11-28-2009, 10:11 AM
I'm not sure how many industries have their own rolling stock. Certainly steel mills do, but most of their rolling stock is specialized and never leaves the plant. I worked for Sea Land Service when they got their first double stacks. They were 5 unit sets and had "Sea Land" stenciled on each car in the set. I suspect Sea Land may have leased them or they may have had a deal with S.P., at any rate, the sets were used strictly in the weekly "Land Bridge" operation. Sea Land's ships were too big to fit through the Panama Canal, so all freight from Asia or the West Coast that was destined for the Gulf Coast, East Coast or Europe was off loaded in Long Beach, Ca, trucked to the S.P.'s old Main Street yard in downtown Los Angeles, and loaded on a container train to Houston. In that case the cars went from Los Angeles to Houston and back with loads from either the East Coast or Europe destined for the West Coast or Asia. The sets ran both ways loaded, except for empties that might be needed to relocate an adequate supply of containers on which ever coast needed them. The only other industry that I know of that owns their own rolling stock is Tropicana, and their reefers only stop long enough in Bradenton, Fla. to be either repaired if needed or reloaded and sent out again. If I remember correctly, Tropicana ships 5 100 car juice trains to NYC and 3 to Cincinatti or Chicago each week. In addition they send 4-6 cars on U.P. trains to City of Industry in So Cal probably 4-6 times a week. I don't know if they have other warehouses on the West Coast or other parts of the country where they send a few cars at a time. I don't think storing extra cars is an issue for most privet carriers owning or leasing rolling stock. If they are big enough to own or lease their own rolling stock, they keep it moving. The other industry that comes to mind that lease or owns rolling stock are grain companies, and they frequently use their covered hoppers for extra storage sometimes having loads of grain moving from place to place on the railroad and redirecting the loads two or three times in transit before having the cars unloaded at a grain elevator.