Shortlines, Industries, and Empties

[Gary S]

Let's say we have a shortline that has a small fleet of boxcars. We keep the empties on a storage track near an industrial park that we deliver cars to. In the industrial park, we have a customer R who receives goods by boxcar, and customer S who ships goods by boxcar.

Goods were delivered to R in a foriegn road boxcar and now the boxcar is empty. S is needing a boxcar for loading and the load needs to be shipped back to the foriegn road. Our shortline has empty boxcars on the storage track. Would we take the foriegn road boxcar over to S for loading since the load is going back that way anyway or would we use one of our shortline's empty boxcars? Would we get more revenue by using our own car?

[Russ Bellinis]

FRA law requires that foreign road cars be returned to the originating road asap by the most efficient route possible. That doesn't mean that they go back immediately, because a railroad may have a shipment to go the "wrong way" and only have a car available from a foreign road so they use it. The railroads generally co-operate in sending one another's rolling stock back where it came from. The other thing to keep in mind s that land is not free and neither are rail cars. No railroad is in business to store locomotives or rolling stock, and especially not someone else's rolling stock.

[Brakie]

Its C&HV policy to load company cars first since we would get the bulk of the revenue..Now,if we was short on empties then we would load the "foreign road" car.

Now if that was a "pool" car then we would load those instead of a none "pool" member's car since these pool cars can go in any direction.

Of course this doesn't apply to Railbox,Railgon,TTX,UTLX,GATX etc since these are industry wide pool cars.

[Triplex]

No railroad is in business to store locomotives or rolling stock, and especially not someone else's rolling stock.

Actually, don't some shortlines make money by storing other lines' cars?

[Brakie]

No railroad is in business to store locomotives or rolling stock, and especially not someone else's rolling stock.

Actually, don't some shortlines make money by storing other lines' cars?

Yes many do charge a fee for storing cars..

However,

If a normal empty foreign road car isn't returned to its home rails then the railroad that still has that car on its rails gets stuck paying a Demurrage fee for holding that car...This is why empty foreign road cars are quickly returned to their home rails or pass on to the next direct route connecting road which becomes responsible for returning that car.

[Gary S]

Thanks for the answers, Gentlemen. I had been thinking that our shortline would rather use its own cars instead of a foriegn road car if at all possible. Brakie, your answer confirms that.

Now, what exactly is a "pool" car?

[steinjr]

Now, what exactly is a "pool" car?

Car that when emptied does not have to be returned to the car owner, but can be sent anywhere with it's next load. Cuts down on having to haul empty cars long distances, and saves the railroads capacity and money - an empty car takes up the same length in a train as a loaded car, but brings in no revenue.

One company which provides cars for pool service is TTX: http://www.ttx.com/TTXHome.aspx

Smile,
Stein

[Gary S]

Stein, thanks again for the answer. So were there any "pool" cars back in the late 1970s?

[2-8-2]

Now, what exactly is a "pool" car?

I'll take a stab at that one...

Ever since forming and organizing of railroad associations, there have been pools. This consisted of dividing the total earnings of several competing lines according to an agreed basis irrespective of the amount of business actually done by the different roads in the pool. The object is generally to settle what portion of competitive traffic each line should carry, and those which carried more than their share were required to pay their rivals the excess receipts less the bare cost of carrying.

For example:

Let's say that Shortline X does not serve the city of Smallville, but Mega Railroad does. Mega RR also manages and maintains all cars in the pool, which includes several other railroads. Mega RR might make a deal with Shorline X by saying that if they donate a proportionate amount of cars to the pool, they will get favorable routing with ACME Co, the largest industry in Smallville.

Usually,the serving road has the most cars in the pool. Mega RR might use Shortline X's cars to move freight from ACME Co to destinations anywhere in the country. Mega RR would handle all communications with ACME Co including: scheduling, load make-up, turn around times, etc. However, the freight could be routed (billed) either through Mega RR or Shortline X.

[BR60103]

Gary:
Railbox started in 1974 (per Wikipedia). I think Railgon was a bit later.
The opposite of this were the IPD (incentive per diem) boxcars. During a car shortage, the rates for holding another road's cars went up to encourage fast return. A number of shortlines started suplying boxcars out of all proportion to their own traffic -- this was quite an industry. I remember Pickens and St Lawrence offhand.

[steinjr]

Stein, thanks again for the answer. So were there any "pool" cars back in the late 1970s?

Yup.

Here is e.g. the TTX history (from that webpage I linked to): http://www.ttx.com/AboutTTX/history.aspx

Smile,
Stein, up at 6 am to start prepping for a Thanksgiving dinner over here in Norway (we celebrate on the closest weekend, since Thursday is a normal work day)

[Brakie]

Stein, thanks again for the answer. So were there any "pool" cars back in the late 1970s?

Yes,Pool cars has been around for years in the Automotive industry such as 50' auto boxcars,early auto racks,auto part boxcars,boxcars in brewery service,reefers etc..BTW this can include steel coil cars and mill gons.

The 70s was the hey day of the IPD short line boxcars.This was caused by a nation wide boxcar shortage due to the aging freight car fleet.These IPD boxcars was loaded for any destination.Railbox slogan was "Next Load-Any Road".

[Gary S]

All this is falling into place.

Let me make sure I have this right. If a customer of my shortline needs an empty, first thing we would do is check our storage track for one of our own empties.

If we didn't have a suitable car, we would look on our tracks for either a foriegn road empty or a pool empty. The only way we could use the foreign road empty is if the load was going in the direction of the foriegn road. The pool car could be used to send the goods anywhere, almost as if it was one of our own cars, the difference being we would have to share revenue with the pool car owner?

[steinjr]

All this is falling into place.

Let me make sure I have this right. If a customer of my shortline needs an empty, first thing we would do is check our storage track for one of our own empties.

Or a foreign road car that should head back in the general direction of the owning road, so you won't have to pay "incentive per diem" (IPD, or "per day rent") to the owner road to have the car on your road.

If that car is off your road at midnight, the RR who has the car on their road at midnight is the railroad which pays the per diem rent for the next day.

Provided you are modeling an era where railroads paid "per day" rent for foreign cars, of course.

If we didn't have a suitable car, we would look on our tracks for either a foreign road empty or a pool empty. The only way we could use the foreign road empty is if the load was going in the direction of the foreign road.

In theory the foreign car should always be routed back towards (or at least closer to) it's owner, according to a set of rules, but really - once it is off your railroad, it is really someone else's problem.

I am sure foreign cars sometimes got routed in whatever direction, if the railroad that had the car had a load and a shortage of other available cars.

The pool car could be used to send the goods anywhere, almost as if it was one of our own cars, the difference being we would have to share revenue with the pool car owner?

Mmm - I am not sure how the railroads paid for pool cars - if initial construction cost was split up among the participating railroads according to some predetermined formula, or it was a monthly or yearly subscription fee, or whether there was revenue sharing for each carload.

Anyone else knows ?

I also know that there is an excellent discussion of this in Tony Koester's book "Realistic Model Railroad Operations". Can e.g be bought from Amazon.com here (http://www.amazon.com/Realistic-Model-Ra...0890244189)

Smile,
Stein

[Gary S]

I may have missed this earlier. A "pool" car isn't necessarily some third party car that just roams the rails at the whims of whoever is in possession of it. If there are two railroads who frequently exchange cars, then it would make economical sense for the railroads to "share" some of those cars.

so instead of my railroad worrying about returning your empties, and vice versa, I could use yours and you could use mine and we both save money.

Does it work like that sometimes?