Route cards, Part 21: more examples

In a previous post, part 18 in this series, I showed examples of route cards from Michael Litant’s collection of late-1960’s cards. These are cards affixed to small route card boards on freight cars, to direct switch crews where the car is going. You can read that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/07/route-cards-part-18-further-examples.html . To repeat, these are route cards, not the grading cards I showed in the previous two posts in this series.

I will begin with a Northern Pacific classic route card, printed for Duluth Yard, and likely Track 9. The card is interestingly stamped “Superwood,” presumably a shipper, though it could be a destination for pulpwood or lumber. It’s just 3 x 3 inches in size. This very bold number is something that could be achievable in HO scale.

Next in this series is a classic “empty return” card from the Long Island Rail Road, very plainly marked PRR for, of course, the Pennsylvania. It too is 3 x 3 inches. Very likely the PRR was the road from which the car had originally been received. Such a return was very typical practice.

Here is an example of a more complete description of an empty car, this one from the Burlington. The car is to be returned to the Belt Railway of Chicago. The car which received this card was GN 15423, a 40-ft. steel box car, and the date on the card is Nov. 15, 1957. This card is 4 x 5.5 inches in size.

The next one I will show is at the other extreme from the foregoing card; it simply identifies the car destination and contains no other information, not even the name of the issuing railroad. I confess I have no idea what or where “Irving Dock” is, but perhaps a reader may know. But there is no confusion about what is intended. It is 3 x 3.5 inches in size.

Another good example is this one, identifying “West 53” at Ogden, Utah. The car is evidently CB&Q 41420, a 40-ft. steel box car. My guess is that this is a Union Pacific card, but it could be from the D&RGW. Green in color, the card is 4 x 3 inches.

To me, each of these examples is interesting in its own way, illustrating ways the prototype directed car movements at, shall we say, the track level. I have used small blank squares of paper in the past for such route cards on HO scale models, but intend to explore whether bold letters like a couple of the above cards might be practical.

Tony Thompson