The content of waybills

I have been asked about how the content of waybills is researched, both when I have given live clinics and also in the form of e-mail communications. Here, of course, we are referring to model waybills. Obviously one can invent shippers and receivers, and loads too, and that can work in many circumstances: the Acme coal mine ships a load of coal to the coal dealer on your layout. Here only the shipper was invented (and perhaps the coal dealer, if you freelance). But the questions to me have been about prototypical versions of the same thing.
     Here I should mention parenthetically that there is a great deal of other information which qualifies as the “content” of waybills, and that was the subject of my article in The Dispatcher’s Office, a corrected version of which is provided in an earlier post in this blog (available here: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/01/waybills-2.html). In the present post I am only discussing the content regarding shipper, receiver, and cargo.
     The best sources of the information you want would be actual waybills, from the time and place you model. Unfortunately, modelers of the 1950s, like me, have to face the fact that very few waybills of any sort survive from that era. When found, they are likely to be from some entirely different part of the country. That may serve to identify interesting shippers, receivers, or cargoes, but in general cannot provide the whole story we want.
     Second best is railroad “shipper directories” or “traffic guides.” These are lists of industries which were rail-served, not only with their own sidings but also via team or house tracks at stations. These are not commonly seen documents, but they have been reprinted for a number of railroads. An example I use is the D&RGW Freight Traffic Guide for 1951, reprinted by Tramway Press from D&RGW’s Traffic Department Circular 36-E. Others I own include reprinted ones for Milwaukee Road and Rock Island, and some specialized ones for Southern Pacific.
     Probably the most generally useful source of the information, though certainly not complete, is the set of lists compiled by the Operations Special Interest Group (OpSIG) of NMRA. On their web site is a page for the Industries Database (here’s a link: http://www.opsig.org/reso/inddb/) from which you can download the four databases for, respectively, eastern, southern, midwestern and western states, each containing about 10,000 entries. They identify whether the industry is a shipper or receiver, provide a one or two-word description of the shipments, and list what railroad served that industry.
     These entries in the OpSIG databases have been compiled from many sources, including railroad traffic guides, representing many different years, and the year of most entries is provided also, so that you can select entries appropriate to your era. Of course, a 1955 industry may have still existed in 1990, and a 1990 one may have been in business in 1955, so additional Internet research (another place where Google is your friend) may help you to learn more about the individual industry or its shipments.
     Of course there will still be things we don’t know, and realistically can’t know. Did shipper XYZ actually ship to consignee ABC? How many pounds (or how many boxes or barrels or cartons) were in such a shipment? You have to make reasonable assumptions in creating waybills with such information. For example, low-value cargoes such as common brick could not economically be shipped large distances, so a brick maker in Georgia is not going to send carloads of common brick to Oregon. On the other hand, certain chemicals were shipped all over the country from a few producing locations. Likewise brand-name foods or clothing or home appliances or industrial machinery might well travel long distances.
     The great majority of my waybills for my own layout and in the new waybills for Otis McGee’s layout have been created with prototype sources. They can be viewed in the several posts in this blog entitled “Waybills.” For my own layout, the on-layout industries are almost all imaginary, but the off-layout shippers and consignees are largely drawn from the prototype. In future posts on waybills, I will identify some of the sources so as to provide that additional information for those interested.
Tony Thompson