First post - What do these 'when empty, return to (x railroad) stencils mean?

[SD45M]

I have a GTW boxcar from Atlas that has a stencil on the side which reads 'When empty, return to ATSF RR Willow Springs ILL. (illinois). Did the GTW do this in real life? 

[BigDaddy]

to the forum.  Your initial posts are moderated and therefore delayed.

In the not so recent past you post would have been moved to the Prototype forum, but forum software issues prevent that.  It may still be locked and you will be asked to repost.

I don't know the answer but lets find out before the thread gets locked.

[dknelson]

The "normal" rules of car routing is that an empty car is to be routed back to its home road, but the "host" railroad is following those rules if it finds a customer needing an empty with a load that happens to be going to the owning railroad.  I believe it is consistent with the car routing rules if the newly loaded car is routed in the general direction of its home road.  The country is divided into regions or zones that assist with making that "general direction" decision.  If it is returned as an empty I believe the routing is to be the reverse of the routing that got it there.  Presumably that keeps some railroad that never profited from the original routing from being burdened by dealing with the empty.  

These stencils serve either to over rule the car routing rules, as in this case routing a GTW car to a particular place on the Santa Fe, or to further direct that the routing should be to a particular place on the home road (so perhaps a different GTW car is stenciled to be returned to agent at Durand MI on the GTW rather than just anywhere on the GTW). 

These routing directives are to any railroad which ends up with those GTW cars.  So the loaded GTW car might end up on some other railroad, any railroad, and the stencil tells that railroad what to do (and NOT do) with the car.

Why?  Well some cars are single purpose (and thus high value) in the sense that they have specially installed racks that are intended for one particular load from one particular shipper, so the station that shipper and obtains empties for it gets the routing to it.  Such a specially equipped car should not be loaded with just any old stuff and eventually (slowly) make its way back to its shipper.  The move needs to be expedited if possible.

Cars that handle automobile parts are an example of this.  A car equipped with racks that are designed to hold Ford parts should not be sent to a Chrysler or GM plant - or even a Ford plant whose parts don't fit those racks.

As I understand it railroads that take part in movements of automobiles or their parts tend to participate as car owners in "pools" of cars.  But if they themselves do not service the plant they don't want their empties of course.  They make their money if their empties go to the foreign road that serves the plant.

Here is an example I knew nothing about until I read about it in a caption to a Morning Sun color book about the Seaboard Air Line.  They had boxcars which were stenciled to return to CNW station agent Manitowoc Wisconsin when empty.  Huh?  Yes - they were specially equipped to hold air conditioners made in Manitowoc and needed in, of course, Florida.  So they'd always go to the owning road as a load, and always go to (the same) foreign road as an empty.  Just the opposite of the "normal" car routing rules.  That is what those stencils do - either over rule the normal routing rules, or refine the routing rules by making plain that just routing the empty anywhere on the owning road won't do - it has to go to a particular station and station agent.

I am grossly over simplifying and likely getting some of the finer details on car routing wrong here - they are set forth in the back pages of Official Equipment Registers, and MR published a fine article by Tony Koester with a useful sidebar written by Andy Sperandeo.

I cannot say whether the prototype of this particular car had this precise stencil.  Willow Springs was at one time a GM yard for the Santa Fe, currently an intermodal yard for BNSF (ex Santa Fe track) valued because it is near a UPS facility.  But if you try to have realistic car routings as part of operating sessions, reflecting this stencil on the car card for that car could add some interest to an op session depending on layout design and staging yards etc.  So you see it belongs in General Discussion after all!

Dave Nelson

[richhotrain]

SD45M

I have a GTW boxcar from Atlas that has a stencil on the side which reads 'When empty, return to ATSF RR Willow Springs ILL. (illinois). Did the GTW do this in real life? 

Not directly by GTW, but the Willow Springs destination would have been reached via Corwith Yard on the southwest side of Chicago, and the car would likely be moved there by a BRC switcher.

Rich

[BRAKIE]

SD45M

I have a GTW boxcar from Atlas that has a stencil on the side which reads 'When empty, return to ATSF RR Willow Springs ILL. (illinois). Did the GTW do this in real life?

I suspect the GTW boxcar was used in pool service for a customer  on the ATSF requiring several boxcars daily.. Pooling of cars for large customers was and still is common.

[davidmurray]

I spent many years in the automotive industry.  As mentioned above, many parts go in specific racks.

Cars in the Oshawa plant were stencilled  "GM DEDICATED SERVICE, RETURN TO OSHAWA FABRICATION PLANT"    Buffalo heater plant cars were labelled for their plant.

This enabled the car or truck assembly plant worker to know what racks to put in these cars.

 

[G Paine]

I have some MEC boxcars that are labled with a return to a Kyes Fiber paper mill in Maine. They were in captive service shipping rolls of newsprint to newspaper cuatomers. cars had to be clean, dry and have smooth insides that would not tear or otherwise damage the paper in transit.

[SeeYou190]

dknelson

I am grossly over simplifying and likely getting some of the finer details on car routing wrong here - they are set forth in the back pages of Official Equipment Registers,

I have a reprint of the January, 1954 ORER, and I read those routing rules once, and it made my head hurt.

Then I tried to absorb any of the information in the ORER, and my head hurt more.

Those "Route HERE When Empty" rules are very popular on private roadname decal sets. I would bet about half of the custom sets I have acquired have at least one return here when empty order included on the set.

-Kevin

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

SD45M ..... Welcome to the forum . 

Auto parts boxcars were assigned to specific auto parts plants. For example, a plant might produce fenders to be shipped to various assembly plants. The fenders were held in the boxcars with racks. After fenders were delivered to an assembly plant, the empty racks were placed inside the boxcar for return to the auto parts plant. 

So, the empty boxcar actually was only emply of the fenders. The racks were in the boxcar, and they had to go back to the specific auto parts plant. The racks were designd to fit specific auto parts parts.  Racks used to haul fenders did not fit racks used for other auto parts produced at other GM plants. 

The auto parts plant shipped via designated routes to various destinations. The Willow Springs GM auto parts plant may have shipped to a GM assembly plant in Lansing, MI on the GTW. Therefore, GTW would have assigned its cars to the Willow Springs boxcar pool. The GM plant was free to use any cars in its pool to ship to any assembly plant. So, the GTW car could go to other asseembly plants not on the GTW. 

Periodically, GM would work with the pool operator (ATSF in this case) to decide what railroads would contribute boxcars. Such decisions would be based on all railroads involved with shipping to various assembly plants. The Willow Springs boxcar pool might have 10 to 15 railroads contributing boxcars. The number of cars from each contributing railroad depended on the number of miles to be traveled on each railroad. 

I hope this helps you understand why boxcars must be returned to certain locations. 

[The Milwaukee Road Warrior]

I have seen photos on several hosting sites showing a close up of a Milwaukee road car stenciled "When Empty, Return to the Milwaukee Road, Milw, Wis."  So yes, this is something that really happened.  I too was curious about it.  Thanks for asking!

[SD45M]

Thank you for the information and the welcomes! Sorry for not replying back, life got in the way a bit, but I'm glad I now know more about this.