Bill Of Lading???

Generally, the B/L would have been prepared by the shipper as they are the entity which knows the most about the product.  Several copies would have been given to the switch crew or a freight agent who would affix his signature.      John

Bob:

Although technically it was the carrier's responsibility to prepare the bill of lading, normally the shipper would be the party creating the BOL.  This particular BOL would most likely have been created by the SAL rather than the shipper, however.  This BOL was issued to replace an open BOL originally issued at East Point, GA and generally the railroad would be the one doing that.  And yes, the conductor would have a BOL for every car in his train.   

Looking at your copy the one thing that jumps out at me is there are no junction points showing in the routing.  You weren't required to show them but, most shippers would have.

Years ago, the railroads used the BOL to prepare a paper waybill for the car and the conductor would have one of those for every car in his train too.  The SWL&C typed on the BOL indicates "shippers weight, load & count".  In other words, the railroad was accepting the shippers word for how much was in the car.  The shipper also executed the Section 7  no recourse clause.  Basically this put the railroad on notice that once the car was accepted, the railroad could not come back against the shipper for any additional freight or demurrage charges.  Any additional charges would be collect from the consignee.  The SW&IB noted toward the bottom of the description section of the BOL represents the Southern Weighing & Inspection Bureau.  These bureaus were the ones who created the tariffs used to rate rail shipments and also were responsible for inspecting and certifying shipper owned scales.

Prior to computer generated or electronic freight bills, the railroads would use the paper waybill as the basis for the freight bill too.  A copy of the waybill would be rated and show an extension.  I remember receiving these from the Rock Island, Santa Fe, SP and Katy.  Kind of wish I'd have kept a copy or two now but, there wasn't anything special about them "back in the day".

Curt

Thanks guys!

Could this be the routing (RR reporting marks listed on the ROUTE line):

CGA - Central of Georgia

SAL - Seaboard Air Line

P&N - Piedmont & Northern

C&N - Carolina & Northwestern

P&N -

SAL -

RF&P - Richmond Fredericksburg & Potomac

PRR - Pennsylvania

So if I read this right:

Ace Batting Company of Rambo PA ordered 53 bales of cotton batting (almost 33,000 lbs!!!) from O'Neill Brothers in East Point GA, that's over 600 lbs each.

Looking at the RRs involved, I wonder which ones actually had an engine in use during this shipment.  I expect it was at least SAL, RF&P, and PRR, maybe CGA.

So who made money from this?  Did each RR get money as the car made its way across their tracks?  I'm sure N&W got paid for the use of its car.  Who would have made repairs to the car if any were required?

Would Ace Batting Company be responsible for cleaning the car out or would PRR have done it?

Would a copy of the BOL been nailed/stapled/tacked to the tackboard(s) or would other instructions be there too?  I've never seen any models with a piece of paper on the tackboards.

Also, what's the real difference between a BOL and a Waybill?  Seems kind of redundant.

Another thought...Is there an App for this?!?!?!  This would be kinda cool to duplicate/use on my iPad.

Bob:

Correct; the railroads listed in the route line constitute the route used and are the railroads over which the car would have traveled from Georgia to PA.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, normal practice would be to specify the junction points between each of the railroads.

Each of the railroads involved would have received a share of the line haul freight (a division in railroad parlance).  I can't say for certain about what N&W would have collected on this specific shipment but, generally speaking, each of the railroads handling the car would have paid N&W a per diem for the use of the car while on their respective lines.  Some of the railroads in the old alphabet route  days - I think Lehigh Valley was one - actually had trains they called "per diem savers" as the goal was to run an expedited schedule and get the car off their railroad before midnight, thus saving a day's per diem on the car.  If the car were bad ordered on any of the railroads involved, they would have set the car into a RIP (repair in place) track, made the necessary repairs and sent N&W a bill through interline accounting.

At destination, the consignee would have been responsible for cleaning the car.  If they released the car to PRR and the railroad had to clean it, the consignee would be charged for the cleaning.  It is also possible the conductor on the local pulling the car would have taken a look at it and told the consignee to either clean it or he wasn't pulling the empty.

As to the difference between a waybill and a bill of lading; you know them apart when you see them.  I'll do some digging to see if I can find a copy of a waybill and will post here later.

And I believe the scale guys - primarily HO or N - who enjoy prototypical operations do have software that can generate waybills and or bills of lading.  

Curt 

Thanks Curt!  i found another SAL BOL from 1907, this time handwritten:

How about this one from the PRR.

Cool!!!

I'd like to see some from a bunch of RRs, just to get an idea of what was used and what the commodity was.

I looked thru my books and foound John Armstrong's "The Railroad What It Is, What It Does", can't recalled when I even got the book (3rd Edition, 1990-1994).  It covers this well, but it's so "dry" I can hardly read it without falling asleep.