What Traffic Did the Ilwaco Railway Have?

One piece that's key to modeling a prototype is a good understanding of what it carried.  With that information acquired, it can influence both the track plan and the operations.  Finding a prototype with an interesting mix of traffic is likely a key to building a railroad that will remain interesting for a long time.

Using the Railroad Commission of Washington First Annual Report (1907) from Google Books, I was able to put together a pie chart which shows a snapshot of what the Ilwaco Railways & Navigation Co. was doing in 1906.  These numbers were derived by generating a % of traffic based on revenue between passenger, mail, and freight, then determining a % of a given freight based on the tonnage of all freight delivered.  Once the percentages of freight were determined they were then multiplied by the % of freight revenue to determine the % of that specific traffic within the context of the whole railroad.  In this case, in 1906 the IR&N did 56% passenger traffic, 48% freight traffic, and 3% mail.

IR&N Traffic Breakdown, 1906

IR&N Traffic Breakdown, 1906

Passenger	55.90%
Lumber, Lath and Shingles	19.85%
Poultry Game and Fish	11.59%
Merchandise	5.46%
Mail	2.7%
Other Mill Products	1.23%
Grain	0.78%
Fruits and Vegetables	0.37%
Cement lime and Brick	0.35%
Hay	0.25%
Liquors, wine and beer	0.25%
Flour	0.22%
Sugar	0.19%
Household goods and furniture	0.14%
Petroleum and other oils	0.12%
Castings and machinery	0.12%
Stone, sand, clay	0.09%
Live Stock	0.06%
Other forest products	0.05%
Dressed Meats	0.04%
Coal, Bituminous	0.03%
Other Packing House Products	0.03%
Wagons, carriages, tools	0.03%
Metal	0.01%
Agricultural implements	0.01%

There are a handful of interesting things to be learned from this:

1. It seems the railroad had it's mainstays: passengers, cut lumber, fish, and merchandise.  It also had random things it carried just to make a profit.
2. It carried much less cranberries than I had thought, at least in 1906.
3. Several things surprised me: the amount of grain/mill/flour products and coal -- what was that all about?
4. The railroad did own one stock car, presumably for sheep, however at least in 1906 only 0.06% of the traffic was livestock.

It would be really great if this type of data was available for more than just 1906, however it seems the "First Annual Report" was special.  The second, third, and fourth annual reports do not indicate what traffic a railroad was pushing, only how much revenue they were grossing.

From here there are some interesting questions to ask myself.  From a layout and operations standpoint I had planned for cranberries to be a key part of the layout however, at least in 1906, it seems they weren't really that big.  Some more research will need to be done on this I believe and in the end since I'm proto-freelancing I may just decide to play up the cranberry part more than it actually was on the prototype.  After all, it's my interpretation of it.