Sight Drafts
by Peter
Brill
In recent years, the M&NJ has hosted
the cars of just a few railroads, all of them being covered hoppers carrying
fertilizer to Agway. CSX cars transport phosphate from Florida; Conrail cars
carry urea from Ohio and various fertilizers from the Philadelphia Ore Dock
(converted by Agway and Conrail to handle fertilizer imports); and Canadian
National cars carry potash from Canada. The plastics and chemicals traffic is
carried in the cars of private leasing companies such as Union Tank Car (UTLX),
General American Transportation (GATX), Shippers Car Line (SHPX), etc.. The
limited number of railroad-owned cars seen on the M&NJ stems from a number
of factors: the M&NJ has very limited traffic (no box car traffic); the
mega-merger trend has consolidated most of the class I carriers into a handful
of gigantic systems; and there has been an industry trend toward a smaller fleet
owned by railroads while the private car fleet has been
expanding.
A recent donation of "railroad paper" to our
Society included M&U petty cash records for 1914 through the early 1920's.
An examination of the contents of the envelopes, one per month, revealed that
many contained "sight drafts" from railroads across the country for car service
charges, also known as "per diem" and "mileage" charges. As is still the case
today, when a car owned by another railroad was interchanged to the M&U by
the Erie, O&W or NYS&W the M&U was then responsible to track the
car's time and mileage on the M&U and pay the car's owner accordingly. This
payment was accomplished by a paper form looking much like a business check and
known as a "sight draft" because it was payable "on sight". The peculiarity of
the sight draft was that it was issued by the railroad to whom the M&U owed
money and was payable to that railroad. Basically, on a monthly basis, the
M&U would calculate the money it owed various railroads for the use of their
cars and send each of them a postcard showing the amount(s) owed and for what
month(s).
The railroads receiving these postcards would use them as their
authority to issue sight drafts which would be deposited in the bank used by the
individual railroad and would credit their account for the amount of money
represented by the sight draft. The sight draft would then clear through the
banking system until the money was then withdrawn from the M&U's bank
account and the actual document wound up in the offices of the M&U where it
was filed with the petty cash receipts of that month. The back of the sight
draft reflected the endorsements of all the banks that had processed it and,
beginning in 1915, the M&U stamped the front to show its date of receipt at
the M&U office. If a railroad disagreed with the M&U's
calculation they were still expected to issue a sight draft for the M&U's
figure and, as stated by The New York Central Railroad, "Discrepancies to be
covered by correspondence and supplementary settlement." Sight drafts served a
number of other purposes as well and were used to pay for overcharges, shortages
and damage to shipments. In each case, a railroad would submit supporting
documentation to the M&U and all the other carriers who participated in the
"move". If the M&U concurred, it would return the file of documentation to
the railroad handling the claim along with the M&U's approval to be drafted
for its share of the rate overcharge, shortage, damage, etc.. In the early
1920's, the M&U ended its use of sight drafts for car charges and used
checks instead but continued to use sight drafts for other purposes. Sight
drafts could be dangerous as a typographical error could add a few zero's to an
amount and thus wipe out the balance in your account. Pete Rasmussen recalls the
M&NJ once got sight drafted and immediately responded with its own sight
draft for the same amount to restore the integrity of its bank
account.
We have found sight drafts representing 169
different companies, all but a handful being railroads and virtually all of them
for car service charges. Every major railroad in the country is represented
along with quite a few shortlines. A number of Canadian carriers plus the
Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico also appear. Some of the unexpected "gems"
include; Coal & Coke Railway (Elkins, WV), The Cripple Creek & Colorado
Springs Railroad (Colorado Springs, CO), Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad
(Cumberland, MD), Electric Short Line Railway Company (Minneapolis, MN), The
Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain Railroad and Coal Company (Huntingdon, PA),
The Kanawha, Glen Jean and Eastern Railroad Company (Glen Jean, WV), Lackawanna
& Wyoming Valley Railroad Company (Scranton, PA), McCloud River Railroad
Company (McCloud, CA), Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester & Dubuque Electric
Traction Company (Minneapolis, MN) and The Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway
Company (Houston, TX). Unlike some of the mega-systems of today, you had an idea
where a railroad ran when it had a name such as Fort Dodge, Des Moines &
Southern Railroad or Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway or perhaps the
Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company and, of course, the Chicago,
St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway Company. They just don't name them
like that anymore! We should hasten to note that not all railroads ever reached
all the cities in their name; perhaps their promoters were a bit overzealous in
their goals. (Ed. Note, Middletown, Unionville and Water Gap seems to be a good
example of this)
We have made up a pair of display books to
show one or more sight drafts for each of the 169 companies. There are about 580
sight drafts in the two books as we attempted to show the various revisions the
railroads made in these documents over the years. The sight drafts also reflect
history as they show railroads going into and out of receivership and the
majority going under control of the USRA during World War I (but not the Buffalo
Creek & Gauley Railroad of Dundon, WV whose sight draft was stamped "Not
Under Federal Control"). Perhaps 80 sight drafts were found attached to various
documents and both the sight draft and the associated documents, including the
stationary of various railroads, have been stored in the books. A small set of
sight drafts covering railroads of Orange County has been made up for possible
display purposes in area libraries or museums. A listing has been compiled,
month by month for each railroad, showing the amount of every sight draft. We
have approximately 1,160 sight drafts covering 107 railroads that we consider to
be "duplicates", they do not provide information beyond the 580 in the display
books or the Orange County set. We have decided to offer these duplicate sight
drafts for sale. A list of available roads follows and the pricing is given our
sales page.
In some instances, there may be only one
item available. So please specify an alternate selection(s) unless you want a
refund. Most items are in good shape and the ones in best condition will be
shipped first. If you are unhappy with any item, you may return it for credit.
It should be remembered that these items are approximately 80 years old.
This and other sales item can be found on our
sales
page.
Originally published in vol. 3, #4 of the Unionville
Flyer
