Hi, I am in the process of putting a Texaco bulk oil plant on my N scale layout. I am trying to find out if company owned bulk plants ever received cars from the big leasing companies like UTLX or Shippers Car Line. I know they would not get cars from rival oil companies.
Apologies if this has been covered before. I did search the forums & could not find the answer
thank you
Steve
Steve, you are correct in the fact Texaco would avoid shipping their goods in a competitor's cars. However, in times of higher consumption, such as during winter when much of the northern states used oil for heating, plain UTLX, SHPX or one of the other lessors cars might be employed as a "surge" fleet on temporary lease.
NHTX Steve, you are correct in the fact Texaco would avoid shipping their goods in a competitor's cars.
Steve, you are correct in the fact Texaco would avoid shipping their goods in a competitor's cars.
They wouldn't just avoid it - they'd never get a chance. Unlike cars provided by the railroad, the routing and use of privately owned cars is strictly controlled by the car's owner or lessee. Texaco would dictate the routing of any cars owned or leased by them, and Shell (for example) would dictate the routing of any of their cars. Texaco would never get the option of loading a Shell car as they don't control them.
It's also common for companies to have lots of cars from the leasing company fleets permanently or long-term leased, as well as short term leases for traffic surges.
Also keep in mind that tank cars cannot be used for one commodity on one trip, and another commodity on the next, since the interior would be contaminated with residue of the previous load. The car would have to be fully cleaned out at a maintenance facility before being reassigned to another commodity.
Tank cars are probably some of the most restricted cars in terms of loading and routing.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
Red Trail Energy (ethanol) does not really own cars, they are a member of a consortium that owns the cars. They can be returned to any plant that wants them and/or has room for them.
Red Trail Energy has room for several hundred cars, and so the consortium sometimes parks extras there.
Companies susch as Texaco might, if they had a surplus (perhaps a plant is closed for repairs) might rent some to Shell or possibly some no-name distributer, just to earn money off of them rather than parking them in some loop somewhere until the are kneaded.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I know that Texaco's cars were owned by GATX (in fact Texaco sold them to GATX in the first place), so there was a long term arrangement. Because I want to operate prototypically if possible, I was particularly interested in whether the plain GATX, UTLX etc. cars would deliver to the bulk oil plants. And operating in N scale, Microtrains & Intermountain have some tempting models
BroadwayLion Red Trail Energy (ethanol) does not really own cars, they are a member of a consortium that owns the cars. They can be returned to any plant that wants them and/or has room for them.
Still applies. In this case the Consortium owns and controls the cars and will direct them amongst the plants they own/control.