01-14-2011, 10:41 AM
I think it is more likely that they are lost. All it takes is one misplaced keystroke on a computer to "lose" a car or an entire cut of cars. It sounds like the track you are referencing is not used much. Even if trains are regularly running past this abandoned cut of cars, are the train crews likely to go to the trouble of trying to find out why the cars are there; or more likely, they will just take the attitude that "It's not my job." If someone on a train crew does report those cars to their supervisor, what is the likely hood of the supervisor actually starting an investigation? A friend of mine is a manager for a company here in So Cal that makes pvc and abs pipe. They used to use the U.P. to ship some of the chemicals used in making the plastic from Texas. Actually I think they used S.P., but the contract was taken over by the U.P. with the merger. They had three chemical tank cars that never showed up. They had to shut down the plant for a week or so due to the lack of resources to make their product. They called U.P. to find out what happened and U.P. could not find the cars. The company immediately switched to BNSF for replacement cars and for all future shipments. A few weeks later, the U.P. found the cars "buried" in a yard in Chicago! How do cars being shipped from Houston to Los Angeles end up in Chicago? The company finally received the product, but they have not used U.P. for anything in the last 10 years!