The San Francisco call., 1907-02-21
Gossip of the Doings
of Railroad Men

Talk about material going astray,r
remarked a railroad man. II believe
this story beats anything I ever heard
about lost goods: Some time last
October the Pacific Coast Machinery
Dealers Association placed an order for
a carload of lathes in New York. The
lathes did not show up and a tracer
was sent after the ear. The New York
firm asserted that the car had been
sent to California, and that it was the
fault of the railroads that 1t had not
reached the coast. Naturally we began
an extended search for that car. We
! learned that it had never been re-
ceived by any road. and the firm was
equally confident that it had gone out
of Its shop. We finally located the
carload of machinery in Paris. France.
1t had paid duty to enter the French
republic and it will have to pay duty
to get out. AS far as 1 know the
lathes are still in France The firm
that wanted them had grown tired of
asking the same old question as TO
their whereabouts and when l told
its members that the shipment was in
Paris they were too tired even to
laugh"
: That is nothing to a story l can tell
about shipments" put in another
| freight man. Last September a busi-
ness man of this city ordered from
Chicago a lot of machinery. It ar
rived and was delivered in the middle
of December. About one week ago one
of the agents of the delivering line
asked me for the address of that mer-
chant. l told him. II appears the way
bill had been lost and the merchant
had received his machinery and had
not paid for its transportation, as no
demand had been made upon him by
the railroad. That is one time when
the merchant had no kick coming"
/ We'll. how about this?' remarked a
/ third. "A hop dealer of Santa Rosa
wanted to ship a carload of hops to
/ New York. He had 176 bales. but the
! car would hold only 160 bales. so he
1 consented to let sixteen bales go in
/ with miscellaneous freight and get
/ there when they could. The hops were
/ shipped on November 10. The sixteen
/ bales arrived in New York on Novem-
| Der 25 and the carload was last heard
1 of on January 16 as having reached
| Chicago Since that time that ear has
! disappeared from the face of the globe"
Who is that important looking little
man who just left your Officer was
asked of a freight man.
| ''Oh, that chap?' he answered care
lessly. He is the traffic manager for
Bilkem & Sellem.''
What do those fellows do?"
Traffic managers for private firms"
was the answer ARE men who are a
little more skillful in raising trouble
and can ask more tomfool questions
than the average merchant. and that's
about all they are useful for. They are
| employed by the merchants to worry
us, who have enough trouble without
it being piled on by traffic manager.
They are generally men who have been
agents in some small place and are
| just aching all over to make us jump
as we made them jump In the sweet
| old summer time
W. ]. Shotwell. general agent of
the Denver and Rio Grande and also
/ a director of the Western Pacific, said
! yesterday:
"The Western Pacific is beginning
to receive the steel for the bridges it
will build in various canyons in Cali
fornia, and we shall be enabled to COM
mence work at once. We shall begin
4 also to lay tracks near Marysville and
Oroville and orders have been given
to lay track in the Niles Canyon
Achilles Ottinger is back from New
York. He has brought with him a
wardrobe of strange colors and new
/ styles and also ticket to Southamp-
ton, for which>port he and his family
1 are TO sail about the middle of next
month.
Il have cast business cares to the
wind" he explained. Il have closed
up all my offices except the one in this
! city and that in Los Angeles and
Iintend to pass the summer in Europe.
/ may hire a palace on the Riviera,
/ which will remind me of California, or
/ may sojourn in Paris. ! hear that
! the society in Vienna is delightful, and
/ may go there. | shall be for the
next six months bird of passage.
4 spreading my wings and taking long
or short flights as fancy Dictates
AS Ottinger is worth considerably
more than s1,000,00O he can indulge
any whim he may entertain.
John A Gill. in charge of freight
for the New York Central lines, ~is
back from the southern part of the
| State and says that as far as his OBJ
4 servation goes there is no shortage in
| refrigerator cars at the different points
from which oranges are shipped. Citrus
/ fruit was going East at the rate OF
100 cars a day. and from what he could
gather the growers were expecting to
! do well with their crop.
Peter Harvey of the Baltimore and
Ohio left last night for the south TO
look after orange shipments.s
John Y. Callahan, general agent of
the passenger department Of the
Nickel Plate, with headquarters in Chi
cago. was in this city on a pleasure
4 trip and left yesterday for the south
ern part of the State with Jay Adams,
| the general agent on this coast.