An Analysis of Stock Movements at the San Bernardino Feeding Station, 1943, 1945

The evaluation below is based on records of stock activity at the ATSF feeding station in San Bernardino, CA, operated by G. V. Roberts Hay, Grain & Livestock. These include 256 car loads in January and February, 1943, and 263 loads in October and November 1945. Some of these records had omitted information or were not readable in photocopy form. They were supplied by Stan Hall, Matt Zebrowski and Steve Sandifer but were purchased from the same seller on Ebay.

Of special interest, these records were not on stock forms at all, but on switch list forms. Therefore some special interpretation was necessary since the information often had no relation to the lines on the form in which it was contained. Matt Zebrowski has supplied a scan which appears to be from the same group of records.

One must remember that these are not all of the livestock which were handled by San Bernardino yard. These are only records of the stock which had to be unloaded and rested there due to the 36 hour limitation law. San Bernardino Feeding Station had capacity for 118 cars and included 36 pens, water, hayracks and troughs, and 24 privately owned pens.

The previous feeding stations utilized by these loads were:

Others, 1943: ASEX (Armour)(6), CBQ (6), CDX (11), CNW (7), GASX (2), MILW (1), MSCH (1), PRR (1), RI (6), SLSX (1)

Others, 1945: ASEX (Armour)(2), B&O (1), CBQ (4), CDX (2), CNW (2), LN (1), MILW (2), MKT (2), MP (3), NcStL (1), NP (4), NYC (1), PRR (1), RI (4), SLSX (1), TP (1).

Of the Stock being carried:

Jan-Feb 1943

Oct-Nov 1945

76	31%	Cattle	80%	198
132	53%	Hogs	2%	6
35	14%	Sheep	5%	12
4	2%	Horses	10%	23
1		Mixed	3%	7

1943: 16 cars of Hogs and 3 cars of sheep were single deck. All other hog and sheep cars were double deck.

1945: only 3 cars of sheep were single deck.

Where did the stock originate?

How did they arrive at San Bernardino?