Silk Trains

[doctorwayne]

Forgive my ignorance: why were the shipments "time sensitive"?

As it notes in my first link, the raw silk deteriorates rapidly, calling for a fast trip to the spinning mills. (It makes you wonder, though, why they didn't have mills on the west coast.)
Also, as it says in my second link, insurance on the cargo was paid on an hourly basis, at 6% of the value of the shipment. With cargo valued at $10,000/ton, and about 35 tons of it in each car of an eight-car train, no wonder the only passengers carried were armed guards.

Wayne