I'm wondering how Railbox cars are routed when empty. As you know, for cars that are the property of a particular railroad, AAR rules require that an empty car be routed back toward its "home road." But Railbox cars aren't owned by a specific road, and a railroad that is holding one of those cars is free to load it up and send it anywhere. But what if the location where it was unloaded doesn't have any further need for it? Does the "holding railroad" have designated locations where they pool these cars while awaiting an assignment? Or does the car just sit there until some yard makes a request to have it delivered to them so they can use it?
The Class 1 carriers all have 'Car Distribution' departments. They are involved in supplying empty cars to customers for loading as well as directing foreign line cars back home as well as the proper handling of private owner cars.
If a RBOX car is made empty in Baltimore and there is no loading available for it there but there is a need for the car in Philadelphia the car will be routed to Philadelphia for that load. Or maybe if there is no need in Philadelphia but there is a need in Akron it will get routed to Akron. RBOX cars will be used on the holding carrier as if it was their own ownership for filling empty car orders.
Customers place car orders on a daily basis.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
"Next Load, Any Road!" describes the system pretty well, I have always liked that slogan and logo too.
Empties may be routed towards areas of known high demand before specific car orders are placed. As an example involving boxcars CN serves a number of large pulp, paper and lumber mills in Alberta which ship product in boxcars. Empty boxcars returning from the east are simply assigned the yard block "EDMBOX" (our computer system uses 6 character destination designations) which routes them to Edmonton, where they are re-assigned to specific customers as fluctuating daily demand requires.
For railroad-controlled empties (this includes TTX cars) the destination may also be changed while a train is enroute, for example a Winnipeg-Edmonton through freight handling a big "EDMBOX" block may be required to set out some boxcars in Melville or Saskatoon, SK if it is realized some of those cars may be better used in those areas.
Cars may also return west loaded if there is a backhaul available, but the vast majority of cars in Western Canada pulp/paper/lumber service make the return move empty.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Balt:How much in advance do customers order cars typically? Several days?
Obviously steady customers are easy to process, as there might be several loaded daily.
Ed
MP173Balt: How much in advance do customers order cars typically? Several days? Obviously steady customers are easy to process, as there might be several loaded daily. Ed
How much in advance do customers order cars typically? Several days?
Customers that KNOW their opeations will generally order a week or more in advance. Others want their empty cars yesterday.
BaltACD MP173 Balt: How much in advance do customers order cars typically? Several days? Obviously steady customers are easy to process, as there might be several loaded daily. Ed Customers that KNOW their opeations will generally order a week or more in advance. Others want their empty cars yesterday.
MP173 Balt: How much in advance do customers order cars typically? Several days? Obviously steady customers are easy to process, as there might be several loaded daily. Ed
And, if you have a history of underfilling their orders, they will over order. And, sometimes just over order "just in case" - if there aren't penalties for turning cars back...
It often is a bit of a cat and mouse game...and not so much a science.
As, car load traffic becomes more and more "boutique", dispoing empty cars becomes less and less of a problem - just send them back to where they came from...
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
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