Cargo carried on freight cars such as flat bed railway cars is secured in place by lading strapping that is tensioned around the cargo so as to compress a snubber unit on a self-resetting lading tie anchor and snubbing device that includes a snubber mechanism and a lading tie anchor assembly slidably mounted in a housing secured directly to the side sill of the freight car, which anchor assembly is locked in an automatically retracted position to automatically reset the device when it drops into the housing due to the force of gravity to bring a latch into operative interengagement with the snubbing device. At this position, lading strapping is passed through a lading tie anchor that moves generally upwardly as tension is applied to the lading strapping in opposition to bias provided by the snubber mechanism. The mechanism is unlocked by driving down on the latch to take it out of engagement with the snubbing device and to quickly release the device to substantially reduce tension within the lading strapping before it is removed from the cargo.