Passenger Trains > What trains or railroads were involved in this?

A now-deceased religious leader used to tell the following story. I'm curious to know what railroads might have been involved in the mis-routing. He was employed as an assistant manager of mail, baggage, and express by the D&RGW, so they were obviously involved, and the train's origin in Oakland says WP was involved, but I have no idea who would have taken it east of Denver. This was probably during or just after World War II, so there might have been too many trains running at the time to be able to pin it down, but if it can be figured out, TO is place to find the people who could.

The story goes:

Many years ago I worked for a railroad...that was in the days when nearly everyone rode passenger trains. One morning I received a call from my counterpart in Newark, New Jersey. He said, “Train number such-and-such has arrived, but it has no baggage car. Somewhere, 300 passengers have lost their baggage, and they are mad.”

I went immediately to work to find out where it may have gone. I found it had been properly loaded and properly trained in Oakland, California. It had been moved to our railroad in Salt Lake City [and had eventually arrived in] St. Louis. There it was to be handled by another railroad which would take it to Newark, New Jersey. But some thoughtless switchman in the St. Louis yards moved a small piece of steel just three inches, a switch point, then pulled the lever to uncouple the car. We discovered that a baggage car that belonged in Newark, New Jersey, was in fact in New Orleans, Louisiana—1,500 miles from its destination. Just the three-inch movement of the switch in the St. Louis yard by a careless employee had started it on the wrong track, and the distance from its true destination increased dramatically. That is the way it is with our lives. Instead of following a steady course, we are pulled by some mistaken idea in another direction. The movement away from our original destination may be ever so small, but, if continued, that very small movement becomes a great gap and we find ourselves far from where we intended to go...It is the little things upon which life turns that make the big difference in our lives.

Sounds like a phoney story much like what safety people come up with to get their idea across.

Like so many parts of sermons. The story always seems to fit the topic. A lot of them seem so contrived. That is not to say that some of them are reasonable.

300 people's luggage in a single car?

Sounds fishy to me.  That would imply that all 300 were on a through route from the Bay Area to the East Coast, and there weren't all that many of those through routings.  Especially via DRGW and then via Saint Louis? 

The passengers and baggage were going to Newark, not NYC, so we can rule out any routing via New York Central.

Defining "Newark" liberally, the final carrier could be B&O or PRR.

But basically, I think this is made up, kind of like the routing specified in "Chattanooga Choo Choo."

Besides the dubious fact about 300 people all going to the same place with their bags on the same train out of Oakland, I'm not buying that any such train would have run via St. Louis instead of Chicago.

Not that a person -couldn't- have booked a ticket via that route, but it wouldn't have been common enough for 300 people all at once.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/17 07:50 by toledopatch.

santafedan Wrote:
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> Like so many parts of sermons. The story always
> seems to fit the topic. A lot of them seem so
> contrived. That is not to say that some of them
> are reasonable.

It's a good preaching tool, but I'd be surprised if somebody along the way didn't say "hey, where's the Newark baggage car? How come the train consist doesn't agree with the manifest?" or the Wabash, Pennsy, LV etc baggage clerk didn't miss the car.

I heard something similar on the Middlesex NJ hot box indicator last year. A CSX train was leaving the shared assets line, and diverging on to the Trenton Line. The axle counter was off by four. The DS stopped the train at Manville, and the conductor walked the train to find the discrepancy.

He found the "extra" car on the manifest and identified the missing car in his train, so the DS faxed him an updated manifest. Nobody was moving until the cars on the train agreed with the list.

march_hare Wrote:
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> Defining "Newark" liberally, the final carrier
> could be B&O or PRR.

Royal Blue Route (B&O) trains did not stop at Newark, which was on a CNJ branch, so it had to be the PRR.

If it went from Denver to St Louis it would likely be over the MoPac via Pueblo (Colorado Eagle?).

More likely, a tall tale.

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> march_hare Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > Defining "Newark" liberally, the final carrier
> > could be B&O or PRR.
>
> Royal Blue Route (B&O) trains did not stop at
> Newark, which was on a CNJ branch, so it had to be
> the PRR.

Or Lackawanna.

march_hare Wrote:
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> Defining "Newark" liberally, the final carrier
> could be B&O or PRR.

Could have been Lehigh Valley or the Lackawanna as both served Newark.

Neither LV nor DLW served St Louis, and it seems unlikely that a passenger routing vibrant enough to have 300 people's baggage in a single through car would add yet another carrier to reach Newark.

Passenger trains aren't switched the way it is described in the "sermon".

"Intertype" is correct again, besides who would uncouple a baggage car away from the rest of the coaches and then put it on another train?

Aside from that, who says it left Oakland on the WP? The SP went East also.
A much more plausible explanation is that the car went bad order, and was just set out enroute...
G

It's never good to fact check religious stories....there's a reason we call it "faith".

If there is truth to the tale, it likely refers to some special movement, since of course there was never scheduled through trains service from coast to coast - only through Pullmans. Maybe a Shriner's trip or troop train movement?

Dave

DavidP Wrote:
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> If there is truth to the tale, it likely refers to
> some special movement, since of course there was
> never scheduled through trains service from coast
> to coast - only through Pullmans. Maybe a
> Shriner's trip or troop train movement?
>
That's my thinking, too. Some kind of large group such as the Shriners, the Boy Scouts, or perhaps a traveling orchestra with a stage company, etc. In all likelihood, it was handled as added cars to existing scheduled trains. There'd be added coaches or sleepers, perhaps a dining car, and, of course, the wayward baggage car. It's completely plausible that once in St. Louis, the yard crew switched out the wrong baggage car (of 2 or 3) but the correct through cars to go to Newark.

It's nice to believe that railroaders never make mistakes and that every car gets to its destination as planned. In my 7 short years as an intermodal clerk at CSX, I can recall the wrong cars dropped at 'my' yard 3-4 times. Missing loaded cars, another 3-4 times (not including cars setout due to defect like a hot box), and 'extra' or missing containers? Too many times to count! And THAT was from 2008-2015, with everything in the computer!