I have written before about weight agreements, but not recently, so here is a summary. Railroad cargoes were mostly billed by weight (there was also a carload category, covering, for example, a full hopper of coal). But the considerable majority of weight-billed loads were not weighed on a scale. Instead, weight agreements were in force.
For example, a shipper of floor wax might know that a case of wax bottles weighed 48 pounds. Then the number of cases in a load could simply be counted and multiplied by 48 to get total weight. This was all certified by a regional Weighing and Inspection Bureau or WIB.
North America was divided up into regions, under the authority of Freight Associations or groups of associations. The map below shows the associations, some of which supervised a single WIB, but in other areas, several associations might cooperate to supervise one WIB. I have previously discussed the WIB territories (see the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/05/waybillls-part-85-more-on-weight.html ).
Superimposed on the map below in green is a single WIB, the Western WIB, the territory of which matched that of the Western Trunk Line Committee (freight association). The map is a 1925 version, taken from page 28 of a book of that date (Grover G. Huebner, The Fundamentals of Traffic, Traffic Service Corp, Chicago, 1925). In addition to several complete states, included in the green area are the eastern third of Colorado, the upper third of Illinois, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
When a shipment weight was certified as part of a weight agreement, the shipper could stamp the waybill with the appropriate WIB stamp, including their agreement number, or oftentimes would simply type the WIB initials and agreement number of their waybill. This avoided a trip to the scale.
Just the other day, my friend Bill Jolitz sent me a WIB stamp he found on eBay, stating that he “knew with whom it belonged.” Thank you, Bill! The stamp is shown below, a typical design for these large stamps, about 3 inches tall.You can see it was made in Chicago.
As is common on rubber stamps, the legend of the stamp is placed on the top of the stamp; in this case, the stamp has a round opening in the center, convenient for the handle.
Below I show the stamp image, about 1.5 inches square, flipped in Photoshop so you can read it (naturally the stamp is made in reverse, so it will stamp reading correctly). This stamp is unusual in that it does not have an agreement number in the center; I assume it could be written in, and an authorized person then initial it.
Using a fresh ink pad, here is the image as it stamps now (showing some wear, which is great for our purposes). Note the generous center space for an agreement number.
If one used large enough waybill forms for one’s layout, this stamp could be used on them as-is. But my waybills are quite a lot smaller. I take a scan of the stamp image, remove the background so it is transparent, and set it to a size that will look all right on my small waybills, usually 3/4 inch diameter. (This takes a couple of minutes in Photoshop.) Then it’s easily added to waybills. Here’s an example, pending initialing the stamp and adding other scribbles.
This was a kind gesture of Bill’s, to send me this stamp, and I will be using it on future waybills.
Tony Thompson
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