At the end of Step 8, our ordinary 40' all-steel PS-1 box car, Rutland 197, had delivered a carload of vehicle parts to the Abex Corp. plant just outside of St. Louis, Mo. At step 9, the TRRA picked up the empty box car and delivered it to the National Carloading Corp. in St. Louis, where it was loaded with structural and plate steel. This was a freight forwarding shipment to the National Carloading Corp. at the Port of Houston, Houston, Tex. This is the model waybill for the shipment of Rutland 197's step 9 (click to enlarge or download):
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Missouri's dominant commodity flows are to the southwest. Destinations for Missouri box cars lie primarily on a line extending from Massachusetts at the northeast to Texas at the southwest, which is mildly against the primary east/west grain of traffic across the North American continent in the 1950s:
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The Route:
Competition and Car Selection:
The competition and selection used EasyAAR. 12 empties were competing for 10 loads. The total district difference was 7, and the algorithm took 19 iterations.
The Commodity Flow:
The shipment is a carload of structural and plate steel from several vendors, assembled into a single carload by a freight forwarder (ICC Commodity Class 950, Forwarder Traffic). The shipment is from Missouri to Texas. This particular shipment from Missouri is pretty common with respect to both the commodity and the destination.
Forwarder Traffic forms its own major commodity grouping. For commodities carried primarily in box cars, Missouri shipments exceed the levels of a hypothetical average state for all commodity groups except for Products of Mines and Forests. Forwarder traffic is the third most frequent major commodity group in terms of carloads shipped from Missouri:
Forwarder Traffic forms its own major commodity grouping. For commodities carried primarily in box cars, Missouri shipments exceed the levels of a hypothetical average state for all commodity groups except for Products of Mines and Forests. Forwarder traffic is the third most frequent major commodity group in terms of carloads shipped from Missouri:
Missouri's dominant commodity flows are to the southwest. Destinations for Missouri box cars lie primarily on a line extending from Massachusetts at the northeast to Texas at the southwest, which is mildly against the primary east/west grain of traffic across the North American continent in the 1950s:
The Shipper and Consignee:
Both the shipper and the consignee are the National Carloading Corp, a freight consolidator and forwarder. NCC in St. Louis was served by the TRRA. NCC at the Port of Houston in Houston was served by the Missouri Pacific.
The Route:
The TRRA picked up the box car from NCC in St. Louis as part of a switching move in the St. Louis Terminal District. They delivered the car to the Mopac, which was the originating line-haul carrier. In fact, MP was the only line-haul carrier for this step. The line hauls for this route are:
TRRA - no line haul; this move was inside the St. Louis Terminal Switching District
MP 528 miles
MP 528 miles
Total 528 miles
The Waybill:
The waybill is based on an actual MP waybill dating from 1962. I scanned the header and footer directly from the prototype, including the MP buzz saw. The clerk's typewriter is a font called Splendid 66. This is a light serif face (it has open top 4s) which caught my eye and adds some nice variation to a stack of waybills.
Competition and Car Selection:
The competition and selection used EasyAAR. 12 empties were competing for 10 loads. The total district difference was 7, and the algorithm took 19 iterations.
Charles Hostetler
Goshen, Ind.