Waybills, Part 116: early prototype examples

I have by now written quite a few posts about using prototypically-oriented waybills in model railroad operations. (For a guide to the first 100 of these, see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/11/waybills-part-100-guide.html ). Waybill history is among the topics I’ve discussed through this series, and today I want to show some interesting prototype examples.

Original waybills of all ages are not commonly found among railroad paper, and that’s especially true for examples before, say, World War II. But this post will show several prototype waybills, copies of which were given to me by Richard Townsend, that date from the early 1920s. All are from the Coudersport & Port Allegany Railroad. 

This 39-mile railroad, located along the upper stretches of the Allegheny River in northern Pennsylvania, not far from Olean, New York, had three connections to the outside world. In Port Allegany itself, they connected with the Pennsylvania Railroad; at Ulysses, PA, with the New York Central; and at Newfield Junction, PA, with the Buffalo & Susquehanna. These connections are reflected in the waybills.

 Here is one of them, a load of lump charcoal in bulk (un-bagged), loaded into Erie 102966, a 36-foot, 40-ton box car. The shipper, as for all of these bills, was the Gray Chemical Company of Roulette, PA, located a few miles west of Coudersport. The car was to be moved to Newfield Jct. to interchange with the B&S, then onto the Erie for movement to New York and the consignee, P. McNamee Charcoal Co. of Brooklyn. Note, as was the case on many, many surviving waybills, the rate has been corrected, in this case after determining actual weight at Wellsville on the Erie.

A second example, this one with a Pennsylvania car being loaded at Roulette with lump charcoal, is destined to the Schoenling Bros., on Eggleston Avenue in Cincinnati. The car, PRR 39336, a Class X26 single-sheathed box car (the USRA design), will be interchanged with PRR at Newfield Jct. and weighed on the PRR at Olean, NY. 

A third example, showing use of a New York Central car for this same cargo, bulk charcoal from Gray at Roulette, will be interchanged to the NYC at Ulysses, PA, en route to the Taylor Chemical Co. at Cascade Mills, New York. The car, NYC 161722, was a double-sheathed 40-foot box car of 40 tons capacity. And like all these waybills, this was a copy, not the original that traveled with the car.

You may have noted that in each of these waybills, the Car Service Rules were well followed, with cars of the destination railroad being loaded for shipment.

Finally, there is a good example of a privately-owned tank car being returned using a regular freight waybill, to permit its prompt return to the owner. The tank car, SSLX 30, was one of 312 tank cars operated by Semet-Solvay at the time, and was a 6000-gallon car. It was to be interchanged to the NYC at Ulysses, PA, en route to the Solvay Process Co. in Solvay (near Syracuse), NY.

The C&PA remained independent for many years, serving its lumbering and leather tanning territory until, cut back to 26 miles length, it was purchased in 1964 to become part of the Wellsville, Addison & Galeton Railroad.

Lastly, I should mention that K4 Decals offers a decal set for a Gray Chemical 8000-gallon tank car. (You can see all their tank car decals at this link: https://k4decals.com/collections/tank-car-decals , and you can choose the scale you want.) They are nice decals, and I am considering whether to letter a tank car that way. If so, I’ll return to the topic in a future post.

Tony Thompson