While searching for average freight revenue per ton-mile in the 1950s, I can across an interesting web resource. FRED Economic Data (FRED is short for Federal Reserve Economic Data) and maintained by the St/ Louis Federal Reserve.
The link below should take you to a filtered four page lisitng of railroad related economic data. Much of the data is from the early 1900s to the start of WWII. Looks like the war stopped a lot of data collection, but there's enough through the war years to show the dramatic effect it had on rail operations.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?et=&ob=pv&od=desc&pageID=1&t=nation%3Bnber%3Bnsa%3Brailroad%3Busa
BTW, the avearge revenue per ton-mile in May 1953 was 1.429 cents/ton-mile. Other interesting facts are that the average miles moved by a railcar per hour was about 15 to 17 miles, or roughly just under 400 miles per day - not too shabby. There's also interesting data on % of servicable locomotovies (around 60% to 85%) and ratio of loaded to empty car-miles (approximately 60% loaded).
Too much more to list. Enjoy searching yourself and post what you find most interesting.
Ray
Colorado Ray Other interesting facts are that the average miles moved by a railcar per hour was about 15 to 17 miles, or roughly just under 400 miles per day - not too shabby. Ray
Other interesting facts are that the average miles moved by a railcar per hour was about 15 to 17 miles, or roughly just under 400 miles per day - not too shabby.
dknelson Colorado Ray Other interesting facts are that the average miles moved by a railcar per hour was about 15 to 17 miles, or roughly just under 400 miles per day - not too shabby. Ray Interesting to be sure -- of course that was the era of ice bunker reefers and animals in stock cars, so a certain % of the freight track was definitely expedited in ways that "dead freight" did not, and does not, have to be. It was also a time of very high railroad employment which might also explain it. Dave Nelson
Dave, I think you're on to something there. These statistics are for the whole gamet of train loads and need more careful evaluation.
Upon futher research, I've discovered that the train-miles per train-hour only applied to times when the train was moving. In other words, the average speed. I found another government resource that includes car-miles per car-day.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiqypi_8o71AhVVRTABHQs0D8MQFnoECBQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww2.census.gov%2Flibrary%2Fpublications%2F1960%2Fcompendia%2Fhist_stats_colonial-1957%2Fhist_stats_colonial-1957-chQ.pdf&usg=AOvVaw20WGObBE9tRhvn7Oo-UGFr
In 1953, the average car-miles per car-day was only 44.3 miles. Looking at the two statistics combined, one can either infer that the average car was only in transit for approximately three hours per day, or that there was a tremendous number of idle cars that counted in the car-miles per car-day category, but were just sitting there.
An average of under 45 miles per day would make a cross country car routing take several weeks/months. I find that rather excessive. Does anyone else have better information on the typical car-miles per day?