In the previous post I collated some information that was consistent with the working hypotheses that:
The abbreviation noibn means "not otherwise indexed by name" and N.O.S. means "Not Otherwise Specified". That's a pretty long table, but fortunately most of it is self-explanatory. Commodity classes 329 (asphalt), 501 (gasoline), and 505 (lubricants) contain exactly what you would expect from the name. Commodity class 503 (fuel and road oil) contains primarily diesel fuel and home heating oil. Commodity class 507 (Other Refined Products, which I abbreviate here as ORP) contains a mixture of solids, liquids, and gases that include (in order of decreasing quantity produced) naphtha, kerosene, liquified gases for fuel, aromatic hydrocarbons, and waxes. Consignees for commodity class 503 were primarily local distributors of fuel and road oil. Consignees for commodity class 507 were primarily industrial or transportation-related facilities.
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It is clear that other refined product shipments and at least some part of diesel shipments were on a regional (multi-state) scale.
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- Vendome leased its tank cars to shippers of refined oil products located in the Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas area.
- Vendome was not itself a shipper.
- The lessors of Vendome's tank cars could have been any of a number of shippers including major distributors and independents.
In this post I want to use some of the summary statistics from the ICC's 1% Carload Waybill Survey to see if we can estimate the geographic reach and frequencies of shipments of refined petroleum products.
The Pertinent Commodity Classes:
The ICC's 1% Waybill Survey statistics are reported by commodity classes. We are looking for commodity classes that represent output from petroleum refineries that could be carried in ordinary TM cars classified ARA II/III or ICC 103. The pertinent commodity classes, and the commodities that make up these classes are summarized in the following table:
| Commodity Class | ||
| Number | Name | Contains |
| 339 | Asphalt | Asphalt, by-product |
| Asphalt, natural | ||
| Asphalt, petroleum | ||
| Gilsonite | ||
| 501 | Gasoline | Gasoline, blended, consisting of motor fuels containing 50% or more of gasoline |
| Gasoline, casinghead | ||
| Gasoline, natural | ||
| Gasoline, noibn | ||
| 503 | Fuel, Road, and Petroleum Residual Oils, N.O.S. | Carbon black oil |
| Diesel oil | ||
| Distillate, petroleum, noibn | ||
| Fuel oil | ||
| Fuel distillate | ||
| Gas emulsion | ||
| Gas oil | ||
| Petroleum oil distillate | ||
| Petroleum oil tank bottoms, noibn | ||
| Petroleum tailings, noibn | ||
| Residual fuel oil | ||
| Road oil | ||
| Wax tailings, petroleum | ||
| 505 | Lubricating Oils and Greases | Axle grease, noibn |
| Axle grease, petroleum | ||
| Lubricants, noibn | ||
| Lubricating grease, noibn | ||
| Lubricating grease, petroleum | ||
| Lubricating oil, noibn | ||
| Lubricating oil, petroleum | ||
| 507 | Petroleum Products, Refined, N.O.S. | Absorption oil, petroleum |
| Belt oil, petroleum | ||
| Benzine (benzene) (benzol) | ||
| Butane gas | ||
| Compression oil, petroleum | ||
| Cordage oil, petroleum | ||
| Floor oil, petroleum | ||
| Harness oil, petroleum | ||
| Kerosene | ||
| Leather oil, petroleum | ||
| Liquified petroleum gas | ||
| Miners' oil, petroleum | ||
| Naptha | ||
| Naptha distillate | ||
| Naptha solvent, petroleum | ||
| Napthenic acid | ||
| Neatsfoot oil, petroleum | ||
| Oil, petroleum, noibn | ||
| Paraffine wax | ||
| Pentane | ||
| Petrolatum, noibn | ||
| Petroleum fatty acid | ||
| Petroleum jelly, noibn | ||
| Petroleum wax | ||
| Propane gas | ||
| Putty oil | ||
| Refined oil, petroleum, illuminating or burning | ||
| Soap oil, petroleum | ||
| Tanner's oil, petroleum | ||
| Tobacco oil, petroleum | ||
| Transformer oil, petroleum | ||
| Wool oil, petroleum | ||
The abbreviation noibn means "not otherwise indexed by name" and N.O.S. means "Not Otherwise Specified". That's a pretty long table, but fortunately most of it is self-explanatory. Commodity classes 329 (asphalt), 501 (gasoline), and 505 (lubricants) contain exactly what you would expect from the name. Commodity class 503 (fuel and road oil) contains primarily diesel fuel and home heating oil. Commodity class 507 (Other Refined Products, which I abbreviate here as ORP) contains a mixture of solids, liquids, and gases that include (in order of decreasing quantity produced) naphtha, kerosene, liquified gases for fuel, aromatic hydrocarbons, and waxes. Consignees for commodity class 503 were primarily local distributors of fuel and road oil. Consignees for commodity class 507 were primarily industrial or transportation-related facilities.
Temporal Changes in National Statistics:
I looked at the statistics from the late 1940s through 1960. I was working from the hypothesis that this period was a time of change in the patterns of rail shipments of refined petroleum products. The factors driving change were installation of new refineries and pipelines, the trend toward motor freight, and changes in refinery operation.
This chart shows the time series of carload shipments of refined petroleum products in the U.S. from 1947 through 1960 (click to enlarge):
The data series labeled <Comm> represents the average behavior of all commodities shipped by rail during that period. These data suggest:
- Gasoline, diesel, and other refined products dominated the sample.
- There was a general decline in rail shipments of refinery products during the time period except for other refined products, which increased by about 25% over the 14 years.
- There might have been three time periods with somewhat different characteristics; the immediate post-war years (with high frequencies of gas and diesel shipments), the early 1950s (where gas, diesel, and other refined products were about equal in frequency), and the late 1950s (where other refined products were more frequent than gas and diesel shipments).
- During this time frame the minor components (asphalt and lubricants) roughly tracked the behavior of most other commodities (the blue line) showing a general decrease throughout the period.
This graph illustrates the changes in shipping patterns over the three broad time periods and compares the shipping frequencies with an estimated average refinery output (scaled to a 15,000 carload sample):
Geographic Reach of Rail Shippers in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas:
One of the things I was interested in was whether the scope of the rail shipments of refinery products was primarily a local phenomena or somewhat broader in nature. This graph shows the average line haul of national shipments of refinery products as a function of time:
These data show that line hauls for other refined products, lubricants, and asphalt (to a lesser degree) were on a multi-state regional scale, and that line hauls for gasoline and diesel shipments tended to be much smaller, on the order of several hundred miles.
That idea is reinforced by the next two charts, which show the distribution of line hauls for tank car shipments of three refinery commodity classes in the early 1950s and the late 1950s:
I looked at the distribution of state-to-state shipments of gasoline, diesel, and ORP that originated in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas during the early and late 1950s. These maps compare the geographic distribution of consignees for gasoline shipments from Kansas in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
Gasoline from Oklahoma in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
Gasoline from Texas in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
Diesel/fuel oil from Kansas in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
Diesel/fuel oil from Oklahoma in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
Diesel/fuel oil from Texas in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
Other refined products from Kansas in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
Other refined products from Oklahoma in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
Other refined products from Texas in the early (above) and late (below) 1950s:
- Shipments from Texas have the widest geographic scope of consignees for all three commodity classes in both the early and late 1950s, followed by Kansas and Oklahoma.
- For all states, shipments of Other Refined Products (ORP) have the widest geographic scope of consignees, followed by diesel/fuel oil and gasoline.
- For gasoline and diesel/fuel oil, the grain of the commodity flows trend from Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas northeast toward Illinois and Wisconsin. For shipments originating in Texas there is also an east/west trend extending from Arizona/New Mexico toward Alabama/Georgia.
- For other refined products the commodity flows cover most of the U.S.
Frequencies of Vendome Shipments:
I thought about several ways to estimate the relative frequencies of shipments of refinery products in Vendome cars. One way to think about it is that Vendome had about 320 TM tank cars throughout the 1950s. If these leased cars made around 15 trips each year (about the national average), then we would expect perhaps 5,000 or so Vendome tank car shipments each year. In the early 1950s there were about 355,000 shipments of gasoline, diesel/fuel oil, and ORP from Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas (and about 295,000 shipments in the late 1950s). So on the average, one out of every 70 (early 50s) to 60 (late 50s) shipments of petroleum products from Kansas, Oklahoma, or Texas might be expected to come in Vendome cars. This is not an unreasonably small traffic flow to model over the course of 10 or so operating sessions.
In looking at the statistics from the Ahnapee & Western waybill collection, it seems that at least in the early 1960s on the A&W that shipments seemed to come in clumps or clusters of similar cars from similar shippers. These traffic lanes seem to have their basis in corporate relationships between suppliers, distributors, and end users. If one is willing to postulate a relationship between Vendome's lessee (the shipper) and a local bulk gasoline/fuel oil distributor or a local industry that uses kerosene or naphtha as an input, then it seems to me that having a steady trickle of Vendome cars through the layout could be quite plausible, particularly in the upper midwest, southwest, and gulf coast.
Originating Line Haul Carriers:
If you are using prototype-based waybills the originating line haul carriers are of interest.
In El Dorado, both the El Dorado Refining Co. and Skelly Oil Co. refineries were served directly by the Santa Fe. If there was a local switching agreement, then the Missouri Pacific, the other carrier in El Dorado, could have been an originating carrier as well.
In Tulsa, the D-X Sunray Oil Co. and Texas Co. refineries were directly served by the St. Louis - San Francisco. Depending on local switching agreements, other line haul carriers in Tulsa that could originate shipments were the ATSF, MKT, and Midland Valley.
Originating Line Haul Carriers:
If you are using prototype-based waybills the originating line haul carriers are of interest.
In El Dorado, both the El Dorado Refining Co. and Skelly Oil Co. refineries were served directly by the Santa Fe. If there was a local switching agreement, then the Missouri Pacific, the other carrier in El Dorado, could have been an originating carrier as well.
In Tulsa, the D-X Sunray Oil Co. and Texas Co. refineries were directly served by the St. Louis - San Francisco. Depending on local switching agreements, other line haul carriers in Tulsa that could originate shipments were the ATSF, MKT, and Midland Valley.
Charles Hostetler
Goshen, Ind.