Nostalgia & History > "Barley and rye" on Milwaukee Road

Moody's says MILW freight revenue in 1945 was
185.6 million dollars; it says 36.7 million
came from "Barley and rye", whatever that is.
More than from wheat, corn and lumber
combined.

Then it says total revenue from "Products of
Agriculture" was 34.9 million. Zat possible?

In 1945 MILW carried 24308 carloads of Barley
and rye-- so they made $1500 from each load.
They carried 208060 carloads of soft coal
and got 16.7 million dollars from it--
$80 per car. Did the barley travel a lot
farther than the coal?

Then in 1950 they had 15342 carloads of
barley and rye (13830 originated) and
it says revenue from it was 3.35 million.
Can that be right?

Maybe the 1945 revenue is wrong, but in
1946-49 they show Barley/rye still MILW's
biggest revenue chunk-- 12-15% each year.
Where did barley/rye grow? Did it go to
breweries?

I know that Barley and Rye are 2 of the major ingedients of what made Milwaukee famous. Perhaps with the numerous breweries located in the Milwaukee area and Wisconsin area's alone it could make up quite a bit of revenue. Just a thought. Ben

Barley and Rye, some of the primary ingredients of alcoholic beverages!!
Mike

Barley off the north Montana branches to the Wisconsin breweries, relatively long haul.

Coal from the mines around Latta on the Southeastern up to Chicago, relatively short haul.

But $1,500 per carload back then is preposterous, that was clearly a gross error.

Best regards,

Rob L.

timz2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Moody's says MILW freight revenue in 1945 was
> 185.6 million dollars; it says 36.7 million
> came from "Barley and rye", whatever that is.
> More than from wheat, corn and lumber
> combined.


Hello,

It's neat that you're reviewing that old revenue / carload information, but I have to offer a comment on this. I've worked as a RR consultant for the past 20 years and one of the things that someone in this business notices over time is that the quality of information provided by RRs is not great. I can't recall a single project where a RR has provided revenue, carload or financial information that was 100% correct. When we notice the errors / discrepancies, we point it out to the RR, wait a week or two, then they provide new numbers for us. Maybe 50% of the time there are still errors and the process starts again. You keep after them until everything adds up and the final product is correct. That's the way it works in most cases, and that's fine, since there are people working at the RR who can "re-run" the numbers for you and make things right. There's no way to do that when reviewing numbers from 50+ years ago, as you are doing. You can plug in estimated numbers, but in the end you have no way of knowing what was really going on since there's no one on the other side to work with to confirm / correct numbers for you.

This is one reason it's so difficult to analyze the economics of RRs back in those days. Some have tried to do it (MILW Road Pacific extension, etc) and I've reviewed some of their work. In my opinion, despite much effort being put into the research projects, much of the work lacks credibility and many incorrect conclusions have been reached, partly because of this "bad data" problem. When certain researchers encountered bad numbers in historic RR data it appears that they often just threw them in and kept moving along, not devoting the time necessary to fix things and reach correct conclusions. To do it right, you'd really have to 1) have a decent enough business sense to spot bad numbers hidden in piles of good numbers and 2) be willing to devote the time to correct bad numbers that you encounter (or at least plug in reasonable estimates). In the case of revenue, for example, you'd need to conduct your own mini-audit of the RR's finances, cross-checking revenue against the applicable tariffs and division sheets to see if numbers are reasonable. Doing that, you'll quickly spot things that don't make sense, such as the barley/rye vs. lumber issue you've pointed out. Doing a proper analysis of old RR traffic and financial documents is a huge undertaking, requiring commitments of time & effort that are way beyond what most researchers are willing to devote.

Take care,

Mark