Re: [CBQ] freight room writing on the wall

["Steven Holding via groups.io" <sholding=sbcglobal.net@groups.io>]

Ken

Leo's reason sounds good.  Some men who worked at the depots may have left their name and time worked there.

Steve in SC

On Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 09:25:17 PM EDT, Leo Phillipp via groups.io <qutlx1=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:

Ken,

i dont claim to be an expert. But i suspect the names and dates are related to LCL shipments waiting for the named person to come and pick up. When LCL shipments arrived in the freight room the agent sent a postcard to the consignee that their shipment had arrived and come pick it up. I also seem to recall that after “x” period of time a demurrage/storage charge began to clock.

Leo Phillipp

On Apr 18, 2026, at 5:23 PM, Ken Vandevoort via groups.io <countrydepottrains=gmail.com@groups.io> wrote:



All four walls in our Pilot Grove depot freight room have names and dates written on the wall.  What we are trying to find out is why?  There are also names on the wall at the Hillsboro depot on the Midwest Central.  Both of our depots are from the Peavine.  Our contact at the Midwest Central believes the names belonged to shippers and their goods would be piled by their name.  I am not 100% convinced about this.  Why would they use dates?  Photos of some of the names are attached.  If we had brighter lights in the freight room, I am sure we would see more names and dates.

 

Something else we are trying to figure out is when the first Pilot Grove depot burned down and when was the 2nd depot (ours) built.  The only fact we have is a short paragraph from the July, 1908 Order of Railway Telegraphers publication that the Pilot Grove agent was complaining about still working out of a narrow gauge boxcar.  We checked newspaper microfilm at the West Point Library as they were only 5.4 miles from our depot.  We did find out the the West Point depot burned in 1903 and their fire department was organized in 1904.

 

The biggest problem we have is artificial intelligence.  It has nothing but garbage relating to this search.  It tries to make fact out of fiction.  This will be a growing problem if we use the internet for research.

 

Ken Vandevoort

Pilot Grove depot (New London)

 

<Pilot Grove freight room 1.jpg>

<Pilot Grove freight room 2.jpg>

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