Richmond daily palladium., 1881-09-03
FINDING LOST CARS.


Philadelphia Press.
Travellers up and down sny line of rail-
way having a terminus in this city are in
the habit of seeing daily hundreds of
fugitive freight cars extending in broken
lines along the sidetrseks aud reaching
many miles out of the city. They belong
to a hundred different railway companies,
each car bearing the initials of the pro-
prietarv road, and In the general office
of that company, whether 1t be In New
York, Pittsburg, or San Francisco, there
are records which show just where that
car is standing and why it is there. For
instance, if the car is detained an
unwarrsnted length of time AT
Germantown Junction the Pennsylvania
Railroad receives "searcher," either by
telegraph or train service, asking why
the car is not sent home. In this way q
great railroad stretching half across the
continent and with lis rolling stock scat
tered over every State in the union, keeps
an account of its stock, numbering in the
case of the Pennsylvania Railroad more
than 5000 freight cars of all kinds
Occasionally one of the number is lost
altogether and then the complicated
railroad detective service Is set at work.
The last clues TO its whereabouts are
traced out, and in time the lost car is
found somewhere between Texas and
Montreal. Yesterday afternoon Superin-
tendent Reilly, of the transportation
Department, was notified of the re-
covery at Worcester of Pennsylvania
Railroad freight car that has been
missing since November Z, 1880, and had
in the meantime travelled thousands of
miles over New England railroads.
Speaking of the matter Chief Clerk Nc
Gully said: "The New England railroads
seems to entertain the idea that our cars
are sent up there for their convenience.
AS soon as car is unloaded it should be
started back to the road from which it
came, but IN New England they turn it
over as the common property of the road
and it is run back and forth, carrying
local freight 1t is not an uncommon
thing when a car is loaded here and sent
to an eastern point that it is not again
heard from for three or four months. In
the meantime there are more than a
hundred clerks in this office employed on
the car accounts, and week
after week searchers are sent
out from here for the missing car Yes
terday letters of inquiry were dispatched
to all parts of the country aggregating
the 1st AID 10th of this month. Every
freight conductor on the road sends in a
daily report Of the cars that have been
IN his charge, and fair idea of the mag
nitude of these accounts may be ha
from the fact that the entire movement
over the Pennsylvania railroad exceeds
10000 per day. The accounts are enter
ed in different colored inks to distin-
guish loaded fro m empty cars. There
are received at the Fourth street office
$500 conductors reports every day,
and 100 clerks are employed in the
freight department alone. When Penn
sylvania Railroad train is sent out over
another line, the conductor reports the
number af each car and its destination.
The absent cars are in this way traced
from road to road, as for instance, by the
Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago rail
way to Chicago, thence by the Chicago
Rock Island and Pacific to Council
Bluffs, and by the Union and Central
Pacific roads to San Francisco. In the
course of two months the car re-
turns by the same route, and, if any
| accident on the way destroys the
| car, it is charged against the road on
which the accident happened. Lost
freight cars, which were formerly hunt
ed up by travelling agents, are now
traced by "searchers," official documents
which contain the number and descrip
ton of the lost car, and the date al
which it was last seen on the Pennsylva-
MIA road. These documents are forward
ed in the wake of the car, receiving
many official signatures on the way, and
finally overtake an agent who has the
car in charge.