whole idea was for us to be able to analyze the claims problem and thus reduce the "claim bill"..but, like many good intentions things didn't "pan out" the way they were supposed to at the time.
John made the statement "if the railroad WASN'T AT FAULT"....There was almost NO TIME that the RR was not at fault. Unlike the US legal system carrier liability law made the RR guilty unless it could prove itself innocent which was "NIGH ONTO IMPOSSIBLE"...There were 5 exceptions to carrier liability in the law.
!. Inherent vice of the goods 2..Act of Providence. I can't remember the other three. Maybe Barrister Mitchell can provide them....They may have been "act of the shipper", "act of the consignee" and one more.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Aug 11, 2015 10:37 am
Subject: Re: [CBQ] General Mills
The subject of recoopering and coopers at house 5 in Chicago,right done to the invoices showing time and material to fix LCL loads,will part of an in depth future article on the Q's Chicago LCL operations.
And the cooperage track( it did have to do with barrels)on the West Batavia branch is discussed in a different,soon to be seen BB.
Leo Phillipp
Back in the day, when railroads were in the LCL business, if a shipper's package would fail (and if the railroad wasn't at fault), for a "modest" fee, the railroad would "recooper" a package. Of course, if the railroad was at fault, they didn't charge for the service. Most large freight houses had employees called "coopers", but they didn't make barrels!
As always,thanks for sharing your knowledge Pete
Leo
Leo Dave et...There's an interesting matter of terms a nd spelling involved here and although it makes no difference to the subject or the story...as most of my stuff doesn't
here it is.
In the case of damaged goods which I dealt with for almost 8 years there was a term used for going through damaged cases of goods and pulling out the undamaged cans or sacks and putting them back into a new box or sack and getting that "new" package back "into stock". Thus the carrier only paid for the cans or sacks which were actually damaged plus the labor to do the job. This process was known as RECOOPERING....in contrast to your use of the term RECOUPERING which means just recovering what is left.
The term RECOOPERING comes from an old term "COOPERER" A COOPERER was a maker of barrels or boxes. Thus RECOOPERING is the process of getting the stuff back into new containers in contrast to the term RECOUPER which just means recovering whatever you can.
Once again this bit of trivia is provided for all members of this group at no charge and with full knowledge of the provider that...."this guy has too much time on his hands"...I really don't but this is sol much fun that I just can't help myself.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From:
qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ] <
CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
To: CBQ <
CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Aug 10, 2015 7:00 pm
Subject: Re: [CBQ] General Mills
Dave,
That's what the recoup was, In house damaged stuff,dropped,etc. when a case gets dropped probably 70-80% of the boxes are just fine but no longer in the case. I think General Mills came up with the $2/bag recoup so as to avoid pilferage that might have went on at other customers plants.
And just for clarification, this was back in the paper bag days and rest assured a box or two,three were stacked over and above the top edge of the bag. Quite a balancing act getting on the way car or GP-7 !
I don't recall any switching crew pilferage at West Chicago. For $2 you had all the product you needed. If you were on the job regular you could go into the resale business. See Ed De Rouins book on the Pennsy in Chicago and The Cambells soup plant !
Ps- same stuff goes on today at all kinds of warehouses but it's with trucks.
Leo
Sent from my iPad
the scratch and dent stuff to which i refer was damaged in the warehouse by gm emplyees via fork lifts etc. they in turn had to rid themselves of such evidence. rails hardly ever refused free stuff.
And the Freight Claim Agent PAID AND PAID AND PAID for all that stuff. &nb sp;There was Fred Kilker...Val Lingren, Les Seahausen and Lloyd Hosins (?) In case you guys don't know these were all CB&Q Freight Claim Agents all the way back to the 1930's through the BN Merger.....I knew all these guys and we knew, pretty much what happened to lots of stuff that didn't get turned back to the railroad to be sold as salvage.
But guess who got blamed for the high freight claim bill which got higher every year. We Freight Claim agents always said...."Don't blame us we're just the undertaker"..we didn't cause the death.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: David Weber
dave@cimmaronde sign.com
[CBQ] <
CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
To: CBQ <
CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Aug 10, 2015 3:44 pm
Subject: Re: [CBQ] General Mills
remember the scratch and dent days when shoe would return to eola with the nose of the geep full of ???
Bob,
I don't want to say too much as it will diminish the future article. First off let me say I don't have my notes or the article in front of me. General Mills bought the plant from Zenith (I think) around 1957 and started remodeling what became known as the " old wore house( warehouse), that gives you some inclination what was most often on the minds,of trains crews and the subject of talk on an ongoing basis on most jobs ! The plant expanded multiple times over the years.
Primarily the plant produces cereals( Cheerios,etc) and hamburger helper,etc. how do I know ? You'll need to read the article when published. It involves the recoup and $2 a bag.
Leo
A question for Leo or Gerald Edgar. Was looking at the article on the West Chicago branch in an old PM issue. General Mills was a large, diversified company, and I wondered what they made at the W. Chicago plant (loads in and out), and when the plant began operation. Thanks!
Bob Herrick
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