Question about Pre-Amtrak Tariffs

[JohnP]

Anybody know how ticket agents used to determine (pre-Amtrak) the price of a passenger ticket?

I've seen in time-tables the section titled "Railroad and Pullman Fares", but only for a few railroads. Was there an Official Guide like publication that had tables of fares for all stations? Or, was this published by each railroad for their own stations. I was wondering how (for example) a ticket-agent would determine the price of a ticket (rail + pullman) for people traveling from one small-town to another (say, Podunk IA to Fruitvale CA).

Does anybody have any "search words" to search on? I was hoping "railroad and pullman fares" would turn-up something, but this just finds a few time-table PDF's.

Thanks,

John.

[ExCon90]

The railroads published tariffs, which had to be filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission, for interstate fares, and other tariffs, filed with State commissions, containing fares within one state. Many times this was done by committees formed by railroads serving various territories. These tariffs were known as "agency tariffs" and stated in detail which railroads participated in which routes and what the fares were. I was never in the passenger department, but I believe the Pullman Company published its own tariffs containing Pullman fares. In addition, the railroads published pocket-sized "Conductor's Tariffs" which conductors carried on them to determine how much to charge when passengers paid their fare on the train. The reason relatively little fare information was provided in public timetables and in the Official Guide was that the actual tariffs were voluminous. Railroad offices in major cities, and particularly the headquarters office, had a "rate room" with shelves of tariffs and a number of rate clerks to look things up; hardly any tariffs have been preserved, because it would require an impractical amount of space to store them and there doesn't seem to be much interest in them among railfans--tariffs can be pretty dull--and I think any dealer who brought tariffs to a train show would end up lugging them home again. As to the Podunk-Fruitvale journey, the agent at Podunk would probably phone his railroad's rate room and get the fare from them. I don't know of any source where you could find out today what a particular fare was at some time in the past, except on a hit-or-miss basis in a public timetable, or more rarely in an Official Guide. (The railroads paid by the page for space in the Guide, which is why you rarely see any white space there.)

[CarterB]

Pre Amtrak, wasn't there a cents per mile agreement among the passenger railroads for passenger tariffs?

[JohnP]

Thank you very much for the explanation.

It looks like "agency tariffs" returns some hits on Google, so I'll explore that for awhile and see what the local RR library has in their archives. I never knew what to ask for.

Thanks,

John.

[ExCon90]

Pre Amtrak, wasn't there a cents per mile agreement among the passenger railroads for passenger tariffs?

The ICC established a maximum rate per mile over the shortest physically operable distance regardless of whether service was actually provided over that route*, known as "short-line miles" (nothing to do with shortline railroads). If the maximum was 2 cents per mile, the fare would be 2 cents per short-line mile between the stations concerned. Other railroads having longer routes would match that fare in order to be competitive, and it would be published in a tariff as one through fare, regardless of the number of railroads that might be involved. Anytime a station was added or abandoned, or a route added or dropped, or a railroad added to or dropped from a route, a supplement to the tariff would be issued showing the change. Any features included in the fare, such as a side trip Buffalo-Niagara Falls and back en route without additional charge, or a free San Diego round trip on a transcontinental round-trip fare, would all have to be spelled out in the tariff, and any proposed change was subject to protest to the ICC from any Tom, Dick or Harry, prior to taking effect.

In the hypothetical case of Podunk, IA to Fruitvale, CA, someone back in history would have had to calculate the shortest operable distance on which to base the fare, which would have to be less than the fare from a point beyond Podunk or to a point beyond Fruitvale. Easy to understand why the railroads had armies of clerks. And no computers in those days--pencil and paper, and mechanical calculators, and the results had to be checked carefully because once you hit Clear it was gone.

* I believe short-line mileage from New York to Chicago was DL&W-Buffalo-NYC (via Cleveland), even though I don't think there was ever a through train via that route; but for many years the same fare applied via NYC, PRR, Erie, DL&W-NKP, and CNJ-RDG-B&O--all based on a route that none of them actually used and was shorter than any of them.

[Engineer Spike]

With the given tariff structure, If I wanted to travel between Chicago and Omaha, the rate should be the same whether traveling Q, Northwestern, Rock, IC, Milwaukee, or Great Western?

[ExCon90]

Yes, unless one of the roads decided not to have a competitive rate and not compete in the Chicago-Omaha market, and I don't think any of those roads did that. I can't be sure today, but I think the PRR charged the same fare New York-Buffalo as the DL&W and the others, even though they went via Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Williamsport, though I don't know how many through passengers would have wanted to go that way. Most roads wanted to be competitive at all costs. (I remember the PRR had a train, BNY-16, from Buffalo to Waverly to compete with the NYC and EL for freight business.)