Reconsignment/Diversion of freight traffic

[Anonymous]

Long, long ago lumber shippers in the west would ship unsold carloads to themselves at key junctions in the midwest and, when sold, instruct the origin railroad to change the billing to the new consignee and destination. Maybe that was done with perishables, too. I remember when working as a steno-clerk in a western railroad general office typing up a telegram that was dictated to me by the reconsignment clerk. The car was being diverted to either Cleveland, Ohio, on the NKP, or Cleveland, Okla., on the MKT -- I can't remember which, but because of my typo it wound up in the wrong place.

Was there a significantly large portion of lumber or other traffic that was sold en route this way? Is it still done with any rail traffic? It seems that shippers sending this lumber out for resale enroute liked to get the slowest service possible to give them more time to find a customer. A favorite interim destination that would give them the widest range of options at lowest through rates and slow service seemed to be Belleville, Kansas, on the Rock Island.

Maybe somebody has had interesting experiences working with this kind of traffic.

[Anonymous]

Yes, this was done with large quantities of lumber. As long as you didn't try to go backwards into a higher-rated territory, and the car moved forward or up and down, it could be diverted a dozen times -- or more. Want to speed it up? Take an interchange out. Want to slow it down? Put an interchange in. It kept a lot of granger roads and short lines like the QA&P in business. A lot of SP lumber, for example would move SP-Ogden-D&RGW, get diverted to RI at Colorado Springs, to UP somewhere in Kansas, back to RI, to CB&Q, through Peoria, and end up in Chicago a month after it left Oregon.

This was not done with perishables -- they'd perish. I'm not aware of another commodity that this was done to such a large scale. Lumber is an unusual commodity: it's not highly differentiated, it's demand fluctuates considerably, and in the past, it used to move to tens of thousands of consignees.

OS

[greyhounds]

Yes, it was done with perishables.

They'd start the car north or east and then watch the destination market prices for the produce. If a carload of lettuce was headed for New York and the Toronto market went way up, you can bet that cars would be reconsigned to Toronto.

For years, Fulton, KY held a "Banana Festival". Now you may ask why.

Chiquita would start the carloads of bananas north from New Orleans or Gulfport and then watch the markets. When the destination market prices changed, they'd change the cars' destinations accordingly. It all got sorted out at Fulton - which lead to a "Banana Festival" in western Kentucky.

Years latter when we tried to get back into hauling containerized bananas there was tremendous opposition from the operating department. (I called 'em the non-operating department because it seemed that their goal was to not operate trains.) They remembered the mess of digging one reconsigned reefer out of a track at Fulton and couldn't/wouldn't think much beyond that.

Then there were the freight claims people who could run more freight off the railroad for no good business reason in 10 minutes than the marketing department could acquire in a month - but that's another story.

[Anonymous]

Yes, on a limited scale with perishables, diversions happened. I was referring to the weeks-long diversions common to lumber. How long did bananas out of New Orleans last in transit?

What did the operating department think it cost to switch out a diverted car at Fulton? Were you pricing to customers those diversions on an incremental basis, or a fully-allocated basis? And if it was the former, what was the justification -- a high ROI?

OS

[bobwilcox]

QUOTE: Originally posted by O.S.

Yes, on a limited scale with perishables, diversions happened. I was referring to the weeks-long diversions common to lumber. How long did bananas out of New Orleans last in transit?

What did the operating department think it cost to switch out a diverted car at Fulton? Were you pricing to customers those diversions on an incremental basis, or a fully-allocated basis? And if it was the former, what was the justification -- a high ROI?

OS

Aside from the famous banana trains to Fulton a lot of citrus from FL, S. TX and CA moved with diversions over the Offical Territory Gateways. Long haul trucking killed the traffic because it was much easier to divert the shipment.

[dldance]

reconsignment was also done to sugar shipments out of SE Idaho and N Utah. Like lumber, a 50lb bag of sugar is a non-perishable commodity.

dd

[oltmannd]

A lot of chemicals get shipped unsold these days with the destination changed enroute.

[kenneo]

Since Staggers, I think diversion traffic as we used to know it disappeared. What took its place is the single road carload rate where the car has to be rebilled at each interchange and operates like a series of local moves and not one interline.

When I worked in the Division Freight Accounting section, "extending" a diversion shipment after it had been finally unloaded was usually a nightmare that could consume a large part of your day. We had several "alaphabet routes" and an office that really should have had only 5 or so extension and divisions clerks for many years had no less than 30.

[greyhounds]

QUOTE: Originally posted by O.S.

Yes, on a limited scale with perishables, diversions happened. I was referring to the weeks-long diversions common to lumber. How long did bananas out of New Orleans last in transit?

What did the operating department think it cost to switch out a diverted car at Fulton? Were you pricing to customers those diversions on an incremental basis, or a fully-allocated basis? And if it was the former, what was the justification -- a high ROI?

OS

I wasn't doing anything at Fulton. As I said, we were trying to get containerized bananas that rode on a Pig Train that wasn't supposed to stop at Fulton. The loads we were chasing were going to the Jewel grocery chain in Chicago.

It was very attractive business. We had a southbound imbalance. We'd take loads down to Memphis/Jackson/New Oleans and not have the same number of northbound loads. So we had to bring empty trailers, at zero revenue, back to Chicago. Didn't have to do that with a Chiquita container.

And we didn't have to acquire any equipment, Chiquita had the containers and TTX had the flatcars.

We'd bring the nanos north for good money then give the cans to UPS to load back south. Revenue in both directions. Few, if any, empty miles. A freight move from Heaven.