Goodbye to autoracks?

[Ajsik]

CMStPnP

There is a huge auto transload facility here in Dallas on the Texas Eagle route just East of Dallas.    Combo auto transload and intermodal container facility for UP.   Have to hand it to UP they are not shy about consumming large tracts of land that facility has to be a few square miles minimum.     In Wisconsin there is one near the former 7-mile Fair location and I think it belongs to UP as well (former C&NW)    Massive lot of cars and a few feeder tracks for the autoracks.

 

The site near 7-Mile Fair is an auto auction business with no rail service.

[tree68]

CMStPnP

  You would think it would be more land use efficient to build a large sheltered parking garage but probably also very much more expensive.

All you need to do at a storage facility is keep them far enough from the fence to prevent a thrown rock from reaching them.  (A gun would be a different issue).  Lighting and a human presence (security patrols) also minimize the risk.  

Insurance probably covers the "Acts of God."

On the rails, you have to protect them from thrown and dropped objects, not to mention access with rattlecans.  And parts thieves. 

Years ago, police in the village where I lived had to make sure they got out and checked the cars carefully in  a lot where local car dealers stored their excess stock.  Tire thieves would jack up the cars, steal the tires, then leave the cars on blocks so it appeared that they were all the same level...

[JPS1]

Who drives the cars onto and off the auto rack cars?  Would it be railroad employees or contractors?

[Overmod]

JPS1

Who drives the cars onto and off the auto rack cars? 

I don't think I've ever heard of them being 'other' than employees of whoever is responsible for owning the cars at that point.  For GM that would be GM employees, probably with some agreement with the rail car owner and facility management.  
Some of them clearly carrying that ol' Malbone Street professional production-line attitude over into git 'r dun cowboying...

[BaltACD]

JPS1

Who drives the cars onto and off the auto rack cars?  Would it be railroad employees or contractors?

At the Distribution Center location, Distribution Center employees are the drivers and make the DC liable for any damage they create.

In the framework of CSX, TDSI (the DC operator) is a wholely own subsidiary and works to its own profit and loss statements with its own employees.

[Backshop]

Overmod

 

 

JPS1

Who drives the cars onto and off the auto rack cars? 

 

 

I don't think I've ever heard of them being 'other' than employees of whoever is responsible for owning the cars at that point.  For GM that would be GM employees, probably with some agreement with the rail car owner and facility management.  
Some of them clearly carrying that ol' Malbone Street professional production-line attitude over into git 'r dun cowboying...

 

 

Wrong, Balt is correct. I know people who do it in New Boston, MI.

[BaltACD]

Overmod

I don't think I've ever heard of them being 'other' than employees of whoever is responsible for owning the cars at that point.  For GM that would be GM employees, probably with some agreement with the rail car owner and facility management.  
Some of them clearly carrying that ol' Malbone Street professional production-line attitude over into git 'r dun cowboying...

I worked Penn Mary Yard in Baltimore when the GM Baltimore Assembly Plant was constructing Camaro's and Firebirds; Penn Mary was the B&O serving yard for the plant.  GM personnel were the ones moving the vehicles from the end of the assembly line to a staging lot on the plants's property prior to them being loaded out - both truck and railcars.  All I can say is the some buyers were getting vehicles that had been 'rode hard and put away wet' - from the sounds of 'happy tires' (Skip Barber Racing School saying - 'A squeeling tire is a happy tire') and the tire smoke from unhappy tires as well as the audible 'high revs' from the exhaust.

[Overmod]

Backshop

Wrong, Balt is correct. I know people who do it in New Boston, MI.

Interesting point he makes about precisely when the GM employees 'handed over' the automobiles to be physically driven onto the cars.   My knowledge is only that obtained from various films and pictures, most associated with manufacturers like GM doing loading near their plants, and (1) they don't explicitly show a change in drivers, and (2) they show a great deal of 'enthusiasm' and often a P.J.O'Rourke fastest-car-in-the-world attitude for the actual part on the ramps and railroad cars.  I certainly apologize if the 'continuity' from the GM assembly-line end to car is not in fact done by one person; it did, and does, seem likely to me that different people would do the actual driving on and off vs. the people who handled the physical securement, etc. on the cars.

The point should be better made, though, as you point out, that loading at a third-party facility would be likely be done by that facility's personnel, not the 'manufacturer' (or representatives of another owning or leasing company).  In my opinion this is no different from having specialized yard drivers for intermodal transport as compared to having road drivers do specialized spotting or driving onto or off equipment.

This leads me to wonder how the driving into and out of those GM Cadillac 'containers' was handled.  That was certainly a specialized skill!  (As was what I've seen of trying to get the result, hanging in the air and swinging in various ways, onto a rail car!!)

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

One of the benefits of growing up near an auto assembly plant (Ford in Chicago) is seeing the autos moved from the plant to the loading area (truck and autorack). Company drivers would drive the vehicles to the loading area owned and operated by the trucking firm and get a ride back to the plant in trucking company van. 

[SD60MAC9500]

One job I had fresh out of HS was as a porter for a company called Cordin Transport. We handled lease turn in vehicles. The yard was located in Dearborn across from Fords Rouge Complex. They had a ramp consisting of two tracks. We could fit possibly 12 racks at the most. I’ll never forget CN was still using a group of old Whitehead and Kales open racks to haul the used vehicles. Mind you this was in 2000. I had figured those would have been long retired. Which they finally did around 2003-2004?

[rrnut282]

Nevermind, I see Tree beat me to it on a page that did not display.  

Enclosed auto-racks were more a response to an idiot with a brick on an overpass than they were to weather related damage claims.

CMStPnP

 

 

You know I am surprised after transporting them in enclosed autocarriers they then store them in lots open to the weather outdoors at the transload facility subject to hail and all sorts of weather.    You would think it would be more land use efficient to build a large sheltered parking garage but probably also very much more expensive.