I posted about per diem boxcars awhile back--my thread is actually the first hit if you google "per diem boxcars". I'm honored. It stil interest me. Just a couple more things I would like to know, having rekindled my interest in the subject:
First, the sheer number of them seems laughable to me. It almost seems like the smaller the road, the more likely they were to participate in this. Is there any truth to this? I understand why they were made, but I have trouble grasping why tiny railraods were buying them? Were the roads just desperate for money and figured this was a good investment oportunity?
Second, the sheer elaborate paintschemes. Today if you see a car with, say "AOK" markings, Arkansas & Oklahoma makes absolutely no effort to market themselves, but the per diem cars were flashy colors with big detailed logos and slogans. The idea that a railroad designed to serve a sawmille with five miles of track would go ahead and buy a hundred boxcars and deck them out with slogans and logos that make them look like a class 1 from teh forties. Was this just an attempt at advertising?
Lastly, and on a more social note, I know they still exist, though uncommon. Any of you seen one recently? Got pictures?
The Beaverton, Fanno Creek & Bull Mountain Railroad
"Ruby Line Service"
Per Diem box cars were a finance play that was authorized to build up the box car fleet when the carriers themselves didn't see a future in making the investment into the cars. Financial 'hotshots' run in where others fear to tread.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
KBCpresidentI understand why they were made, but I have trouble grasping why tiny railraods were buying them?
If you believe the legends, there were a couple of railroads that didn't exactly *buy* the boxcars.
Also explains why they were given new, shiny paint jobs.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
zugmann KBCpresident I understand why they were made, but I have trouble grasping why tiny railraods were buying them? If you believe the legends, there were a couple of railroads that didn't exactly *buy* the boxcars. Also explains why they were given new, shiny paint jobs.
KBCpresident I understand why they were made, but I have trouble grasping why tiny railraods were buying them?
Not sure I'm picking up what you're laying down. Were they acxquired through nefarious means? Or were the shiny paint jobs used to cover rust and shotty metalwork?
KBCpresident Were they acxquired through nefarious means?
You picked it up just fine. Boxcars show up in one reporting mark/scheme, left in a new one.
If the legends were true. Who knows, but it's a good one.
The short line railroads did not buy or own the IPD cars that carried their reporting marks. The cars were owned by leasing companies like ITEL, BRAE, or GE. Often the deal was the short line got to load and ship them at no cost. The leasing companies collected all the off line time and mileage payments. The reason the IPD cars were placed on short lines was to maximum the off line time and mileage, which was paid by the handling road. These fees might have been something like $0.10 per mile and $0.80 per hour. The leasing companies were looking for short lines that had on line customers that could load the cars and send them a long way off. The car service rules at that time then encouraged the road where the car was unloaded to reload the car generally back in the direction of the home road. If the leasing companies were lucky the car would be gone 5 or 6 months. The leasing companies did not put up the money to buy the cars. They found professional, doctors, laywer, etc. who need the tax break from owning a railroad car. Everybody made money except the long haul roads who were paying inflated costs for these overpriced IPD cars.
The IPD cars were not intended for the railroads for which they were lettered. Basically the shortlines "rented" their reporting marks so that the cars would have railroad reporting marks in order to qualify for the incentive per diem (private owner cars weren't eligible for the IPD). The last thing the owners of the IPD cars wanted was the cars to be on home rails. They wanted the cars to be on other railroads so they could collect IPD payments.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Pickens, and its offshoots, was a big player.
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...
I'm not sure about this but I believe that the IPD boxcars were considered to be free-runnners that didn't have to be returned to "home" rails.
IIRC there was supposed to have been in the seventies a shortline with only I think 6 miles of trackage, and someone calculated if all their IPD cars "came home" at once, it would take up more track than the railroad owned.
Railroads wanted to own / lease them to make money. IPD cars earned more money each day than other cars. As noted, they weren't intended (or perhaps even wanted) on the home road's tracks, but earned money being used by other railroads who were paying the per diem to the owner.
The seventies were fairly colorful in general - guys went to work wearing lime green leisure suits with powder blue shirts and floral print ties. Bright colors and larger graphics were just sort of the trend for railroads back then. In steam days, colors were pretty standard - engines were black, cabooses were red, reefers were orange or yellow, boxcars were boxcar red, passenger cars were Pullman green, etc. Then as diesels and streamlined passenger cars came along, railroads developed unique color schemes. Eventually it spread to freight cars and such. Why paint your boxcars a dark red when you could paint them yellow or orange or blue or whatever colors your railroad used?
wjstixIIRC there was supposed to have been in the seventies a shortline with only I think 6 miles of trackage, and someone calculated if all their IPD cars "came home" at once, it would take up more track than the railroad owned.
I suspect there was more than one. The St Lawrence Railroad (same paint scheme as Pickens) had a lot of cars, and not a lot of track. Given that the shortline was still doing other business, bringing all the cars home would have paralyzed the line.
As an aside, I have managed to acquire a couple of the St Lawrence cars in N.
If you want to shut down the Class 1's today - send all their owned cars home! Although many Class 1's are selling their cars to leasors and then paying Car Hire charges when the 'now' Private cars are on their lines.
I was very much involved in the 1990's and early 2000's for a class 1 railroad in countering "per diem" car hire schemes (which we used to call "rent-a-marks").
David 1005 and dehysman have described the practice correctly. A short line would "rent" its reporting marks to an equipment leasing company. The short line would not actually use the cars, control them or have any ownership interest in them. Rather, the leasing company owned the cars and would deploy them in ways to prevent the cars from ever coming "home" to the short lines whose marks appeared on the cars. The objective was to keep the cars off the nominal "home" roads so that they would keep earning regulated per diem on "foreign" roads (i.e., roads other than the owners of the reporting marks). In those days, regulated "incentive per diem" rates were pretty attractive to a leasing company. Under industry rules, per diem would be paid to the "agent" for the owner of the marks, which, of course, was the leasing company which actually owned the cars. The last thing the leasing company owner wanted was for the cars to come "home" and stop earning per diem on foreign roads.
One of the things which made this practice less attractive was car hire deprescription in the 1990's, which eliminated regulated car hire rates (like "incentive per diem") which were artificially high. Several leasing companies got very unpleasant surprises when deprescription resulted in car hire rates below the formerly regulated rates and below the so-called "default" rates which the car owners thought would be treated as rate floors (they weren't).
KBCpresident I posted about per diem boxcars awhile back--my thread is actually the first hit if you google "per diem boxcars". I'm honored. It stil interest me. Just a couple more things I would like to know, having rekindled my interest in the subject: First, the sheer number of them seems laughable to me. It almost seems like the smaller the road, the more likely they were to participate in this. Is there any truth to this? I understand why they were made, but I have trouble grasping why tiny railraods were buying them? Were the roads just desperate for money and figured this was a good investment oportunity? Second, the sheer elaborate paintschemes. Today if you see a car with, say "AOK" markings, Arkansas & Oklahoma makes absolutely no effort to market themselves, but the per diem cars were flashy colors with big detailed logos and slogans. The idea that a railroad designed to serve a sawmille with five miles of track would go ahead and buy a hundred boxcars and deck them out with slogans and logos that make them look like a class 1 from teh forties. Was this just an attempt at advertising? Lastly, and on a more social note, I know they still exist, though uncommon. Any of you seen one recently? Got pictures?
KBCpresident Zugmann's note probably refers to the LaSalle & Bureau County RR fiasco, where the LSBC supposedly "stole" cars it received in interchange by repainting them and giving them LSBC reporting marks. I don't recall all of the details, but I seem to recall there was a real question whether LSBC actually did anything wrong. The actual car owner (PC) may have mistakenly sold the cars to LSBC. I don't know how this was finally resolved. Maybe someone else on this thread knows. zugmann KBCpresident I understand why they were made, but I have trouble grasping why tiny railraods were buying them? If you believe the legends, there were a couple of railroads that didn't exactly *buy* the boxcars. Also explains why they were given new, shiny paint jobs. Not sure I'm picking up what you're laying down. Were they acxquired through nefarious means? Or were the shiny paint jobs used to cover rust and shotty metalwork?
Zugmann's note probably refers to the LaSalle & Bureau County RR fiasco, where the LSBC supposedly "stole" cars it received in interchange by repainting them and giving them LSBC reporting marks. I don't recall all of the details, but I seem to recall there was a real question whether LSBC actually did anything wrong. The actual car owner (PC) may have mistakenly sold the cars to LSBC. I don't know how this was finally resolved. Maybe someone else on this thread knows.
Falcon48 KBCpresident Zugmann's note probably refers to the LaSalle & Bureau County RR fiasco, where the LSBC supposedly "stole" cars it received in interchange by repainting them and giving them LSBC reporting marks. I don't recall all of the details, but I seem to recall there was a real question whether LSBC actually did anything wrong. The actual car owner (PC) may have mistakenly sold the cars to LSBC. I don't know how this was finally resolved. Maybe someone else on this thread knows. zugmann KBCpresident I understand why they were made, but I have trouble grasping why tiny railraods were buying them? If you believe the legends, there were a couple of railroads that didn't exactly *buy* the boxcars. Also explains why they were given new, shiny paint jobs. Not sure I'm picking up what you're laying down. Were they acxquired through nefarious means? Or were the shiny paint jobs used to cover rust and shotty metalwork?
Shiney painted owner initials over rusty PC cars.
Likewise, I don't know the ultimate outcome.
Class 1's do get into situations where they have to store cars that are excess for the needs of the industry they support. In many cases the Class 1's will negotiate agreements with short lines for the lease of X feet of track to store the cars. Considering the CLUSTER that PC was, it is entirely possible one hand thought a lease had been executed for storage and gave the cars to the short line, the other hand never signed the agreement. Short line thought PC was 'giving' them cars, free and clear.
Falcon48 Zugmann's note probably refers to the LaSalle & Bureau County RR fiasco, where the LSBC supposedly "stole" cars it received in interchange by repainting them and giving them LSBC reporting marks. I don't recall all of the details, but I seem to recall there was a real question whether LSBC actually did anything wrong. The actual car owner (PC) may have mistakenly sold the cars to LSBC. I don't know how this was finally resolved. Maybe someone else on this thread knows.
But it's a good story, and like many legends has probably grown a bit away from the original truth over the years.
Especially since LSBC = Let's Steal BoxCars..........
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70Dude Falcon48 Zugmann's note probably refers to the LaSalle & Bureau County RR fiasco, where the LSBC supposedly "stole" cars it received in interchange by repainting them and giving them LSBC reporting marks. I don't recall all of the details, but I seem to recall there was a real question whether LSBC actually did anything wrong. The actual car owner (PC) may have mistakenly sold the cars to LSBC. I don't know how this was finally resolved. Maybe someone else on this thread knows. But it's a good story, and like many legends has probably grown a bit away from the original truth over the years. Especially since LSBC = Let's Steal BoxCars..........
The FBI investigated.
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/tampering-cited-in-rail-diversion-penn-central-cars-said-to-be.html
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