No, they are not “Unit Trains”

 In the 1952 steam era, coal hauling railroads established marshaling yards as collection points for coal loads. As a general rule they did not commingle general merchandise, and not because these railroads wanted to keep general freight separate from coal, but more realistically because where the marshaling yard was located 99.9% of every car load handled was a coal hopper.

In this era each hopper load of coal traveled on its own waybill. When a customer ordered 165 tons of a particular size and grade of coal, I assume the railroad thought it was simpler to ship each of the three fifty-five ton hoppers on its own waybill as opposed to one bill of lading specifying 165 tons for “Richmond Public Schools (RPS)”.

This does make a certain sense, steam era conductors counting waybills to count his consist. He knows he should have 18 cars total, with three cars for RPS, but counts the bills and comes up with fifteen bills?

Or when writing a switch list, and he is fatigued, it’s dark, late at night, he’s hungry, and the weather’s bad, and he compares the bills to the switch list, and quickly writes, “One car for RPS”.

Now I write this narrative subjectively, not objectively. But the fact remains, in 1952 each car traveled on its own bill. What about consignees who were getting 5500 tons of coal? Why should 100 hoppers, all going to the same place go on 100 separate waybills? Why not one bill for the whole load? A unit train. 

In 1952 what happens when one or two of those cars needs to be set out for mechanical reasons somewhere en-Route? You leave AIR 1409 at the RIP track in Clifton Forge (CF) with no bill? You’ll never see that car or it’s coal load again. 

But if you set it out in CF with its bill, as soon as it’s fixed, it continues on its way, and gets to the consignee, late, but it gets there.

Again I’m crafting this narrative to SUPPORT , my position, but THAT WAS THE WAY IT WAS.

Solid trains of coal departed these collection or marshaling yards bound for yards further down the railroads transportation chain, where, if required, these trains were broken down into smaller blocks. Some of these blocks were interchanged with other railroads. This process continued until the cars reached a point where they were placed into local freights who delivered them to their final consignees. 

It might be one car load, five car loads or one hundred car loads of coal. That was how it was done by steam era coal hauling railroads. 

“Unit Trains” as we know them today, where the entire train load of coal is carried on one bill of lading, are a thing of the future for a railroad set in 1952. A railroads ability to keep track of cars by computer and GPS are all functions, that we take for granted in this century, but are all science fiction in 1952.

When I visit a layout set in the steam era that, as its central theme, ships citrus, modeling hundreds of orange or yellow refrigerator cars, and they prepare a long train of Reefers for some distant off-layout location, I marvel at the fact that each car was filled, either in the fields or at some packing shed with, oranges. 

Each car was cleaned, iced, possibly pre-cooled cargo was loaded. Did they add salt to the bunkers when icing? Was ice spread on top of the crates. Is this train billed for re-icing somewhere along the way. Is ice needed at all? Maybe this train is traveling through weather conditions requiring ventilation?   How many of these Reefers is a “Roller”, a car awaiting final billing en-route, because the fruit broker hasn’t found a consignee yet. 

One thing I know for sure is each car has its own waybill, just because it’s a one hundred car train of PFE Reefers it’s NOT a unit train. 

So don’t call a coal train on my layout a “Unit Train”.