(erielack) LCL Traffic

["Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>]

Jim I think you hit the nail on the head. That would nicely explain the
relative absence of forwarder boxcars on NY-100. It's common practice for
any carrier in any mode to offer a cut rate to try to mitigate a traffic
flow imbalance. In EL's case the ICC must have allowed it. They had somewhat
of an imbalance with trailers also but not nearly as bad as carload.
(Another reason the UPS traffic was such a juicy plum, it was relatively
balanced.) Would also explain why the inefficient float operation was
maintained: it was absorbing some of the cost of westbound empty movements.

By the 1970's it appears that almost all the traffic at 28th St was
LCL/forwarder, and that was all outbound. So you have an interesting
situation where boxcars "made empty" in Jersey were then floated over to
28th St. So the forwarder traffic had to absorb the cost of not one but two
float trips.

EL in Color V2 has a shot of NY-99 in April '73 at Hornell (presumably on a
Saturday since the lead unit is one of those U34CH's we've been hearing so
much about lately), and it has a respectable block of about a dozen boxcars.
This symbol is also shown at Amasa in V1 but the photo is undated. The April
'66 freight schedule classification for CX-99 (before it was a UPS train)
shows "Cleveland-Akron Shippers" as the lead block, to be set off at
Leavittsburg. HB-3 carried "Wabash cars for Acme" ; presumably these were
headed to Detroit via S. Ontario. These are the only references to
non-Chicago forwarder cars in that schedule.

One final comment re earlier questions on NY harbor carfloats: Bob Yanosey
states in "Lehigh Valley in Color" that LV was the last of the Jersey-based
RR's to operate carfloats, being the only one to operate right up to C-day.

Paul B

Forwarder traffic did appear to be mostly westbound; my vague recollections
of seeing NY-100 in the early 70s (either running late, or while I was
working a 3rd trick during the summer) is that it sometimes had a few
boxcars, but often didn't; whereas the boxcar block on NY-99 was a regular
feature until after 1972.  Another guess here, but I've read that the
eastern carriers preferred westbound forwarder traffic over eastbound, as
most eastern roads (including the EL) had an imbalance of eastbound loads.
Westbound forwarder traffic was a good use for some of the accumulated empty
boxcars in Croxton, that otherwise had to go west empty on an Ordinary (or
X-1, back in the mid-60s). I'm not sure if the ICC and Rate Bureaus allowed
it, but the EL and other carriers might have offered boxcar forwarders lower
rates (or better service) for westbound shipments, thus explaining why
NY-100 often ran all-TOFC while the 99 regularly had forwarder boxcars.

Jim G.


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