Just guessing those Car Hire Rule 15 battles are the genesis for moving interchange locations like CN/CP in Chicago?
Electroliner 1935Is this a game of "My LAWYER is better than YOUR LAWYER"?
NO! It is more of a game that My Horse Trader is better then Your Horse Trader - while some 'facts' do enter into the negotiations it tends to end up being I am screwing you at A and you are screwing me at K and the negotations end up being about the relative values of the screwings at A & K. Personnel at 'ground level' were rarely if ever get advised of the ultimate outcome of their actions.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Is this a game of "My LAWYER is better than YOUR LAWYER"?
Juniata ManBalt was spot on above concerning private cars on private tracks. When I was still working in the chemical industry, we in effect trip leased the cars used for outbound shipments to the customer receiving them. Once spotted inside the customers site, no railroad demurrage was billed. Now, as the car owner/lessor, we did bill the customer if they held a car for more than 15 days but, that was between us and them. Insofar as the original post, BNSF placing an interchange car on constructive placement is unusual. Normally, the car record would show it "offered" at interchange, not constructively placed. In the immediate instance, it's possible someone either accidentally entered the wrong code or, possibly, is gaming the cars held or cars on line metric by using constructive placemen.
Insofar as the original post, BNSF placing an interchange car on constructive placement is unusual. Normally, the car record would show it "offered" at interchange, not constructively placed. In the immediate instance, it's possible someone either accidentally entered the wrong code or, possibly, is gaming the cars held or cars on line metric by using constructive placemen.
When, for whatever the reason, one carrier is not able to interchange cars to another carrier in the normal course of business the carrier in possession of the cars will initiate a Car Hire Rule 15 reclaim against the carrier that was not able to accept the cars. The Reclaim starts from the date and time the carrier was in position to actually deliver the cars to the designated interchange track(s). As more cars move toward the designated interchange location and are then held up so as to not totally clog up the carriers operation at the interchange location, those cars get added to the Reclaim from the date and time they were held at the outlying location. All these procedures are specified in Car Hire Rule 15.
Needless to say Reclaim situations can create battle lines between carriers. I was not high enough on the food chain to really KNOW how these Reclaim Wars ultimately played out - wether money actually changed hands or not. I suspect there was a lot of 'negotiations' between the carriers to resolve these issues.
Car Hire Rules cover a multitude of issues that crop up between car owners and car users - be that Private owners and users or Railroad owners and users and combinations of both.
Balt was spot on above concerning private cars on private tracks. When I was still working in the chemical industry, we in effect trip leased the cars used for outbound shipments to the customer receiving them. Once spotted inside the customers site, no railroad demurrage was billed. Now, as the car owner/lessor, we did bill the customer if they held a car for more than 15 days but, that was between us and them.
After my father left the MoPac, he worked for a truck line and after that he work for an Industry in Cincinnati (Edwards) that shipped military items. Dunage was a big cost item and DUNAGE FREE box cars became a new product from the rail equipment suppliers. He negotiated a tariff that included those cars. They were captive to this so the rate included return empty upon release terms. RR was happy and so was the company. He died in '94 and that Edwards company is gone.
Murphy SidingWell... there is a limit to how many cowhides you can ship back to a Canadian lumber mill.
I was just trying to envision a constructive use to the term "constructive". But I guess as Balt has clarified, in this instance, the term is specific jargon meaning "the meter is already running"
BaltACDWhen private owner cars were predominately tank cars or other 'special' cars, the cars were Trip Leased by either the shipper or the consignee with payments made by the leasing party to the lessor. The lessor would build into the lease clauses that acted similar to railroad demurrage rules, however the allowed times for loading or unloading could be vastly longer than standard railroad demurrage, the enforcement of those clauses were between the Lessor and Leasee and the railroads were not involved.
Thanks for that Balt.
My thinking was If I'm leasing the car, what business is it of the railroad how long I take to load it?
A lot of the specialized cars are stenciled "Restricted Loading, See Equipment Register". Loaded backhauls are not possible in that case.
Murphy you would go nuts then tracing our LOADED cars on the UP recently. UP hauls them from Houston where they get them from the late Ed's of this forums Belt Railway of Houston to KC where they get interchanged to the BNSF and onto us. That is what the contract they have with the shipper states that the shipper has with them. We as the consignee are not happy with this arrangement but are stuck with it. Now KC from Houston is roughly 12 hours by truck. Just why do our loaded cars need to go to El Paso Tx before heading to KC is beyond me. Recently starting about 4 months ago everything we get has been routed from Beumont Yard to El Paso then gets put back on a train back to Beumont Yard then up to KC. It is like what the hell is going on at the UP. When they get to KC and hand them over BNSF gets them to us within 2 days as they go to Galesburg the first day get put into the local which is the train for the Maywood Logistic Park and sent onward. We had one last year that took 5 months to get to us off the UP right now it is taking about 2 months in transit for a load my drivers can do in 2 days.
tree68There's not a lot you can haul on a centerbeam flat, other than lumber products.
I have seen steel beams being hauled on centebeam flats In CSX's Dewitt yard. Defininitely an exception, but I've seen it on more than one occasion.
Murphy SidingWell... there is a limit to how many cowhides you can ship back to a Canadian lumber mill...
Back when most freight moved by boxcar, they could haul most anything. There were specialized boxcars, but you get my gist.
There's not a lot you can haul on a centerbeam flat, other than lumber products. And a lot of other cars are similarly specialized. I would guess that you're not going to haul sand in a grain hopper, etc, and so on.
An attempt to haul general freight in auto racks didn't do well here on the forum.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Convicted One One additional thought ....isn't the practice of avoiding empty backhauls supposed to be considered "smart railroading"? Could the constructive placement of this car be part of such a strategy?
One additional thought ....isn't the practice of avoiding empty backhauls supposed to be considered "smart railroading"? Could the constructive placement of this car be part of such a strategy?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding jeffhergert Murphy Siding Convicted One Murphy Siding The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed. In your initial post you mention that the car currently in question was privately owned. Do the railroads charge demurrage on privately owned cars after they are placed on a customer owned siding? Sure they do. I don't know that I've ever gotten a railroad owned car in. The only way I could see them not charging us demurrage on a privately owned car would be if we were the ones who owned it. Chemical companies come to mind. What type of cars do you get? I guess I've always figured box cars and center beam flats. Outside of TrailerTrain centerbeam cars, I think all of those kind I've seen were owned by a railroad. Plenty of private owned box cars out there. Jeff Maybe I'm wrong and I'm assuming they're private. Most recent cars had reporting marks like:WRWK****** TTZX****** ATW****** IC******
jeffhergert Murphy Siding Convicted One Murphy Siding The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed. In your initial post you mention that the car currently in question was privately owned. Do the railroads charge demurrage on privately owned cars after they are placed on a customer owned siding? Sure they do. I don't know that I've ever gotten a railroad owned car in. The only way I could see them not charging us demurrage on a privately owned car would be if we were the ones who owned it. Chemical companies come to mind. What type of cars do you get? I guess I've always figured box cars and center beam flats. Outside of TrailerTrain centerbeam cars, I think all of those kind I've seen were owned by a railroad. Plenty of private owned box cars out there. Jeff
Murphy Siding Convicted One Murphy Siding The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed. In your initial post you mention that the car currently in question was privately owned. Do the railroads charge demurrage on privately owned cars after they are placed on a customer owned siding? Sure they do. I don't know that I've ever gotten a railroad owned car in. The only way I could see them not charging us demurrage on a privately owned car would be if we were the ones who owned it. Chemical companies come to mind.
Convicted One Murphy Siding The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed. In your initial post you mention that the car currently in question was privately owned. Do the railroads charge demurrage on privately owned cars after they are placed on a customer owned siding?
Murphy Siding The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed.
In your initial post you mention that the car currently in question was privately owned. Do the railroads charge demurrage on privately owned cars after they are placed on a customer owned siding?
Sure they do. I don't know that I've ever gotten a railroad owned car in. The only way I could see them not charging us demurrage on a privately owned car would be if we were the ones who owned it. Chemical companies come to mind.
What type of cars do you get?
I guess I've always figured box cars and center beam flats. Outside of TrailerTrain centerbeam cars, I think all of those kind I've seen were owned by a railroad.
Plenty of private owned box cars out there.
Jeff
Maybe I'm wrong and I'm assuming they're private. Most recent cars had reporting marks like:WRWK****** TTZX****** ATW****** IC******
Car Initials that end in X are Private owner cars. Car Initials not ending in X are railroad owned.
Car Initials that have TT somewhere within the first 3 initials and X as the 3rd or 4th initials are owned by Trailer Train which is inturn owned by participating railroads which includes all the Class 1's and some others who use the cars for their own customers. Your TTZX is such a car - they range from TTX to ATTX to TTAX to ZTTX to TTZX and virtually every combination in between.
Remember the initials for CSX owned cars are CSXT .
Murphy SidingMaybe I'm wrong and I'm assuming they're private. Most recent cars had reporting marks like:WRWK****** TTZX****** ATW****** IC******
Those are railroad controlled cars. The TTZX counts as a railroad controlled car.
What I get to see operating on CSX's Old Main Line indicates that railroads are selling a significant part of their car inventory to Leasing Company's that apply their private owner initials and numbers to the cars and they seem to continue to operate much as they did when railroad owned. I am not familar with how this is being accomplished as it regards Car Hire and Accessorial Charges.
When private owner cars were predominately tank cars or other 'special' cars, the cars were Trip Leased by either the shipper or the consignee with payments made by the leasing party to the lessor. The lessor would build into the lease clauses that acted similar to railroad demurrage rules, however the allowed times for loading or unloading could be vastly longer than standard railroad demurrage, the enforcement of those clauses were between the Lessor and Leasee and the railroads were not involved.
BaltACD Murphy Siding BaltACD Demurrage starts with the first 7 AM after placement. When I was working customers were allowed 48 hours from that first 7 AM to either load or unload the car as necessary. If the necessary actions require more time, then Demurrage Penalties will begin with the 3rd 7 AM and will continue until the car is released. Maybe that varies among railroads. The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed. I have been retired for 5 years - the years before PSR was implemented on US Class 1 carriers. Part of PSR, in addition to changing Operating Plans and cutting head count on the railroads was also a rewriting the rules of Accesorial Charges - such as Demurrage, Intraplant Switching and a raft of other charges that can be applied when the situation happens. Needless to say the rewriting of these rules was done to benefit the railroads, not the customer.
Murphy Siding BaltACD Demurrage starts with the first 7 AM after placement. When I was working customers were allowed 48 hours from that first 7 AM to either load or unload the car as necessary. If the necessary actions require more time, then Demurrage Penalties will begin with the 3rd 7 AM and will continue until the car is released. Maybe that varies among railroads. The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed.
BaltACD Demurrage starts with the first 7 AM after placement. When I was working customers were allowed 48 hours from that first 7 AM to either load or unload the car as necessary. If the necessary actions require more time, then Demurrage Penalties will begin with the 3rd 7 AM and will continue until the car is released.
Maybe that varies among railroads. The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed.
I have been retired for 5 years - the years before PSR was implemented on US Class 1 carriers. Part of PSR, in addition to changing Operating Plans and cutting head count on the railroads was also a rewriting the rules of Accesorial Charges - such as Demurrage, Intraplant Switching and a raft of other charges that can be applied when the situation happens. Needless to say the rewriting of these rules was done to benefit the railroads, not the customer.
And why not, customers who are captive to rail have very few options these days... you either pay and do as you're told or go without.
Murphy SidingThe BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed.
Convicted OneHypothetically, is it at all possible that the "constructive placement" was made to benefit a customer, rather than to penalize them? We see a lot of gleeful references in this forum to demurrage, and other ways the railroads find to make their customers regret their relationship with them....but I wonder... could this situation at hand be as simple as....the railroad has a customer who requires 20 empties per day....and this car has been placed in the pipeline to be made available to them....on schedule? Surely if the railroad knows the customer will be needing the car, then having it ~available nearby~ serves the interest of the railroad as well as the specific customer?
Surely if the railroad knows the customer will be needing the car, then having it ~available nearby~ serves the interest of the railroad as well as the specific customer?
Constructive Placement is a specific procedure that is tied to Demurrage.
Telling a customer that a car has 'entered their pipeline' is not constructive placement - it is simple notification.
The basics of demurrage start with - upon arrival at the destination station the customer is entitled to one placement of the car at the spot of the customer's choice. Demurrage starts with the first 7 AM after placement. When I was working customers were allowed 48 hours from that first 7 AM to either load or unload the car as necessary. If the necessary actions require more time, then Demurrage Penalties will begin with the 3rd 7 AM and will continue until the car is released. Pulling the car from it's original spot that the customer specified is done for free. If the customer directs the railroad to move the car from its original spot location to a different spot location, the customer is 'on the hook' for a intraplant switch charge; intraplant switch charges are the reason many customers buy locomotives or trackmobiles to move cars around their facilities without incuring intraplant switch charges.
The Constructive Placement adjuct to Demurrage only starts when the customer has more cars at its serving yard than its plant can handle. There are two types of customers - Open Gate and Closed Gate. Open Gate customer get their cars spotted at their facility with the first available switch after the car arrives the serving yard. Closed Gate customers get notified of each days arrivals at the serving yard and will order in specific cars to their plant for each switch that the customer gets. Being notified of the car(s) arrival to Closed Gate customers constitutes Constructive Placement of those cars.
Customers dealing with HAZMAT commodities are required to accept the car(s) on the first switch after arrival in the serving yard. In many cases these customers will formally LEASE a track in the carriers serving yard for the customer's exclusive use to comply with this requirement.
Everything I have described in this thread just scratches the surface of interaction between the carriers and their customers and the financial ramifications of that interaction.
Murphy SidingA majority of the cars coming to us from Canada do come through Noyes. I saw that name often enough that I went exploring Google Maps and went down that rathole again. I could spend days on Google Maps just looking at interesting stuff.
Now I'll have to check out Noyes. Google Earth is always on my tabs bar and an SPV atlas is always close at hand. In the last few days I've been all over both Lackawanna Cutoffs, Saluda grade, the Old Fort grade, Ukrainian railways, and located Ohio Electric's interurban tunnel near Zanesville. A big surprise was England, where I used to think you couldn't go east-west more than two hours or north-south more than five without encountering ocean. Guess I'd imagined the place being the size of Delmarva. It's embarassing because I was a geography whiz as a kid and later on a surveyor. Google Earth and Japanese rural railways suck me in every time.
Rick
rixflix aka Captain Video. Blessed be Jean Shepherd and all His works!!! Hooray for 1939, the all time movie year!!! I took that ride on the Reading but my Baby caught the Katy and left me a mule to ride.
Hypothetically, is it at all possible that the "constructive placement" was made to benefit a customer, rather than to penalize them? We see a lot of gleeful references in this forum to demurrage, and other ways the railroads find to make their customers regret their relationship with them....but I wonder... could this situation at hand be as simple as....the railroad has a customer who requires 20 empties per day....and this car has been placed in the pipeline to be made available to them....on schedule?
SD60MAC9500 Murphy Siding A couple odd things: The route plan shows the next event to be a hand-off to another railroad, perhaps CP or CN? The equipment details info shows the car is privately owned, but can run on BNSF tracks only(?) What’s next for this car? Possibly interchanged at Noyes, MN to CP. BNSF and CP swap traffic at this point.
Murphy Siding A couple odd things: The route plan shows the next event to be a hand-off to another railroad, perhaps CP or CN? The equipment details info shows the car is privately owned, but can run on BNSF tracks only(?) What’s next for this car?
Possibly interchanged at Noyes, MN to CP. BNSF and CP swap traffic at this point.
Euclid So why did the car get constructively placed at Superior, WI? How might this have been caused by the receiver in SD? Could there be other causes for constructive placement unrelated to the receiver? From the information given to Murphy, how is he supposed to know what action to take to get the car out of jail?
Euclid BaltACD Euclid So why did the car get constructively placed at Superior, WI? How might this have been caused by the receiver in SD? Could there be other causes for constructive placement unrelated to the receiver? From the information given to Murphy, how is he supposed to know what action to take to get the car out of jail? I don't know the particulars for the industries that are involved in the situation that is being presented to us. Hypothetically - Industry A has a process that takes loaded rail cars of X commodity and turns it into Y commoditiy. Their facility CAN handle upto 25 cars per day and for whatever reasons they have to stop their process. Railroad now has 100 cars for A at the serving yard for A, there are another 300 cars consigned to A in the carriers 'pipeline'. The serving yard for A cannot handle any more cars for A until A's processes get back on line and they restart doing their process, cars in the pipeline, when they can operationally go no further, will be Constructively Placed. None of the cars can be Actually Placed at A until A gets their manufacturing process moving again. Once A gets back in full production and they can accept cars and work down the backlog things can eventually get back to normal. Constructively Placed cars are not in jail. Their release and further movement to the customers actual property is dependent upon the customer's ability to handle, process and release the cars. Okay, I see. I had missed the point that the car had left the lumber yard in SD, and was placed on constructive placement while enroute to its destination.
BaltACD Euclid So why did the car get constructively placed at Superior, WI? How might this have been caused by the receiver in SD? Could there be other causes for constructive placement unrelated to the receiver? From the information given to Murphy, how is he supposed to know what action to take to get the car out of jail? I don't know the particulars for the industries that are involved in the situation that is being presented to us. Hypothetically - Industry A has a process that takes loaded rail cars of X commodity and turns it into Y commoditiy. Their facility CAN handle upto 25 cars per day and for whatever reasons they have to stop their process. Railroad now has 100 cars for A at the serving yard for A, there are another 300 cars consigned to A in the carriers 'pipeline'. The serving yard for A cannot handle any more cars for A until A's processes get back on line and they restart doing their process, cars in the pipeline, when they can operationally go no further, will be Constructively Placed. None of the cars can be Actually Placed at A until A gets their manufacturing process moving again. Once A gets back in full production and they can accept cars and work down the backlog things can eventually get back to normal. Constructively Placed cars are not in jail. Their release and further movement to the customers actual property is dependent upon the customer's ability to handle, process and release the cars.
I don't know the particulars for the industries that are involved in the situation that is being presented to us.
Hypothetically - Industry A has a process that takes loaded rail cars of X commodity and turns it into Y commoditiy. Their facility CAN handle upto 25 cars per day and for whatever reasons they have to stop their process. Railroad now has 100 cars for A at the serving yard for A, there are another 300 cars consigned to A in the carriers 'pipeline'. The serving yard for A cannot handle any more cars for A until A's processes get back on line and they restart doing their process, cars in the pipeline, when they can operationally go no further, will be Constructively Placed. None of the cars can be Actually Placed at A until A gets their manufacturing process moving again. Once A gets back in full production and they can accept cars and work down the backlog things can eventually get back to normal.
Constructively Placed cars are not in jail. Their release and further movement to the customers actual property is dependent upon the customer's ability to handle, process and release the cars.
Okay, I see. I had missed the point that the car had left the lumber yard in SD, and was placed on constructive placement while enroute to its destination.
If the situation causing Constructive Placement doesn't show signs of improving - the Railroad can institute procedures to having shipments to the industry Embargoed. The Embargo will stop shippers from tendering shipments to the embargoed industry/location.
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