A question on car loading.

[Puddlejumper]

But could the Frisco and Southern cars be routed even further from their homes?

I don't know the "official" answer. In practice, we used what we had on hand. If Joe Smith needed 5 scrap gons, they got the first 5 we could dig out of the yard, whatever their owner or reporting marks. I don't know if this was policy, lazy yardmaster, or lazy crew. I also can tell stories of "confiscating" diesel locomotives from the NS, a cut of 30+ CSX hoppers that were "lost" for several months, and a PRR boxcar "found" on an overgrown CSX yard track that had 3 1955 Buicks in it with less than 100 miles on them that had been lost for 50 years.