Springfield Traffic

 

Marc at work had a small stack of a little over 100 Home Route cards that came out of Springfield.  The cards are all dated from February and March 1946, although not all originally routed through Springfield. 

Springfield

For Springfield there are 29 roads represented (71 cars, one of which I can't identify the road).  They are not necessarily roads I expected.

• PRR - 10 - 14%
• B&O - 8 - 11%
• BM - 7 - 10%
• CP - 7 - 10%
• ATSF - 4 - 6%
• CNJ - 3 - 4%
• FGEX - 3 - 4%
• CG - 2 - 3%
• D&H - 2 - 3% 
• GARX - 2 - 3%
• MDT - 2 - 3%
• MEC - 2 - 3%
• RDG - 2 - 3%
• SRLX - 2 - 3%

• ARLX - 1
• ART -  1
• BLE - 1
• ERIE - 1
• IC - 1
• L&N - 1 
• MILW - 1
• NADX - 1
• NH - 1
• NP - 1
• PFE - 1
• SOO - 1
• SOU - 1
• VGN - 1

The mix of cars is also interesting:

• Box Cars - 25 - 35%
• Reefers - 14 - 20%
• Hoppers - 21- 30%
• Gondolas - 7 - 10%

I was surprised to see two Canadian Pacific stock cars and a ventilated box car (Central of Georgia).

Ventilated box car CG 55991 arrived via Springfield on February 18, 1946.  It went to Bridgeport on February 20. It appears to have been released on February 28, and was then routed via Cedar Hill on March 1 on its way back to Springfield, also on March 1.  It's interesting that it came into the NH via Springfield, but assuming it was empty on the way out, the car routing rules indicate it should be sent out via the same route it arrived. 

The selection of cars routing via other points is too small for any meaningful analysis, but still interesting. There was one Southern box car via Harlem River and one CN box car via New London. Via Worcester there was an MEC and Wabash box car. 

Bay Ridge (15 cars)

CP, PFE and SOO with 2 cars each, plus one each of ART, BM, GARX, NP, OWR&N, SAL, SFRD, and Southern.

Seven each of box cars and reefers, and one hopper (Boston & Maine).

Oak Point (10 cars)

Half were CP, 3 box cars, a reefer and a stock car.  Two Southern box cars, and an ART and MDT reefer.

Maybrook

Thirteen cards were for cars routed via Maybrook. Eight of those were reefers: 1 ART, 1 LRX, 1 MDT, three PFE and an SFRD. I'm not sure on the last one. Two CP box cars, and one each of B&O, BAR, and IHB.

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Although the number of cards is too small to derive any real info regarding routing, I think there are still some interesting things to note.

I was surprised as the number of Pennsy and B&O cars coming via Springfield, but I have a probably explanation. I think many of these specific cars were on their return leg. That is, a B&O or PRR box car that originally carried a load to, say, Maine was unloaded when it arrived at its destination. Car routing rules specify a car that is not reloaded be routed back the same way it arrived. If the car was originally routed to the B&M via the New Haven, it would have likely gone through Springfield. So it would come back via Springfield too. They could also be loaded and routed via the NH.

What does that mean for my modeling purposes? That cars I might not have considered routing via Springfield could be part of the consist of a Hartford to Maybrook freight. 

This is the first documentation in my era of a ventilated box car on New Haven rails. I was also surprised the two stock cars were CP, one at Springfield and one at Oak Point.

The mix of hoppers is always something I'm interested in learning more. In this case it was B&O (4), BLE (1), B&M (2), CG (1), CNJ (2), D&H (2), Erie (1), NH (1), PRR (6), RDG (1), and VGN (1). The anthracite roads all make sense, although all of them were via Springfield. The D&H cars were probably loaded, but I suspect the others were all empties on their way home.

The B&M ones (one at Springfield and one at Bay Ridge) are more interesting. Without knowing the commodity, I'm guessing these cars may have been related moves since they had so few hoppers.

The CG and VGN were also unusual. If they were bituminous coal, they were a long way from home, especially when the bulk of coal from their region would have come by water via Baltimore.  Again, these went via Springfield, so it's likely that the NH was simply part of the routing.

I also didn't expect reefers to be the second most common cars. The mix was not quite what I expected (although being February would have an impact on what commodities were shipping and from where). PFE was the most numerous at six, but ART and MDT were second with four each. CP, FGEX, and GARX all had three, and SFRD and SRLX had two each. The LRX car is an interesting one too, not many of those.

There are no tank cars at all, but this is expected because they always ran on a waybill. They would not use Home Route Cards.

Maybrook Mix

With the recent announcement of new FA-1/FB-1s from Rapido (it's about time!), I'll want to be prepared for adding the Maybrook freights.

Modeling buddy Mike Clements recently pointed me (back to) Julian Erceg's fantastic site Moving the Freight. Specifically the Traffic Study of Maybrook Freight in 1957.

While it's a fascinating study, I'd recommend reading the whole thing and I'll be pulling more info from it, the initial use I'll get from it is working out a mix of routes.

For example, Maybrook to Hartford traffic in January '57 through Maybrook was routed via:

• Erie 31%
• LHR 34%
• LNE 8%
• O&W 24%
• NYC 2%

Maybrook to Holyoke was:

• Erie 23%
• LHR 55%
• LNE 9%
• O&W 14%

The Wheel Report data also provides great info. Traffic to Hartford in average carloads from:

• Maybrook 58 (44%)
• New York 44 (33%)
• East 16 (12%)
• Cedar Hill 15 (11%)

East would be from Boston as well as CV via New London, etc. The Cedar Hill cars probably include transloaded LCL and cars from locals and industries that route via Cedar Hill.

This will be great information to incorporate into the routing information on waybills, and may also impact the mix of road names represented in these trains.

More Routing

Other than the historical interest, how can the routing information be used on a model railroad?

If you are using more prototypical waybills, then the routing information is included on those. But I also think it's useful for building trains that will be running on the layout, as I've noted before.

This is a Freight Interchange Report for the New Haven, 1929. I don't recall where I got this, but it's interesting in that it shows how many cars were received at each interchange over the course of a year.

The map includes the traffic from 1918 through 1929, here's the list for 1929, arranged by road and interchange since it's the closest to my era.

B&A Framingham    47,742

B&A Milford    1,270

B&A Pittsfield    13,497

B&A State Line    39,029

B&A Westfield    11,536

B&A, B&M Boston    109,447

B&A, B&M Springfield    156,235

B&A/B&M Worcester    260,873

B&M Ashland    123

B&M Clinton    931

B&M Concord    2,768

B&M Easthampton    750

B&M Fitchburg    19.082

B&M Holyoke    5,078

B&M Lowell    56,357

B&M Northampton    3,651

B&M So. Sudsbury    1,738

B&M Turners Falls    1,866

CV New London    57,878

CV Norwich    792

CV Willimantic    58,670

LIRR Fresh Pond    29,650

LV, CNJ Harlem River    265,104

Maybrook     553,029 (ERIE, L&H, LNE, O&W, NYC)

NYC Beacon    9,148

NYC Boston Corners    224

NYC Brewster    790

NYC Millerton    359

NYC Port Morris    12,023

NYC Poughkeepsie    5,653

NYC Rhinecliff    677

PRR Bay Ridge    430,803

The top 5 Interchange Points account for 77% of the traffic on the NH:

Maybrook - 26%

Bay Ridge - 20%

Harlem River - 12%

Worcester - 12%

Springfield - 7%

Add in two other roads that aren't represented yet, the CV at Willimantic and New London (3% each); and the LIRR at Fresh Pond (1%) and you have 84% of the traffic, covering all of the Class I roads that interchange directly with the NH.

What about the other 16%? We know that many interchanges were used for local traffic only. For example the B&M at Northampton, or B&A at Westfield, generally handled traffic for the Canal Line north of Plainville. This is true of almost all of the other interchanges. 

Looking at New Britain

As we've learned, the Interchange Points that handle traffic bound for New Britain are all of the top 5, plus Willimantic and New London. Obviously not all traffic that came through these points are bound for New Britain. But the percentages can help set a baseline for determining how much traffic is on each train. 

If we only consider interchange points that have published routes to New Britain, the percentages are:

• Maybrook - 31%
• Bay Ridge - 24%
• Harlem River - 15%
• Worcester - 14%
• Springfield - 9%
• Willimantic - 3%
• New London - 3%
• Fresh Pond - 1%

We could adjust the numbers for Bay Ridge and Harlem River by attempting to remove coal. It's my understanding that only coal for destinations along the west end of the Shoreline and NYC came by car float, and the rest was routed via Maybrook. Based on the 1950-54 numbers, coal accounted for about 15% of all traffic. Remove 15% of the cars from Bay Ridge and Harlem River and the numbers change slightly.

• Maybrook - 33%
• Bay Ridge - 21%
• Harlem River - 13%
• Worcester - 15%
• Springfield - 10%
• Willimantic - 3%
• New London - 3%
• Fresh Pond - 2%

We also have to consider routing within the New Haven, because many of these are consolidated at Cedar Hill or Hartford.

• Cedar Hill (Bay Ridge, Fresh Pond, Harlem River, New London, Worcester) - 54%
• Hartford (Springfield, Willimantic) - 13%
• Maybrook - 33%

Note that Maybrook traffic was run via Cedar Hill in 1949, 1950 and 1954 in my era, so that mix is:

• Cedar Hill - 87%
• Hartford - 13%

Building Trains

So how do we assign this to trains?

To make the math simple, we'll say 100 cars will move through these interchanges.

• 54 from Cedar Hill
• 13 from Hartford
• 33 from Maybrook.

In 1948 there are the following in-bound trains that will be staged:

• OA-4 (Maybrook) - 16 cars
• OA-6 (Maybrook) - 17
• NY-2 (Cedar Hill) - 27
• EA-2 (Bridgeport) - ??
• NY-4 (Cedar Hill) - 27
• HDX-5 (Hartford) - 13

EA-2 is an unusual case, handling traffic for Waterbury, New Britain and Hartford from Bay Ridge, Harlem River, and Maybrook via Bridgeport. It connects from primarily from GN-4, plus OE-2 and NO-21 and I believe is largely LCL traffic since it's the reverse move of ANE-1, part of the Speed Witch. So we can shift cuts to that train as well (this it the last year it ran). 

These are blocks bound for New Britain, though, which means the trains will have cars bound for other destinations too. Those are some long trains in HO scale. I think for my prior ops sessions we moved about half that. so:

• AO-4 - 8
• OA-6 - 9
• NY-2 - 13
• EA-2 - ??
• NY-4 -14
• HDX-5 - 7

That looks more manageable, although the NY/YN freights will still be large. But we can move a portion of that to EA-2, or three 9-car blocks.

• NY-2 - 9
• EA-2 - 9
• NY-4 - 9

In my case, though, we're modeling the day job. So all of these trains, except NY-4 and HDX-5 run overnight. They are staged as cuts left for the crew to work.

• NY-2 - 11
• EA-2 - 11
• NY-4 - 5

NY-4 is a maximum 14 car train due to my staging, but it was also the Canal Line (North) local, so I expect that more traffic for New Britain would be on NY-2, so we can shift 4 cars back to that.

So there would be two Maybrook cuts on Track 5 in New Britain (8 and 9 cars), plus EA-2, another 11 cars also on track 5, for a total of 28 cars.

A Cedar Hill cut of 11 cars will be waiting on Track 6 at Whiting Street Yard. 

During the session, 5 cars will be dropped at Whiting St by NY-4, and 7 cars from Hartford on HDX-5 on Track No. 5 in New Britain Yard.

In '49. '50 or '54 where there are no Maybrook freights, the traffic is quite different, since it moves an additional 28 cars to NY-2 and NY-4. Since I have limits on the length of NY-4, most of these would be left as a cut overnight from NY-2. However, the Maybrook freights were dropped because of a decrease in traffic, so it would be reasonable to reduce the overall session to, say, 30 cars.

• NY-2 - 19
• NY-4 - 6
• HDX-5 - 5

In this case, the session starts with the majority of inbound cars, two-thirds of them. None of these are up at New Britain Yard until HDX-5 comes through. So the feel of ops sessions in these years will be distinctly different.

What About Another Location?

We could use this to look at another location, such as Chris' Valley Line. The Valley Local originates in Hartford, the Air Line Local in Cedar Hill, and then there are the two Shoreline Locals, one from Cedar Hill and one from New London.

• Valley Local - Maybrook and Springfield
• Air Line Local - Bay Ridge, Fresh Pond, Harlem River, Maybrook, Springfield, Worcester
• Cedar Hill-New London Local - Bay Ridge, Fresh Pond, Harlem River, Maybrook, Springfield, Worcester
• New London-Cedar Hill Local - New London (Central Vermont) and potentially Boston.

The most interesting thing here is that all of the cars that route through Cedar Hill bound for the Valley Line north of Middletown will come from the Air Line Local. In addition, since Saybrook is between New London and Cedar Hill, cars hauled by the CV would not go through Cedar Hill like they would in New Britain.

One can also see that for years where there is no Maybrook-Hartford freight (1949, 1950, 1954+) that the Valley Local would likely be shorter leaving Hartford, and receive more cars from the Air Line local.

Commodities and Routing - ERIE, B&M, BAR. MEC. PM

Commodities are interesting, but don't necessarily have a direct impact on the operation of the railroad. Indeed, in real railroading, unless a specific car is requested by a customer, or special handling is required, the crews probably don't care what's in them. 

Routing, on the other hand, can have an impact on operations. Particularly when considering the mix of cars for a train.

For example, Erie has a direct interchange to the New Haven in Maybrook NY.  So one would expect that cars loaded on the Erie would come via Maybrook. Would they come via other interchange points too?

Routing wasn't as complex a process as it might seem, but it did involve more work pre-computer era. While shippers could specify the route they wanted, I think that most of the time the Agent selected the route. To do that, they used Routing Guides. I have several of these guides, but far from a complete collection. Of course, an Agent only needed the guide that applied to shipments from their station. I want them to determine routes for inbound and outbound cars, so I've been trying to dig them up for as many roads as I can.

The basic process for the Agent is to look up the destination in the Routing Guide, and it would list one or more routes to that destination. The Agent would select one, and notate the entire route on the waybill. This would serve as the routing instructions for conductors and yardmasters along the way.

This was sparked in part to some recent questions in multiple forums online asking about smaller interchanges on the New Haven. The routing of cars was very well considered when developing these routes, and for this example I'll look at shipments from the Erie to four locations on the NH::

• Holyoke 960
• New Britain 3910
• Plainville 860
• Simsbury 920

Each station is assigned a number. Various publications by each railroad, along with national publications, use these numbers. 

For example, the New Haven Official List of Stations:

A national periodical, published annually with periodic supplements, is the Official Open and Prepay Station List, which covers all of North America:

The same station numbers are used in the Routing Guides, like the Erie, C&O (PM) and B&M ones I'm referencing today. Here's the Erie one:

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I've chosen the stations above because there are several interchange points north of Plainville on the Canal Line, and I also want to narrow down what won't come through New Britain to those destinations.

• B&M at Northampton, Easthampton and Holyoke
• B&A at Westfield

According to a NH Freight Interchange Map from 1929, the annual volume at these points in 1928 were:

• Easthampton: 750
• Holyoke: 6,078
• Northampton: 3,651
• Westfield: 11,536

For comparison, in 1928 Maybrook handled 553,029 cars.

It appears that in 1925 and 1926 a significant amount of the traffic was shifted from Northampton to Springfield.

• In 1924 Northampton handled 65,999 cars and Springfield 99,569.
• In 1925 Northampton handled 36,079 cars, and Springfield 119,421.
• In 1926, Northampton handled 3,065 and Springfield 132,911.

This corresponds to changes in the freight schedules as well. In 1925 NS-4/SN-1 was a through freight that connected at Northampton and Springfield. What's not clear is how it worked both, but here's a note from SN-1:

"...Fills out at Springfield with freight for New Haven and beyond..."

By 1927 this is no longer the case, with those trains only running to/from Springfield. It would have to go down the Canal Line, over the Highland from Plainville to Newington, then take the Springfield Line through Hartford north to Springfield, unless they had trackage rights over the B&M from Northampton to Springfield. Neither as simple or efficient as moving the bulk of the interchange traffic to Springfield.

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I'll start with the Erie. This is about an 800-page book from 1944 with routes from Lines West (Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania). It also covers some originating points on the Indiana Harbor Belt, Pennsy, and Winona Railroads. Lots of destinations are included, I just make sure Connecticut is included before I buy one of these Routing Guides.

Because we know the four station numbers, we can just go to the pages that specify destinations on the New Haven. 

Let's look at the ones they all have in common first:

1. Erie, Maybrook, NY, NH

Simple, and expected. Anything loaded on the Erie can be routed over the Erie to Maybrook, NY to be interchanged with the NH.

8. Erie, Carbondale, PA, D&H, Scranton, PA, Erie, Maybrook, NY, NH.

From certain originating points, the Erie interchanges with the D&H at Carbondale, PA, and then the car will come back to the Erie in Scranton, PA before reaching the New Haven at Maybrook.

So where do they differ? These are routes that go to Plainville or New Britain, but not Simsbury or Holyoke.

3. Erie, Binghamton, NY, D&H, Mechanicsville, NY, B&M, Springfield, MA, NY.

14. Erie, West Middlesex, PA, NYC (W), Gardenville, NY, NYC (E), Selkirk Junction, NY or Rensselaer, NY, NYC (B), Springfield MA, NH.

This is interesting because it notes the different districts or divisions it will run on the NYC, the Eastern, Western, and then NYC (B), which is the B&A District. 

18. Erie, Marion, OH, NYC (C), Cleveland OH, NYC (W), Gargenville, NY, NYC (E), Selkirk Junction, NY or Rensselaer, NY, NYC (B), Springfield MA, NH.

All of these go through Springfield, MA on either the B&A or B&M. Why wouldn't these be used for cars to Holyoke?

Because both the B&A and B&M have interchanges with the NH that are closer to Holyoke. These are their alternate routes:

2. Erie, Binghamton, NY, D&H, Mechanicsville, NY, B&M, Northampton, MA, NY.

19. Erie, Marion OH, NYC (C), Cleveland OH, NYC (W), Gardenville, NY, NYC (E), Selkirk Junction, NY or Rensselaer, NY, NYC (B), Westfield MA, NH.

Route number 2 is interesting because it goes to Northampton instead of directly to Holyoke. We'll see this is consistent with a B&M Routing Guide in a moment. This would lead one to believe that at least by 1944, interchange with the NH in Holyoke had been reduced to nearly nothing.

So routes to Holyoke and any of the towns on the Canal Line north of Plainville could come via Maybrook via the Erie, Northampton via B&M, or Westfield via B&A.

There are also some interesting routes possible:

7. Erie, Binghamton, NY, D&H, Sidney, NY, O&W, Campbell Hall, NY, NH (applicable only to shipments of Grain and Grain Products).

As you can see, this specifies that the route is used only for specific commodities.

9. Erie, New Castle, PA, B&O, Locust Point (Baltimore), MD, M&M T Co., Providence RI, and NH (Carloads only).

10. Erie, New Castle, PA, B&O, Locust Point (Baltimore), MD, M&M T Co., Providence RI, and NH (Carloads only)

11. Erie, Youngstown, OH, P&LE, Connellsville, PA, WM, Baltimore MD, M&M T Co., Providence RI, NH 

These three route are quite interesting indeed. It appears that this is routing cars to Baltimore where they will be transloaded into M&M Trucking Company trailers, and then routed on flat cars from the B&O to Providence on the NH. 

Update: I was incorrect in this theory, see Jeff Ward's comment below.

Mike Clements had sent me the following info as well and I hadn't updated the page yet:

... a couple of points about your post:

1. MM&T was a steamship company – Merchants & Miners Transportation Co. – not M&M Trucking. They participated in joint rail-water through tariffs via breakbulk. Their hub was at Baltimore and they served the Northeast. These routings got suspended during or before WWII and were never resumed. Same thing with the RUT routes with the Great Lakes steamers via Ogdensburg.
2. I think the routes correspond to published through tariffs. Shippers could pick another route, but I think that opened them up to being billed rule 11 (each carrier issues a separate bill) at local and proportional rates.
3. The first route on the list appears to be the preferred route of the carrier publishing the guide – makes it easy for agents to advise the line that is going to make the company the most money.

This is all great stuff guys, keep it coming!

But for my purposes, routing via the Erie consists of:

• Erie > Maybrook > NH > NY/YN or OA/AO
• Erie > D&H > Erie > Maybrook > NH > NY/YN or OA/AO
• Erie > D&H > B&M> Springfield > NH > HDX-5
• Erie > NYC > B&A > Springfield > NH > HDX-5

The Northampton and Westfield routes are interesting, but not terribly useful for my layout. 

So the answer is that yes, most Erie cars will probably come through Maybrook as expected.

But cars loaded on the Erie and bound for New Britain, Plainville, or the New Hartford Line can also come via Springfield. But we probably wouldn't see Erie loaded cars for points north of Plainville coming on HDX-5 to be dropped in Plainville for the NY/YN freights.

The different routes apply depending on the location loaded. So as I identify off-line industries, 

If we know the originating station, then we can go a step further which may narrow down the route even more. For now, though, we'll just stick with all possible routes.

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Boston & Maine

The B&M book is from 1955, and includes loads originating on quite a few lines besides the B&M, including BAR, Bar&C, B&ML, MEC, PF&N, and StJ&LC. 

The B&M routings are much simpler:

• For Simsbury/Holyoke: Via Northampton
• For New Britain/Plainville: Via Springfield

Bangor and Aroostook

The B&M book also includes traffic from BAR, and it's different:

• Simsbury/Holyoke: Via Northampton
• Plainville: Via Springfield
• New Britain: Via Worcester

Loads to New Britain are routed via Worcester, indicating that they would take a route from Worcester > Providence > Cedar Hill to NY freights to New Britain. 

Maine Central

The B&M book also includes traffic from MEC, and it's different again:

• Simsbury/Holyoke: Via Northampton
• Plainville: Via Springfield
• New Britain: Via Springfield or Worcester, depending on originating point.

Again, interesting information. Loads from BAR and some of the MEC loads will be coming up the NY freights instead of via Hartford. I believe the differences in these routes were (at least in part) for balancing traffic. 

St. Johnsbury & Lamoille County

A Vermont shortline that highlights some of the other connections the B&M has:

For all four destinations:

13. StJ&LC, Sheldon Jct, VT, CVt,, New London, CT, NH

For New Britain/Plainville

1. StJ&LC, St. Johnsbury, VT, CP-E, Welles River VT, B&M, Springfield, MA, NH

9. StJ&LC, Sheldon Jct, VT, CVt, Windsor, VT, B&M, Springfield, MA, NH

For Simsbury/Holyoke:

3. StJ&LC, St Johnsbury, VT, CP-E, Welles River VT, B&M, Northampton, MA, NH

11. StJ&LC, Sheldon Jct, VT, CVt, Windsor, VT, B&M, Northampton, MA, NH

Barre & Chelsea

This is another shortline in Vermont. All routes go through Wells River, VT (spelled differently than the SJ&LC page...) to the B&M and then either Northampton or Springfield as expected.

Other Short Lines

The Belfast & Moosehead Lake, Passamaquoddy Ferry and Navigation, and Seaport Navigation are listed as notes that all route through the MEC at:

• B&ML - Burnham Jct, ME
• PF&N and SNCo - Eastport, ME

--

Pere Marquette

What about roads without direct connections? As the B&M book shows, distant roads will have routings to indirect connections as well.

I have a 1944 Routing Guide from the Pere Marquette as an example. As one might expect, there are more potential routes to get to the New Haven.

1. PM, East Buffalo or Black Rock, NY, DL&W, Port Morris, NJ, L&HR, Maybrook, NY, NH

2. PM, East Buffalo or Black Rock, NY, DL&W, Norwich, NY, or Scranton, PA, O&W, Campbell Hall, NY, NH

3. PM, Suspension Bridge or East Buffalo, NY, Erie, Maybrook, NY, NH

4. PM, Suspension Bridge or East Buffalo, NY, Erie, Binghamton, NY, D&H, Mechanicsville, NY, B&M (See Note 1), NH

5. PM, Suspension Bridge or East Buffalo, NY, LV, Easton, PA, L&HR, Maybrook NY, NH

6. PM, Suspension Bridge or East Buffalo, NY, LV, Jersey City Term, NJ, Harlem River, NY, NH

7. PM, Suspension Bridge or East Buffalo, NY, LV, Sibley Jct, PA, O&W, Campbell Hall, NY, NH

9. PM, Suspension Bridge or East Buffalo, NY, NYC (E), Rensselaer or Selkirk Jct, NY, NYC (B), (Note 2), and NH

10. PM, Suspension Bridge or East Buffalo, NY, LV, NYC (E), Rotterdam Jct, NY, B&M (Note 1), NH

11. PM, Toledo, OH, PRR, Greenville Piers or Jersey City, NJ, Float, and NH (Note 4)

12. PM, Detroit, MI, CP-E, Wells River, VT, B&M (Note 3), NH

13. PM, Chatham, ONT, CP-E, Wells River, VT, B&M (Note 3), NH

14. PM, Toledo, OH, W&LE, Bellevue, OH, NYC&StL, Buffalo Jct, NY, DL&W, Port Morris, NJ, L&HR, Maybrook, NY, NH

15. PM, Toledo, OH, W&LE, Bellevue, OH, NYC&StL, Buffalo Jct, NY, LV, Jersey City Term, NJ, Harlem River NY, NH

These routes are valid for all four destinations, except #13 which is not listed for any location except New Britain. There are also several notations for clarification:

1. Route 11 does not apply from Chicago (PM No. 5)

2. Routes 14 and 15 applies only from Manitowac, Milwaukee and Kewaunee, WI (PM Nos 3190, 3195, and 3200)

12. Route 12 is not applicable from Detroit, MI (PM No 1475)

14. Route 13 is not applicable from Chatham, ONT (PM No 3605)

16. Route 11 is not applicable from Kulmbach (PM No 2825) or Port Austin, MI (PM No 3160), nor from Aurthur (PM N 3240) to Grassmere, MI (PM No 3315) 

There are also 4 Notes:

Note 1 - Via Rotterdam Jct, or Mechanicville, NY, B&M and Northampton (north of Plainville) or Springfield (New Britain/Plainville)

Note 2 - Via NYC (B) and Springfield (New Britain) or Westfield (Plainville and north)

Note 3 - Via Wells River, VT, B&M and Northampton (north of Plainville) or Springfield (New Britain/Plainville)

Note 4 - When on account of clearances, shipments cannot be handled via Greenville Piers or Jersey City, NJ routes, such shipments may be routed via PRR, Belvidiere, NJ, L&H, Maybrook NY, NH.

--

Do you need the Routing Guides? Not necessarily. With the freight schedules, we know that traffic to New Britain comes from certain trains, from Maybrook, Cedar Hill, or Hartford.

We know that traffic via Hartford will come via Springfield or Maybrook (for the New Hartford local, but not New Britain). We know which roads interchange at Maybrook, and Cedar Hill rounds up the traffic from Greenville, Fresh Pond, Harlem River, and New London (and Maybrook when the OA/AO trains aren't running).

But the routes clarify that traffic to the Springfield Line west is unlikely to come via a Boston>Cedar Hill train. We can also see that traffic to the Canal Line north of Plainville will receive cars from NYC (B&A) and B&M via Northampton and won't be part of the NY/YN traffic.

Some routes seem obvious - traffic from the northeast is coming through Springfield or Northampton, and occasionally via New London. But I didn't expect the routing via Worcester, for example. It makes sense, though, because it reduces the volume of traffic through Boston.

Coming from the West it's little surprise that a road with a direct connection like the Erie will handle most of the traffic to that interchange. But traffic from farther north can flow via other roads to Springfield and Northampton.

It's also not surprising that once you get to an indirect connection that there are more potential routes via a carrier that interchanges with the NH. Remember that a few routes will go via Canada. One example, loads of automobiles may be coming through Springfield on the B&M instead of via Maybrook carriers. It's easy to think that Maybrook or the Greenville/Jersey City floats are only routes from out west, and that's not the case.

I find the routings interesting by themselves. But they are also useful in building train consists, leading to a visible difference in the mix of freight cars on the different trains. This will be particularly evident in the through cars to the Canal Line north of Plainville on the NY/YN trains, since they will contain fewer cars from New England roads.