Re: Railroad Billing-Additional to above

When a shipment travels over various railroads, there is a pre-arranged division of the billing of that shipment to each carrier and it is not propotioned by mileage alone. Eastern RRs got much more per mile than Southern and Western. In general the originator carrier gets 24% and the remaining 76% is divided between the next two carrier if there were three involved. If it went C&S, Denver, CB&Q, NKP, W&LE,P&WV, WM, RDG, L&HR, NYNH&H to New Yolk City, all of those carriers (beyond Deenver) would get a portion of the 76% or request a larger portion from the originator carrier in order to appove that routing. The shipment must have sufficient value to pay it way, or it did not travel. The Bridge Route as above, was happy to get the traffic away from the PRR and quoted a lower rate to get that traffic on their route.
In many cases there was no change to request a placement of a empty car if it was to be loaded. The rate from point to point was usually a established tariff by the ICC and would be the same based on the same weight of product shipped.
There was a minimun to meet which closely filled the car. Many of the scale costs, transfers or intransit reloading or processing was included in the set rate. Grain often went throuth Buffalo and was milled to flour and then shipped to NYC on the same waybill from the fields to the city.
The milling was in-transit and included in the rate. Coal from Robertsdale, Pa was washed at Mt. Union and reloaded in PRR or RDG hoppers and billed to RCA at Camden, NJ; via PRR Hbg RDG Pt Richmond, Camden, NJ. This included a ferry ride over the Delaware River and it was all included in the same rate from Robertsdale to Camden. Three Railroads got the income and the PRR was the bridge line. EBT got most per mile of the haul, and the wash and transfer to SG cars was all included.
In later years, many products such a lumber had zones established where the rate was the same for example of lumber from Colorado to any where in New England. NYC was a zone of its own as volume was different. This was all prearranged before movement, by the trillions of published rates in the ICC.
If you want to ship something new from some place which never shipped it, an application was made through all the railroads involved in the route, to the ICC and a proposal of a low or high rate was offered. There had to be agreement between the shipper and the carriers and then the ICC studied it for any other railroads to take exceptions and contest it. If there was no contest, it was published. Many of the historic previous rates on simular product or routes was used as a guide to the fair price designed.
In the today's world with de-regulation; The Carrier and the Shipper agree on a rate and a contract which covers the expected volume and timeframe, and if they agree, the hell with any other railroad which takes exception of unfair competition. It is free-for-all who can play against the trucks. Only if you can prove the railroads have you as a captured shipper (Coal mine for example), can you contest rates to the Surface Board for a review of too-high a rate.