Shortlines, Industries, and Empties

[dave1905]

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?

First what type of car is it. If its a specially equipped car then they would probably have a pool of cars to draw from If its a general service car then it would probably depend on where the car was going. If the car was going on line or a short distance they you would probably use the shortline's cars. If it was a long distance customer then you would probably use a foreign car.

Here's why. Lets say that the customer is 100 miles away and it takes 6 days to get there, 2 days to unload and 6 days to get back (assuming its not reloaded). If it is reloaded to another destination it could take months to return. So that means that you can get two shipments a month from your cars. If the shipper needs 5 cars a day, That means you need 75 cars minimum. If they get reloaded and take 2 months to return that means you need 300 cars in your fleet to support that one customer. If the shipments are further away, a couple thousand miles, and take 2 weeks to get there, 2 days to unload and 2 weeks to return, you are now getting less than one loading a month on your cars, at 5 cars a day you need a fleet of 150 cars to support 5 cars a day.


So if you will get a quick turn on the cars you will use your cars, if its going to be a magical mystery tour, then you will use foreign cars. For example one road at one time only loaded foreign cars for shipments going to Mexico since it knew the cars would gone for months (Mexico is better now).