Virginian in 1911--Car distribution

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
May 10, 1911

CHANGES BASIS OF CAR ALLOTMENTS
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Virginian Railway's New Plan Goes Into Effect on May 20th
    The Virginian Railway Company has issued a circular announcing a basis for car allotment, effective May 20th, which reads:
    "Believing that the principle of demurrage is right we have, however, concluded after, hearing the arguments of our operators, that perhaps a plan for conserving our car supply can be employed more suited to the present needs and requirements on the Virginian Railway.  We have, therefore, decided to cancel our Sewall's Point demurrage tariff on legal notice, and to adopt in lieu thereof, on trail, the following system of car allotment and embargo.
    "The Virginian Railway has 2,965 coal cars.  Of this number, five per cent can ordinarily be counted on as being in bad order, and after deducting the number in other service, it leaves 2,500 to be distributed among the several mines.  As a basis of this distribution, we have used the loading record of January, 1911, which was the highest point of loading.  Revision will be necessary from time to time, but using January as a basis, we get the following results."
    (The first row [sic., column?] of figures reading from top to bottom is the "maximum," the second "average," the third "proportion of proposed rating" and the last column "proportion of equipment" or number of cars to which the mine is entitled on the new basis):
    Page                22        26        30        430
    Herberton        13         7         13        171
    Eccles              13         5         15        214
    Glen White       26       19         28        400
    Slab Fork         24       20         28        400
    Tams                27       21         32        468
    Stotesbury          6         4           8        115
    McAlpine         17       12         20        286
    Big Stick           --        --           3          41
    Woodbay           9         5         10        143
    Paterson             9         4         10        143
    Affinity               4         3           4          38
    Goodwin            8         6           8        115
    Winding             3          4           6          86
    Bishop              24       20         30        430
                            ---       ---        ---        ----
    Total               177      155      244      3,480
    "In the event of a mine having all the cars of its allotment under load at one time, that mine will be placed under embargo and thereafter empty cars will be supplied only at the expiration of four days after cars are unloaded or returned to the Virginian Railway empty.  To illustrate:  The allotment for a mine is 200 cars, and this mine can have that number of cars under load at one time before being embargoed, but as soon as this number is under load, the supply of empties will be shut off.  After this occurs, cars for loading will be available only as the loaded cars are released, and it will be four days, the time occupied in return movement, after the date of the unloading, before any more empty cars will be available for loading at the mine.
    "All cars loaded for points off the Virginian Railway will be considered as a part of the mine allotment, and those cars will not be counted released until they are returned to our rails.
    "Cars used for company coal will be considered as a part of the mine allowance and will be counted as empties as fast as unloaded.
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[I hope this is clear to someone.  Although a few numerals in the columns were indistinct on the microfilm the figures above are close to those in the article--certainly of the correct magnitude.  I would have expected the last column to total the number of cars available--2,500.]

Gordon Hamilton
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