Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T05:42:57.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Development of the Private Railroad Freight Car, 1830–1966*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

William E. O'Connell Jr.
William E. O'Connell Jr.
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Business Administration, College of William and Mary
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

After initial widespread use of private cars under the “common road” concept of early railways, railroad-owned freight cars predominated from the 1840's through the 1860's, except for a short-lived boom in cars owned by “fast freight” lines. From this time on, however, the percentage of private cars has increased as railroads refused to build specialized freight cars because of high initial costs, rapid technological obsolescence, outside pressure, and managerial shortsightedness.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , Summer 1970 , pp. 190 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Interstate Commerce Commission, Seventy-Ninth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission (Washington, 1965), 50.Google Scholar

2 Interstate Commerce Commission, Seventeenth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission (Washington, 1903), 22.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., 25.

4 U. S., Congressional Record, 59 Cong., 1 Sess., 1905, vol. 40, pt. 2, 47.

5 Ibid., 936.

6 Western Fruit Jobbers Association, Private Car Line Bill Advocated by the Western Fruit Jobbers Association (pamphlet, n.d.).

7 National League of Commission Merchants, Report of the Refrigerator Car-Line Committee (Chicago, 1905).Google Scholar

8 Midgley, J. W., “Private Cars, An Inquiry into Their Growth, Development and Operations,” Railway Age, XXXIV (October 10, 17, November 7, 21, December 19, 1902)Google Scholar, XXXV (January 16, 1903), XXXVI (January 10, 31, August 28, October 9, 23, November 6, 1904).

9 Interstate Commerce Commission, Fifth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission (Washington, 1892), 34.Google Scholar

10 Weld, L. D. H., Private Freight Cars and American Railways (New York, 1908), 72.Google Scholar

11 Massachusetts Laws of 1831, chap. 56, “An Act to Incorporate the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation,” sec. 5.

12 Ibid., sec. 6.

13 In addition to the construction by the State of Pennsylvania mentioned below, the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Massachusetts either constructed or operated railroads at one time or another. Cities and towns that constructed railroads included Baltimore; Cincinnati; Troy, New York; and North Brookfield, Massachusetts. All of these railroads either have been acquired by privately-owned railroads or are on long-term lease to private railroads. Government construction of railroads is discussed in Cleveland, F. A. and Powell, F. W., Railroad Promotion and Capitalization in the United States (New York, 1909), 96–148.Google Scholar

14 American Railroad Journal, IV (January 24, 1835), 18.

15 American Railroad Journal, III (New series), (September 15, 1839), 174.

16 Ibid., 175.

17 American Railroad Journal, IV (January 24, 1835), 18.

18 Ibid.

19 Carter, Charles F., When Railroads Were New (New York, 1909), 121.Google Scholar

20 U. S. Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation: Report of the Federal Trade Commission on Private Car Lines (Washington, 1920), 62.Google Scholar

21 Bingham, Truman C. and Roberts, Merrill J., Transportation: Principles and Problems (New York, 1952), 68.Google Scholar

22 In the Matter of Private Cars, 50 ICC 652, 657 (1918).

23 State of New York, Proceedings of the Special Committee on Railroads (New York, 1879), 2960.Google Scholar

24 Railroad Gazette, V (June 7, 1873), 229. The actual gauges reported were 6 feet, 5 feet, 4 feet 10 inches, 4 feet 9½ inches, 4 feet 9 inches, and 4 feet 8½ inches.

25 In the Matter of Private Cars, 50 ICC 652, 656 (1918).

26 Report of a Special Committee of the Ohio Legislature, Railroads in Ohio: Fast Freight Lines, etc.; Abuses Practiced and Remedies Proposed (Boston, 1867), 32.Google Scholar

27 Taylor, George R. and Neu, Irene D., The American Railroad Network, 1861–1890 (Cambridge, 1956), 68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 This situation has a modern parallel in the competition between the motor carrier industry and the railroads, since the motor carriers have concentrated on securing high value shipments for which they can charge higher rates. The effects on railroad earnings were similar in both cases.

29 Bridge, Hudson E., The Pacific Railroad Controversy: An Open Letter to the Stockholders with a Series of Articles Originally Published in the Daily Missouri Democrat (St. Louis, 1869), 19.Google Scholar

30 U. S-, Congress, Senate, Investigation of Fast Freight Lines, 43 Cong., 1 Sess., 1873, S. Rept. 307.

31 Report of a Special Committee of the Ohio Legislature, Railroads in Ohio, 28.

32 A meeting of the “Car-Masters” of those railroads over which the Red Line cars passed was held in Buffalo, New York, on April 19, 1866, in order to begin to establish standards for cars used in interchange. The next year, the Master Car Builders Association was founded in Springfield, Massachusetts, and its Committee on Compromise Gauge for Car Wheels later established 4 feet 8½ inches “to be the proper width at which wheels should be gauged for cars running on Compromise gauge.” The committee also recommended that a five inch tread was appropriate for these cars. See History and Early Reports of the Master Car Builders Association (New York, 1885).

33 Taylor and Neu, The American Railroad Network, 75.

34 In the Matter of Private Cars, 50 ICC 652, 657 (1918).

35 Midgley, “Private Cars”, XXXIV (October 10, 1902), 368.

36 Smiley, Alfred Winslow, A Few Scraps, Oily and Otherwise (Oil City, Pennsylvania, 1907), 145.Google Scholar These memoirs contain the first hand observations of a pioneer in the development of the Pennsylvania oil fields.

37 Seely, Charles A., “A Week on Oil Creek,” Scientific American, XV (New series), September 1, 1866), 144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Carr, Albert Z., John D. Rockefeller's Secret Weapon (New York, 1962), 33.Google Scholar

39 In the Matter of Private Cars, 50 ICC 652, 689 (1918).

40 National Car and Locomotive Builder, XXVI (April, 1895), 54.

41 Interstate Commerce Commission, Fifth Annual Report, 38.

42 Ibid., 39.

43 American Railroad Journal, VIII (New series), (January 1, 1842), 32.

44 Armour, J. Ogden, The Packers, The Private Car Lines and the People (Philadelphia, 1906), 19–22.Google Scholar

45 Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, 26.

46 Weld, Private Freight Cars, 12.

47 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1900 (Washington, 1901), 574.Google Scholar

48 Ibid.

49 Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, 29. This situation has a contemporary parallel in the resistance of grain merchandisers with established intermediate mills and elevators to recent rate innovations on the part of railroads. These rate changes give a generous rate reduction in return for the shipper's surrender of transit privileges, and these rate changes threaten existing marketing channels and the facilities that support them.

50 Weld, Private Freight Cars, 18.

51 Armour, The Packers, 37.

52 Weld, Private Freight Cars, 18.

53 Ripley, William Z., Railroads: Rates and Regulation (New York, 1912), 194.Google Scholar

54 Weld, Private Freight Cars, 27.

55 Interstate Commerce Commission, Eighteenth Annual Report of the interstate Commerce Commission (Washington, 1904), 11.Google Scholar

56 Weld, Private Freight Cars, 29.

57 In the Matter of Private Cars, 50 ICC 652, 661 (1918).

58 Assigned Cars for Bituminous Coal, 80 ICC 520, 558 (1923).

59 In the Matter of Private Cars, 201 ICC 323, 373 (1934).

60 Interstate Commerce Commission, Interstate Commerce Acts Annotated (Washington, 1930), 945.Google Scholar

61 Ibid.

62 In the Matter of Private Cars, 201 ICC 323, 373 (1934).

63 Unit trains are composed of cars transporting a single bulk commodity at substantially reduced rates. The rate reduction is based on the lower operating costs of unit trains since the cars in the trains are moved as a solid block between given points without time consuming intermediate switching and classification. At present, private coal cars are owned both by coal producers and by public utilities which are major coal consumers.

64 Armour, The Packers, 17.

65 Weld, Private Freight Cars, 21.

66 A federal law went into effect on October 1, 1873, which required cattle to be unloaded, rested, and fed every twenty-eight hours except in cars which provided feeding and watering facilities and the space and opportunity for rest. Railroad Gazette, V (October 25, 1873).

67 Mather, Alonzo C., “Private Cars, A Word on the Other Side of Mr. Midgley's Attack on Private Cars or Special Equipment,” Railway Age, XXXVI (October 16, 1903), 505.Google Scholar

68 See Mather, Alonzo C., The Practical Thoughts of a Businessman (Chicago, 1893), 79–81Google Scholar, for a complete discussion of the efficiency of these cars.

69 “Rolling Stock Companies,” Railroad Gazette, V (March 1, 1873), 84–86.

70 Ibid., 86.

71 Epstein, R. C., A History of the General American Transportation Corporation (New York, 1948), 2.Google Scholar

72 Smiley, A Few Scraps, 146.

73 Ibid.

74 Ripley, Railroads, 193; Weld, Private Freight Cars, 24.

75 Tarbell, Ida M., The History of the Standard Oil Company (New York, 1904).Google Scholar

76 Sinclair, Upton, The Jungle (New York, 1906).Google Scholar

77 Interstate Commerce Commission, Eighteenth Annual Report, 12.

78 Carr, Rockefeller's Secret Weapon, 34.

79 Ripley, Railroads, 200.

80 Ibid., 140.

81 Interstate Commerce Commission, Fifth Annual Report, 36.

82 Interstate Commerce Commission, Eighteenth Annual Report, 15.

83 Tarbell, History of Standard Oil, 61.

84 The Interstate Commerce Act, Revised to October 1, 1958 (Washington, 1958), 265.

85 Ibid., 11.

86 Ripley, Railroads, 193.

87 U. S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Freight Car Shortage, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 88 Cong., 1 Sess., 1963, 70–71.

88 See the Interstate Commerce Commission's Ex Parte #241, Investigation of the Adequacy of Railroad Freight Car Ownership, Car Utilization, Distribution, Rules and Practices.

89 Association of American Railroads, Freight Cars in the United States (Washington, 1967), 2.Google Scholar