Stock Cars

[NW Mailing List]

Mr. Shawn Hartley posted an interesting comment: "The tons of stock shipped peaked in 1918, with 111,146 tons. The tons shipped then declined into the 1930s but held fairly steady in the 30s and 40s with as much as 71,865 tons shipped in 1946. The last year I have data for shows 10,915 tons of stock shipped in 1963."

I would be curious to know how those "weights" for cattle were determined ! Loaded stock cars were not "scaled" (i.e. run over track scales) and the cows were not weighed individually on the depot platform scale prior to loading. So how were these tonnages determined?

It seems rather obvious that they were using an "average weight per cow." It was probably an industry practice, as all the railroads involved in the rate/route would have to agree accept one another's weights. Most of the people who were involved in such matters are gone. Mr. Blackstock may know. And if our old commrade, Mr. Tommy Duncan, ever gets dug out of the flood down in Austinville on the North Carolina Extension, he may know the answer, for as a station agent, he waybilled loads of freight for years. And Mr. Bundy may remember how the weight of a livestock shipment was counted.  As for me, I was only a Brakezzzman, and such things were too grand for me, as I tried to master brake wheels, and switches and air hoses. 

-- abram burnett
>From the Autonomous Province of Nether-Turnipovia
.