Reuse of freight cars

[CharlieM]

A question for you real world railroaders concerning reuse of freight cars. I have a local peddler that runs from a yard to location A, location B and then back to the yard. If location A has an empty boxcar awaiting pickup and location B is requesting an empty boxcar, would the RR allow the boxcar to be moved directly from A to B or would the boxcar from A be returned to the yard for inspection, cleaning, maintenance while another empty car is sent from the yard to B? A and B are at physically different locations. Would the answer differ if the cars are all from the home RR vs foreign RRs?

 

CharlieM - Northern Colorado

 

[BigDaddy]

CharlieM

would the boxcar from A be returned to the yard for inspection, cleaning, maintenance

Having no real world railroad experience, that sounds very complex.  Back before hoppers, when boxcars carried grain, maybe so, for those cars.

Today there is cardboard and cardboard cushioning left in boxcars.  I know that from following someone on Youtube, whose recreational non paying transportation hobby is not allowed to be mentioned.  I assume, but do not know, that goes to the dumpster at the next spotting of the car.

If anyone knows otherwise, I am happy to be proven wrong.

[NittanyLion]

The rule that cars must be cleaned before being spotted for loading is a very old rule.  What constituted "clean" was pretty broad.  Moving a car from customer A's dock to customer B's dock without "cleaning" it invites the ICC's eye, if customer B decides that they're not being supplied with "clean" cars.  You could probably get away with supplying dirty cars if you took the car back to your yard and said "hey, look, we cleaned the car after we pulled it from A, so I don't know what B is talking about."  But right from A to B doesn't allow you to fudge the rule.

[gregc]

so where would the "dirty" box car be spotted for cleaning before being used again?

assume the boxcar is owned by the railroad servicing the customer

[NittanyLion]

The customer is supposed to clean the car out themselves, because the railroad doesn't want to be the one wasting labor time on it. 

Presumably, there's a location in the yard where dirty cars are sent for cleaning. Where that is, I could only guess. Probably the same place they're making repairs. 

[wrench567]

  It would be advantageous for the previous customer to clean the car out. If the RR had to do it then they would be billed for it.

  I have seen cars spotted at the feed stores track one day and the next day at the Vitapac plant that afternoon. So yes. A car can go from customer 1 to customer 2.

     Pete.

[MJ4562]

Where there different grades of boxcars for hazardous materials and food products?  

[jeffhergert]

Clean is subjective. A food grade car has a higher standard then a general service car. A food grade car probably wouldn't be reused unless it was a similar load.  It might even be assigned to a specific industry or loading point. 

A general service car just really needs to have any packing material removed. If the previous contents had leaked out, that too would need to be removed. A car that was not cleaned might not be pulled by the railroad until it has been done. Especially in years past.

There are certain loads, like animal hides, that contaminate a car so much that it's unfit for any other service. Usually those cars are towards the end of their service life.

So if the car isn't in assigned service or assigned to a specific location for loading, just use some common sense. If it's in general service you're probably good to reuse it.

It's also era dependent to a degree. It seems in the last 30 or 40 years foreign owned cars would be returned empty and a home road car used as much as possible. 

Jeff

[CharlieM]

Thanks all,

 

As usual the answer to such a question is “it depends” or “there’s a prototype for everything”. But I think the preponderance of evidence is for the cars to go back to the yard rather than directly to another customer. Works for me.

 

Back to the layout,

 

Charlie in Northern Colorado

[dehusman]

gregc

so where would the "dirty" box car be spotted for cleaning before being used again? assume the boxcar is owned by the railroad servicing the customer Add Quote to your Post

All the boxcars to be cleaned, regardless of owner, would go to the cleaning track or the track where they did the cleaning.  Not all yards have a cleaning track.  If the shippers in the area didn't load a lot of boxcars the yard serving the area probably wouldn't have a cleaning track.

Hoppers and gons were generally not cleaned (but some were).  Cars were the person cleaning the car has to go into a confined space, or the car has special linings (such as tank cars and covered hoppers), are generally not cleaned by the railroads, they are cleaned at facilities owned by the car owner.

For example at Pine Bluff on the old MP, we had several paper mills in the area so we cleaned boxcars for paper loading.  We used the outside track of the yard, mainly because there was a road running beside it.  The car cleaners had a flatbed truck and they would just drive along the cut of cars and could step off the flatbed into the boxcars.  Small debris would be swept out and large debris would be dumped on the flatbed.  The paper and wood dunnage would be taken down the the end of the yard and burned.  If you just looked at the track you would never know it was a cleaning track.  We also put bad orders in th at track so the carmen could have access to them with their truck.

[dehusman]

MJ4562

Where there different grades of boxcars for hazardous materials and food products?  

Not really.  The cars are graded by letter, "AA" being the best and "C" being the worst, with "K" meaning contaminated (can only be used for certain commodities, such as hides) and "U" meaning unfit for any loading.

Food and hazardous material (depending on what it was) would go in a class AA or A boxcar.