List of Shipments

Below is the full breakdown of the 144 freight cars recorded arriving at or departing from Oreminea in our sample of freight bills that survived. Being located in the heart of PRR territory, just off the original main line from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, the overwhelming majority of traffic to and from the Woodbury Clay Co. traveled in home road cars, with only a handful of foreign cars passing through to deliver cargo that originated outside the PRR system. Even some shipments from foreign roads, though, were transloaded from foreign cars into PRR cars at Pittsburgh or Altoona before arriving in Oreminea. Nine different varieties of PRR freight car, mostly boxcars, were seen at Oreminea. Outbound fire clay traveled almost entirely in boxcars, although a handful of hoppers and gondolas were occasionally delivered to the W.C.C. for clay loading.

33 inbound shipments of supplies and equipment for the W.C.C. are recorded, with the remaining 111 carloads being outbound loads of clay. Of these, 17 were ordered by the Thomas H. Sant & Sons Co., a brokerage firm who marketed high-grade white clays from various mines around the eastern U.S. to customers in the porcelain and ceramic industries. The W.C.C. itself mainly shipped to customers in the refractory brick and steel industries. (Steel mills often manufactures their own refractory shapes for their furnaces on-site, and several of the refractory plants to which the W.C.C. shipper were directly adjacent to major steel mills.) Inbound supplies to Oreminea included various supplies and machinery for the W.C.C. clay mines themselves, including a new mining shovel and a narrow-gauge diesel locomotive, as well as heating coal and a variety of dry goods, foodstuffs, clothing and other essentials to supply the miners and townspeople of Oreminea.

Below are all 144 carloads recorded from the Woodbury Clay Co. in order. Click on a car to view the bills and receipts associated with it. Some inbound freight bills have one or more PRR or Railway Express receipts pinned to them, so make sure to scroll all the way down on each bill you view!