House Car Run

[NW Mailing List]

Interesting as always Abram and Tim. The nuts and bolts vs. instructions was nice “color” the operational details!

Matt Goodman
Columbus Ohio US

> On Mar 22, 2023, at 9:27 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Herr Garner asketh about the term "House Car Run" which appeared the other day on the List.
> 
> I was a little surprised when I saw that reference, John, as I had not heard or thought about  that term in almost 60 years.
> 
>  A good answer is one which furnishes context for the terms and the situations, so here goes.
> 
> First, HOUSE CAR.  House Car was the very old name for a box car.  If you read the literature of the 1860s and 1870s, box cars were carried on the railroad equipment inventories as House Cars.
> 
> Second, HOUSE CAR RUN.  Roanoke used to run a daily train to Lynchburg which carried cars destined to Lynchburg.  Moving Lynchburg cars on a dedicated train saved stopping through freights (maybe several of them) to set off and pick up.  My guess is that the crew on the House Car Run turned at Lynchburg and brought a train back to Roanoke, but this is only a guess.
> 
> The House Car Run is not shown as a numbered, schedule train, so it very likely operated as an Extra, but only a check of Time Tables would clarity that.  Nor do I know what time the House Car Run was generally put on duty at Roanoke.
> 
> Nor do I know when the House Car Run ceased to run, but the discontinuance of that train was no doubt due to a drop in traffic originating and terminating at Lynchburg.  During the years I was working out of Roanoke (1964-1979) a Phoebe Turn was operated, but there was no House Car Run. 
> 
> Like most railroads of any size, the N&W published (for internal use) a document called Freight Train Classifications for Yards and Terminals, usually referred to in the vernacular as the "Freight Schedule Book" even though it did not contain schedules.  It contained directives for how each train was to be blocked. This book contained the "plan" by which the Superintendent of Transportation wanted his railroad run.
> 
> The April 25, 1939 edition of this book (which I think I have through the generosity of Dr. Scheer) shows the House Car Run.  The page reads:
> 
> ROANOKE to CREWE.  HOUSE CAR RUN.
> 
> 1. All loads and empties for Lynchburg proper and connections, Veesee to Rice, inclusive, and Durham District north of South Boston.  (To be set off at Kinney.)
> 
> 2.  All loads and empties for Durham District, South Boston and beyond.  (To be set off at Kinney.)
> 
> 3.)  Time freight and empty cars for stations Burkeville to Suffolk, inclusive.  (Cars showing up after departure of No. 84.)
> 
> 4.)  Commercial or Company coal for stations Burkeville to Norfolk, inclusive, or Tidewater coal. (As Tonnage Filler.)
> 
> The westbound counterpart to the House Car Run seems to have been TRAIN 87, which apparently originated at Island Yard and was to be blocked as follows:
> 
> 1.  Loads for points north of Roanoke.
> 
> 2.  All other loads for Roanoke and beyond.
> 
> 3.  Foreign empties, including Seaboard Air Line coal cars.
> 
> 4.  Empty Norfolk and Western coal cars (As Tonnage Filler.)
> 
> NOTE 1 (in capital letters) -- THIS TRAIN WILL NOT HANDLE ANY CARS FOR WILLIAMSON AND BEYOND.  
> 
> NOTE 2 -- Empty refrigerator and tank cars and foreign empties moving in home route should be classified with loads in Groups 2 and 3.
> 
> Knowing how railroads operate at the nuts-and-bolts level, I would imagine that many of these instructions were observed in the breach as much as in the letter.  "Just move it in the general direction it needs to go," was often the maxim for doing things.  
> 
> Irregular moves (deviations from the plan) were not readily apparent to the railroad's upper-level brass until the railroad became computerized in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and after that there was little opportunity for hiding our failures.  I remember once, when I was Night Trainmaster at Philadelphia, being called to the Assistant Superintendent's office and having to go over with him all the irregular dispatchments showing up on a new computer-generated report called the "Out of Route / Out of Block Report."  That new report meant the jig was up !
> 
> The 1939 Freight Classification book also showed the make-up of the PHOEBE TURN which was still being operated out of Roanoke in the 1960s, and which I worked on occasion. viz.
> 
> 1.  Loads for South Boston and beyond and empties for Durham and beyond.  (To be set off at Kinney.)
> 
> 2.  Company or Tidewater coal (As Tonnage Filler) - (To be set off at Phoebe.)
> 
> 3.  All loads and empties for Lynchburg proper and connections and for stations Vessee to Rice, inclusive, also loads and empties for Durham District except as covered by Group 1.
> 
> Somewhere amongst the cobwebs I have two of those freight classifications books, one from the late 1940s and one from the mid-1950s.  Will see if I can find them and will report back if anything interesting turns up.
> 
> And finally, as a concluding remark and only tangentially related to the House Car Run...  At Roanoke Terminal, they used the term "House Cars" to refer to cars moving to and from the Roanoke Freight Station, called "the Freight House" in the vernacular.
> 
> As Aristotle wrote, Words are predicated in many different senses, which is adequately demonstrated by the above.
> 
> -- abram burnett
> CBDT (Computer Based Digital Turnips)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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