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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

William E. O'Connell Jr.
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Business Administration, College of William and Mary

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
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1970

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References

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

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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), 96148.Google Scholar

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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).

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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.

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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).

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85 Ibid., 11.

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