Railroaders' Nostalgia > Alameda Belt Line again

In 1974, while I was working for Alameda Belt Line and The Oakland Terminal Railroad (The was part of the name and reporting marks TOTR, like The was part of the name of The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Compamy TMER&L), there was a shortage of many of the cars we needed. Boxcars were hard to get. Flat cars for the dry kiln were harder to get. Insulated boxcars for Del Monte were worth their weight in Unobtanium.

My main job at ABL/TOTR was fixing the revenue problem http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?18,3453395,3453395#msg-3453395. I also worked the yard at Alameda, handling car orders and spots and in the TOTR office as a yard clerk. (Part of the revenue problem was nobody wrote anything down, which was caused partially by not enough people to do the writing).

Every day was a frustrating routine of looking at the cars SP brought us and the car orders I was supposed to fill with them. Call the pail plant "Hey, I have a 50 foot box for you!" (they wanted 5). Call the dry kiln "can you deal with a 40 foot flat, that's what I have today" (they wanted four 60 foot flats). Then it was hours dealing with Del Monte.

Del Monte needed insulated box cars (RBL). They were shipping canned goods all over the country. It was February. Being frozen in transit was not an option. Every day, I went through the car orders, called the shippers, and tried to figure out how to make what I had fit what they needed. Most were simple one line questions because there weren't really many options. Del Monte turned out to be different.

After the first couple of days on the job, telling the Del Monte traffic manager, nope, nothing for you today, I decided to have a conversation with him about how to move the canned goods, which were building up (and somewhere, someone was running out). He was across the street, so he came over to the office. I asked if he was married to certain routings and carriers. Nope, there is a routine, but we're not married to it, why?

I asked him if he could fit routing and destination to the cars I could get. For sure, loads to southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etc. could get by in a plain box. Depending upon the weather forecast, maybe we could use plain box to go a little farther north such as St Louis, Memphis, and Baltimore. Of course, the stuff loaded in a plain box would need to be secured Really Well. He might need to have some carpenter work done after loading. When I could find RBLs, we could assign them to destinations that needed them. He thought that was a good idea. We had a plan.

Every morning, after the list of "no cars for you today" and "can you deal with a 40 foot instead of a 50 or 60 foot?" calls, it was time to deal with Del Monte. After listing up the yard (SP would come over with a cut; the ABL footboard yardmaster would tell the SP foreman where to put the cars; the SP crew would leave without so much as leaving a list - one of the little things I fixed while I was there), I would call Del Monte and be on the phone for well over an hour. Every morning, I brought a newspaper to work so that I could see the national weather situation. We talked about destinations and routing (there were more than just 7 railroads in the country, and by specifying roads in the route, we could control what cities the cars would go through, and therefore control, somewhat, the weather each car would encounter). The next part of the process was sometimes calls around the country to ask someone (yardmaster, trainmaster, chief dispatcher - whoever I could find) about the weather forecast for the next week or two (no internet, no satellites, no weather forecasting computer models, and weather forecasts based on lots of ground station reports - the local newspaper or radio was the best source of information). Then started round two at Del Monte - the questionable cars and routes based on the research I had spent an hour doing. That could take another hour. Finally, I could list up the afternoon Del Monte switch and give it to the impatient footboard yardmaster.

At the end of the day, we managed to move most of the canned goods and use most of the cars I had on hand. Then it was time to spend some quality time with the SP yardmaster (a little old headin' as an introduction has worked wonders over the years when it comes to getting information from uh...unauthorized and irregular sources). I would tell him what I wanted, with a new twist. We talked about what he could dig up that I could make work. SP handled all of the ABL interchange including the WP and Santa Fe stuff. An ABL guy told me that Santa Fe interchange was by barge until one day, the tug captain decided to get under way while the ABL engine was shoving a cut across the apron onto the barge. The barge and cut sank, and that was the end of ATSF barge interchange.

One day, in the middle of all of this, I got a call from the navy base. The guy introduced himself, some officer rank - don't remember what. He told me that he was checking the preparedness and procedures manual. He wanted to know how quickly I could get him this list of cars (flats, boxes, gons of various descriptions). He finished and I asked "Is this for, like when a Red Chinese submarine surfaces in San Francisco Bay and you need to get outta there?"

There was a long silence, followed by a puzzled-sounding "Uh, yeah, something like that."

"Surrender; that's the only option."

"That's not funny!"

"No, it's not; sad actually, but we'd all be needing to learn Chinese long before I could ever find those cars for you."

More silence, then "Uh, ok, thanks. I'll make a note of that."

In the big picture, all of that effort was in vain anyway. Today, there's no Del Monte, no navy base, and no Alameda Belt Line.

TAW

This is a classic.

TAW Wrote:
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He finished and I asked "Is this for, like when a Red Chinese submarine surfaces in San Francisco Bay and you need to get outta there?"

There was a long silence, followed by a puzzled-sounding "Uh, yeah, something like that."

"Surrender; that's the only option."

"That's not funny!"

"No, it's not; sad actually, but we'd all be needing to learn Chinese long before I could ever find those cars for you."

More silence, then "Uh, ok, thanks. I'll make a note of that."

I think that about answers the question of why the railroads have struggled with customer satisfaction in the loose car business. Great story that gives a window into what it was like to try to keep shippers happy with limited resources. It must have been very frustrating.

Your story-telling is outstanding, Tom. But then again, why wouldn't that be the case. So are your books! Merry Christmas and keep the stories coming. It's like a walk down memory lane for me.

rww

Working for the SP in Oakland, the Alameda Belt Line was always a bit of a mystery to me. When did they operate? How many employees? Although I got into Alameda on average a little more than monthly, I just never saw any ABL activity. Thanks for this interesting post.

Westbound Wrote:
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> Working for the SP in Oakland, the Alameda Belt
> Line was always a bit of a mystery to me. When did
> they operate? How many employees? Although I got
> into Alameda on average a little more than
> monthly, I just never saw any ABL activity. Thanks
> for this interesting post.


ABL never left the island. SP came over a couple of times a day with a drag and went back with one.

When I was there, I think it was two switch jobs on days and on afternoons.

TAW

Would the shipping rate charged to Del Monte have been the same considering different routes and different boxcar types?

RRTom Wrote:
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> Would the shipping rate charged to Del Monte have
> been the same considering different routes and
> different boxcar types?


Old tariff rule. You pay for what you use but not less than the carload minimum, so if you use a 40 footer, you pay the min on the car's weight but what the load actually weights. Routes apply to the rates, but you can use combinations. OA to San Antonio, San Antonio to St Louis, St Louis to Chicago. Some cases you can actually beat the through charge from OA to Chicago. Good rate clerks were very crafty at this.

In 1974 I was the Western Division Car Distributor working out of 515 Bay St. in West Oakland. I had 5 Assistant Car Distributors on the day shift, one was the High/wide clerk. 2 asst. car distributors on swing shift one of the was a high/wide clerk. Joe Cecil was the Car Distributor before me and he retired in August of 1973 and I was promoted to his job. I do remember the problems of furnishing cars to the Alameda Belt, Spins 2202. DM 48 was 220206 and I believe Skippy Peanut Butter was 220208. Skippy required bulkhead type RBLs with side fillers and I think Del Monte 48 could use either Crossbar type or Bulkhead types. Since that was 40 years ago I have a hard time remembering who the other shippers on the ABL were. I left the Western Division in August of 1975 to take a position in Frank Zammerlie's office inn San Francisco.

I worked in the rail shipping office of Tillie Lewis Foods in Stockton during this period of time. During the "boxcar shortage", we had one heck of a time getting good RBL boxcars to ship our canned goods in (12 to 18 cars a day required). We partially solved our problem by leasing 40 double-plug door 50-footers from USLX (red and blue with our parent company, Ogden Corporation, emblazoned on the sides). We assigned them to loads to customers that swiftly unloaded our cars and got them on the way back to us quickly. (We had some customers that would use boxcars for extra warehouse space, holding on to them until demurage charges were about to take effect....they didn't get any of our USLX cars!) Round-trip time for good customers on the east coast was around two weeks.

lynnpowell Wrote:
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> I worked in the rail shipping office of Tillie
> Lewis Foods in Stockton during this period of
> time. During the "boxcar shortage", we had one
> heck of a time getting good RBL boxcars to ship
> our canned goods in (12 to 18 cars a day
> required). We partially solved our problem by
> leasing 40 double-plug door 50-footers from USLX
> (red and blue with our parent company, Ogden
> Corporation, emblazoned on the sides). We
> assigned them to loads to customers that swiftly
> unloaded our cars and got them on the way back to
> us quickly. (We had some customers that would use
> boxcars for extra warehouse space, holding on to
> them until demurage charges were about to take
> effect....they didn't get any of our USLX cars!)
> Round-trip time for good customers on the east
> coast was around two weeks.


Yup, had the same problem in the sugar business with customers using cars for storage

Excellent railroading. Work with the shipper.

Best regards,

Rob L.

Many year ago I was working off the SP Roseburg OR Ex-Brkmn's Board on a week stand in Medford OR and was shoved to conductor the second day there account additional lay-offs. Anyway there was a lumber mill in Ashland (Corman Lumber) that was begging for 56'8" boxes. He said he would load six (6) car every day Mon through Sat. That's thirty six (36) cars per week of revenue for SP. At the time he was having to use center beams that didn't please his customer even a little bit, or him as it made them have to load on both sides which was very unhandy and more labor intensive for his operation. I complained daily to the agent at Medford and was blown off with some really stupid remarks just as often. All this time I knew that there was a siding "FULL" of 56'8" boxes at Hugo that had been semi-permanently stored. Anyway I got overly frustrated with the stupid moves that SP was making to bring on their eventual demise far quicker than was required plus I was always an employee who did all I could to give the customers, particularly the shippers, what they want and need. I started poaching six of these cars a day and delivered them to a loading foreman at Corman Lumber in Ashland. That prompted him to tell me that he would kiss me, on the lips if I could keep his cars coming. Well as you have already guessed by the second or third day of my blatant disregard of the SP's carefully planed moves to facilitate an early bankruptcy the sh-t hit the fan first thing one morning in the Trainmaster's office. I got an ass chewing that I'll never forget and there would have been a major investigation that would have surely set me out for at minimum thirty day or so. But when I reminded them what would become evident and would need to be explained as to why I was being investigated for trying my level best to satisfy a shipper and to produce car load revenue for SP that would warrant my collecting my job insurance. No investigation. Given the situation I'd do it the same way again. SP kept making money in spite of themselves. Been retired since March of 1999 from UP and rarely ever look back.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/15 22:19 by donsrich.

Hi over the years i was on the alameda job either as trainman or forman and loved bringing car to alameda where i grew up,, in the seventies we some time had trains of fifty to seventy cars , we had to stop by grand street to make sure we had the line up pull down by sherman st. and make cuts of about thirty cars, and fill the tracks, a couple times we had some of the local guys i grew up with come and pull the pins and cause the train to go into emergencies we had some crew member go back and get the air back and stay untill we came back and recouple and take the rest of cars to the belt yard some times the belt line guys were done and parked their engine by the bar, and take a brake, it didn,t bother most of us becuse after we were done, and comming back we would stop there too. alameda got a fifty dollar per car perdieum, and they made a lot of money some times. one of my best trip was a eight car train of disaembled world war two plane we took out to the Navy base.Ed T.