Route cards, Part 20: more grading cards

I recently posted a selection of the “route cards” used to indicate grading of freight cars for loading, using a number of cards loaned to me by Michael Litant. I also explained the usual grading from A, B and C down to D or E or X, depending on the individual railroad. You can read that post here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/07/route-cards-part-19-grading-freight-cars.html .

These cards were usually the size of typical route cards, around 4 x 6 inches, but not always. Moreover, some prototype photos suggest that grading cards were fastened to placard boards on house cars, not to the route card boards. That is consistent with some of the variations among cards in Michael’s collection.

I’ll begin with an interesting example, showing four possible grades, and intended to be folded to show only the selected grade, like some of those shown in the previous post. It is from the Nickel Plate. Like many of these cards, it does list typical cargoes of each grade as an aid to inspectors. The unfolded card is 4 x 6.5 inches, and you see both sides below.

The selected grade was B, and that part of the folded card was outermost; it was graded at Tipton, Indiana on August 3, 1965, for B&O 467708, a 40-foot steel box car. You may also note that Grade X has sections for both house and open-top cars, similar to the New York Central card in the previous post.

Another interesting example is this C&O card. It is 4 x 8 inches, and does not appear intended to be folded. The intent is that the card section that is signed by the inspector, is the chosen grade (in this case, grade B). The other side is an example of the multi-use card, that can direct yard crews to take a particular action, in this case either to clean out or to wash out the car. I can’t read the car number or location of grading, but it was an Illinois Central car.

A somewhat different design was used by the Grand Trunk Western, as shown by the 3 x 7 -inch example below, again, intended to be folded. It doesn’t show letter grades, just three categories: Grain, Food; Cement, Salt, Merchandise; and Rough Freight. It is stamped from Durand, Michigan.

My next example again is different than the typical grading card. It’s from the B&O and is 4 x 8 inches in size. It is not apparently intended to be folded, but like the preceding cards, provides for the inspector’s signature and car identification to be placed in the card segment for the selected grade. Interesting, these are not alphabetical grades but numerical ones, and contain detailed lists of commodities for each grade. Note that Grade 5 is not a loading grade, but is an instruction to clean the car. And Grade H is to be used for cars needing to be sent homeward, either for repairs, for interior maintenance, or because it’s an assigned car.

Finally, one more example of a card intended to be folded, just 3.5 x 5.5 inches in size, issued by the Western Pacific (and used also on its subsidiaries, Sacramento Northern and Tidewater Southern). It has the usual four letter grades and definitions, This car, D&H 18643, a 40-foot steel box car, was inspected at Stockton, California on August 27, 1967 by Trujllo, and given a B grade for canned goods.

These are all interesting example of individual railroad systems of grading, and clearly show that there was no real standard, though the content of each level of the categories is quite similar from railroad to railroad. As I mentioned in the previous post, there are some modeling possibilities here, and I will discuss those in a future post.

Tony Thompson