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The weighing of cars brings back memories of how track scales worked. I was assigned to the Bridge Department in St. Paul in 1971. The department was divided into four parts, and I worked for a Bridge Engineer of Service Structures. Service Structures was
responsible for movable bridges, turntables, and track scales. One of the things that had not yet been done in 1971 was the development of a comprehensive list of track scales on the entire BN, both railroad and privately owned. We had scale inspectors that
were responsible for testing all of these scales, even the private ones, and it turned out that there were lots of scales, as I recall between 200 and 300 scales on the system. I was put in charge of developing the track scale list.
Most track scales were mechanical (as opposed to weigh-in-motion), and CB&Q was no exception. Most of the CB&Q scales were 50' long, and were rated for 125 tons or 150 tons, but a few were only 100 ton scales (but might be equipped with a 150 ton weigh beam
in the scale house and therefore could be overloaded). Virtually all of them were manufactured by the Strait Scale Company or Fairbanks-Morse Scale Company. Some of the 50' scales had been lengthened to 52' or 53' to accept longer cars, but you had to be
careful when weighing longer cars not to overload the scale. If the weight of the car exceeded the capacity of the scale, the car had to be (or was supposed to be) weighed 'one truck at a time'. And this theoretically involved NOT placing or running the
entire car over the 'live (scale) rails' as opposed to the 'dead rails'. The dead rails were typically 14" to 16" from the live rails and were (supposed to be) used when moving over the scale in any non-weighing activity (switch points connected the live
and dead rails on both ends of the scale). And the proper way to weigh a car was uncoupled, so you can see where this is going. Weighing a string of 20 or 30 heavy cars properly was a day-long adventure for a switch crew.
But you could spot the car, or truck, anywhere on the scale and the resulting weight was the same. These mechanical scales were marvelously designed, just imagine how 100 tons on a scale can be reduced through an intricate set of levers to be counter-acted
by only a few pounds on a weigh beam in a scale house.
Glen Haug
From: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io> on behalf of Jack Schroeder via groups.io <jack=highlandwebworks.com@groups.io>
Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2026 5:43 PM
To: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io>
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Grain boxcar trains
Not only did the cars need to be inspected, years ago they also needed to be weighed. Grain shipments were priced by weight, ($/hundred lb) and so to invoice the shipper with the correct freight charges the cars needed to be weighed. This was extremely
under productive. (I can remember hearing "waiting for weights" in meetings) We ended that in the 1990's i believe, when we went to per car rates. That meant that shippers always wanted to put as much grain into each car as possible. Modern automatic gain
loaders on loop tracks keep database as to how much grain by weight can be added to every individual covered hopper. It is not guessing! They load the max, but never more. Gross-tare = Load . Shippers that are found to over load grain cars are in big trouble.
That can cause car failure, derailment and loss of life.
One of the jobs I had was keeping a grain elevator directory which we published annually and later put on-line. One of the important things in the directory relative to this discussion was the number of cars the elevator's receiving tracks could hold. This
was used by the Grain Ops group to avoid empty car abuse. Elevators sometimes felt that the RR would cut the number of cars by a percentage in times of peak demand. So they would order more cars than their facility could receive, assuming it would be cut.
They soon realized that trick was not working. Another thing, train crews did not like to have 20 cars to be spotted at a facility that could only take 12. With the creation of the Grain Ops group about mid 80's, local rationing of cars ended. The Marking
-Ag Products and Grain Ops team at BNSF went to a bidding (COTS) system and a lottery system around year 2000. A given number of covered hoppers where put out for forward bidding each month with the highest bidder awarded the cars for their elevator. A supply
of cars were always held for loading of the feed-mills. They always got cars as best as possible, even in peak demand periods as this was -just-in-time- vial food for livestock. This bidding system was condemned at first by the grain industry and but later
was embraced by the grain companies for its effectiveness in rationing for all.
Former System Admin - BNSF Ag Products.
On 4/5/2026 4:59 AM, Leo Phillipp via groups.io wrote:
We could probably write a couple Bulletins just on grain traffic and handling.
Please understand that grain moved from elevators to various destinations more or less all year. The big grain companies like ADM,Cargill,etc,etc would buy grain on an ongoing basis as did the companies like General Mills,Pillsbury,etc,etc.
But the grain rushes in the west,.plains and Midwest were something different entirely.
While there were not unit trains there were lots of boxcars of grain. It was a simple function of capacity. Farms didn’t have the grain storage they do today nor did the country elevators. The grain had to go major consumers,traders or export
or rot.
Besides cars going direct to a user there was another type of shipment.
Major yards had grain inspection tracks( my memory is Cicero was d-4 in D yard) where cars of grain coming from country elevators were inspected,checked for moisture,etc. They were then bought,traded and billed to destination.
So as grain harvest approached empty 40 foot box cars would be staged. Then as the rush of requests for cars came in empties would be released to elevators. During harvest there were never enough box cars for the business. That’s where those
ICC orders to eastern roads to supply empty 40 footers to western roads came from.
One system that existed was for the yard to place a string of empties on to a wayfreight and the Conductor was the car distributor. He more or less decided how many cars an elevator received. It was explained to me that on some runs this resulted
in a very simple ordering system. Each day as the local arrived in town and did its switching the Conductor was visiting with the agent and maybe the elevator guys and discussing business. As the train left town the rear brakeman would have to be careful climbing
back aboard because the rear steps would have the unofficial cars orders for the next day on them. The number of bottles of the Conductors favorite booze or cartons of his favorite
Cigarettes represented the number of cars needed tomorrow.
Leo Phillipp
No dedicated grain trains till more modern times. Most cars would have been carloads alone. Even multiple car loads out of the same elevator and headed to the same place had their own waybill.
The Paper Trail is coming to the Zephyr or Bulletin someday
Steve in SC
Back when boxcars were the primary grain haulers, how many of these cars would be in a typical CB&Q train? Also, were smaller amounts of filled grain boxcars mixed in with other cars on locals till they got to a yard to be picked up by a grain
train?
Scott Nesbit
(605)360-0185
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