Now that I am beginning operations on my layout, I'm coming up with questions that I had never given any thought to before. After a freight car has been unloaded at its destination, where is it stored until it is needed again. I know if the car belongs to a foreign road it would be returned to its home road ASAP, preferably reloaded with goods for a destination on that road. My question deals with home road cars that are not immediately needed elsewhere. Would it be taken back to the nearest classification yard or are these tracks considered too valuable to be used to store empty cars? Would there be a seperate storage yard for empties? I read a long time ago that strings of like cars, especially those with seasonal demand, might be taken out and stored on a rural siding so as not to take up valuable space but my question is about individual cars. Would one or more classification tracks be allocated to storing such cars until they are needed again?
Unneeded cars in yards would be removed once they were interfering with the efficient use of the yard whose purpose was to make up and take apart trains. I've heard of at least one example of a yard built for the storage of unneeded cars. The common practice was to store these cars on trackage otherwise unusued, wherever it was most conveniently found.
I have a neighborhood example. For years the Union Pacific has used much of the former Southern Pacific mainline between Martinez and Tracy, CA for car storage. With the recent years' large increase of rail traffic swamping the former SP Martinez/Sacramento mainline, UP wants to restore the Martinez/Tracy line as a mainline route. However, NIMBY residents are making it difficult for the UP.
Mark
Andy Sperandeo MODEL RAILROADER Magazine
jecorbettNow that I am beginning operations on my layout, I'm coming up with questions that I had never given any thought to before. After a freight car has been unloaded at its destination, where is it stored until it is needed again. I know if the car belongs to a foreign road it would be returned to its home road ASAP, preferably reloaded with goods for a destination on that road. My question deals with home road cars that are not immediately needed elsewhere. Would it be taken back to the nearest classification yard or are these tracks considered too valuable to be used to store empty cars? Would there be a seperate storage yard for empties? I read a long time ago that strings of like cars, especially those with seasonal demand, might be taken out and stored on a rural siding so as not to take up valuable space but my question is about individual cars. Would one or more classification tracks be allocated to storing such cars until they are needed again?
In general the problem you cite rarely occurs with home-road cars, because a home road will not furnish its own empties to a shipper for loading if it forsees little potential for an immediate new load once the car is made empty by the receiver, because the home road wants to match its car inventory to its demand. If the receiver is willing to pay extra to pull extra cars from storage, then pay to put them back into storage when made empty, then the home road is willing to talk. But that is fairly rare for all but special, high-value movements, because most commodities cannot bear the price of anything but the cheapest possible transportation. Shippers who move low-value commodities on a spot basis (as opposed to a regular basis) such as scrap metal are frequently at a mismatch between their demand for empties and the supply of empties. Railroads want to keep cars moving and will simply not supply more cars today then they can spot tomorrow.
Shippers that provide their own cars often build their own Storage-In-Transit (SIT) yards or contract with others to provide SIT yards to accommodate their fluctuations in car demand.
When railroads were regulated, the ICC as well as general railroad economic conditions resulted in car supply that was more in line with the peaks of traffic such as coal during the winter and livestock and grain in the fall. Coal in particular was moved in rail-supplied car fleets and railroads constructed large marshalling yards in coal fields whose purpose was to balance car supply against weekly and seasonal fluctutations in car demand. Post-deregulation, coal increasingly moves in receiver-provided cars, and when the receiver is not in need of its cars (e.g., it's power plant is down for maintenance) the receiver is now responsible to store its cars on its own property or leased property; the railroad will not store them.
No railroad will store cars in a classification yard unless the yard is larger than it needs to be to handle the classification requirements; it destroys the fluidity and capacity of the yard. In a severe economic downturn, it might happen, but in general terms, only on a poorly-run railroad or a railroad whose traffic base is in permanent decline will class yard tracks be given over to storage on a permanent basis. Often you'll see an old yard adjacent to or near to a class yard that is used for storage, but the ratio of storage tracks to active class tracks or receiving and departure tracks is rarely more than 1:50.
Many short lines have a lot more track than they need and are in the long-term car-storage business. Storage is cheap -- as little as $1-$3 day per car, typically. Class 1s generally charge a lot more.
Class Is during economic downturns (like this one) will prefer to store their own cars in sidings on underutilized main lines or embargoed branch lines before they put them into yards. But this is long-term storage-- the daily fluctuation in car demand and car inventory should be almost 0 from the railroad's point of view. So from your modeling point of view, if you're modeling a post-1980 railroad, there is little to no dwell time for your daily car inventory; a car made empty is a car already tagged for a another load. If you're modeling a pre-1980 railroad, you would have car storage in old yards or out-of-the-way places for seasonal high-volume movements such as livestock, but almost none for other commodities, marshalling yards for coal empties, and almost no "live" storage for anything else.
RWM
Railway Man ... So from your modeling point of view, if you're modeling a post-1980 railroad, there is little to no dwell time for your daily car inventory; a car made empty is a car already tagged for a another load....
... So from your modeling point of view, if you're modeling a post-1980 railroad, there is little to no dwell time for your daily car inventory; a car made empty is a car already tagged for a another load....
Railway Man, you are exaggerating unless one is modeling a period of car shortage. There remain seasonal and economic cycle variations for the demand for cars. Please explain all those center-beam flat cars being stored on the former Martinez/Tracy mainline.
Mark -- having been in the car-distribution business and in discussion with shippers on this subject as of about 1 hour ago, I think I have experience in this matter. You are referring to long-term storage, not live storage.
There are centerbeams stored all over the place, but that is dead storage, not live storage. The original question was about live storage, cars that are held for a few days or even a month awaiting another load. Those centerbeams placed in storage are not placed in storage until there is an expectation they will not come out for a year or more.
jecorbett I read a long time ago that strings of like cars, especially those with seasonal demand, might be taken out and stored on a rural siding so as not to take up valuable space but my question is about individual cars. Would one or more classification tracks be allocated to storing such cars until they are needed again?
A few years ago I was coming back from Fort Riley in Kansas (seeing brother-in-law off to Iraq). I decided to come home on US24 instead of I-70. There way out in the middle of Kansas was about 3 miles of box cars just sitting there stored on the track. Seems most of them were painted a blue sky blue (but not ROCK). I always meant to go back and get pictures but.... too many things to photograph and no time.
In a lot of cases, a home road car would simply stay where it was unloaded until there was a valid reason to move it (car needed elsewhere or a load to be dropped at that spot.)
If moved to clear the spot for an incoming load, the unassigned empty would be moved to the nearest convenient holding place, which could be a siding at the local yard or another, little-used industrial spur.
If an immediate need was deemed unlikely, the car might be switched to some lonely siding in the heart of nowhere. One example would be boxcars in grain service. For a few weeks during the grain rush, the fillintheblank branch of the Prairie Central would be BUSY! Multiple trains of grain-service cars would be meeting at the sidings along the line at all hours of the day and night. After the rush, the branch would return to its usual traffic level of three round trips per week or less. But - the sidings would still be full. The difference would be that the long cuts of grain-service cars would be stored, with no sign of a locomotive or caboose anywhere.
(For a lone-wolf operator with too many cars for his trackage, that might be a useful option)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
tomikawaTTIn a lot of cases, a home road car would simply stay where it was unloaded until there was a valid reason to move it (car needed elsewhere or a load to be dropped at that spot.)
Perhaps what you're seeing and mistaking for "storage" is a shipper that has intentionally over-ordered cars for which he doesn't have loads yet, or doesn't want to ship just yet -- for example, a scrap yard that is playing the market. Shippers and railroads are constantly arguing over whether the shipper has over-ordered and if the shipper makes it a consistent practice, the railroad will cut him back on deliveries of empties. Receivers on the other hand have no need to have empty cars in their yard, they just want to get rid of them so they don't have to pay demurrage.
Railroads would much rather have fewer cars than they need to meet shippers's instant needs than have excess empties. The shipper's freight isn't going to go anywhere: if the shipper needs the low cost of railroad service to stay in business, it's not going to convert the excess loads for which there are no empty cars to truck, and frankly, if the freight is so much on the cusp of price that it can easily flip to truck, then it's a poor customer from the railroad's point of view and not worth serving. On the other hand, an excess supply of empties not only costs the railroad money to own inventory that is not earning a return on the investment, plus it occupies tracks it needs to move trains that do make money.
Railroads are an economic instrument, not a public utility. Car supply follows economic principles and car inventory management is in service to those principles.
jecorbett .... I know if the car belongs to a foreign road it would be returned to its home road ASAP, preferably reloaded with goods for a destination on that road.
.... I know if the car belongs to a foreign road it would be returned to its home road ASAP, preferably reloaded with goods for a destination on that road.
Empty foreign cars were sent to the railroad from which it was directly received. (Thus, railroads which made money moving the loaded car would share in the cost of returning it.) For example, an NYC car shipped to Oakland via Southern Pacific's Overland Route would be returned by the SP to the Union Pacific at Ogden, It would be the UP's decision on whether to forward the empty or commandeer it for loading itself. Also, particular cars in dedicated service or in short supply commonly had special instructions to return the empty directly to a specific location. Cars designed for carrying automobile parts are an example.
Real railroads have standing orders to drive cars back to the typical areas where they are loaded. So hopper cars would be driven back toward the mines. If its being done right the empty cars are reassigned to another customer before or when they arrive at the yard. Just because they are assigned to a customer,doesn't mean they will be spotted. In areas with large car demands they will keep a supply (usually 2 or 3 days to a week's worth) cloase at hand. Yards rarely store empty cars in classification tracks. Industry support yards often store empty cars. There may also be a track near the industry where they keep the empties handy to be spotted on demand.
The cars that are shoved out on branches are normally long term storage. They will not be loaded for weeks or months or years. Look for lots of those types of storage over the next couple years, the railroads will be storing cars right and left during the market downturn. Every unused branch or lead will be stuffed with autoracks and covered hoppers as the credit crunch reduces car sales and $2.00 a gallon gas forces the ethanol companies into bankruptcy.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusman ... $2.00 a gallon gas forces the ethanol companies into bankruptcy.
... $2.00 a gallon gas forces the ethanol companies into bankruptcy.
I don't see it. The big rise in ethanol production had been as an additive to gasoline. This was mandated (laws requiring a given percentage of a gallon of gas to be ethanol) that increased the cost of gas. Demand for ethanol wasn't because the price of a pure petroleum product was more expensive than ethanol. (Quite the opposite.) And with the price of gas dropping 40 percent because petroleum is cheaper than before, I don't see the demand for gasoline and the accompanying ethanol dropping.
Just because the law mandates an additive doesn't mean anyone will want to sell it.
Look here: http://finance.google.com/finance?q=OTC:VSUNQ
markpierceI don't see it.
Probably cause it already happened weeks ago.
The replies to my question have been fascinating to read. I probably should have mentioned that I am modeling the 1950s and most of my industries will be receiving or shipping a single car or a few cars. I can see that a string of hoppers or tank cars unloaded at an industrial plant would likely have those empties returned to the original shipper to be reloaded but many of my industries will be unloading one or two boxcars and if those are home road cars, there isn't an obvious place for them to be returned to since the orignal shipper might not immediately have another load to send. Also, what should my railroad do with the empty home road cars returned to it from off-line railroads (i.e. from my staging yards representing other destinations).
Obviously, the ideal would be for the railroad have an immediate demand for its empty cars but in the real world, I wouldn't think that such a perfect balance could be maintained at all times. Wouldn't there be daily fluctuations in demand for cars that would result in more cars being available then are immediately needed. For example, if there are more boxcars available on a given day than are needed, would those cars be immediately sent to an out-of-the-way siding or storage yard until needed.
PS. I didn't expect this thread to digress into a discussion of gas prices but for what its worth, I filled up in Columbus, OH today for $1.71-9
I don't think it was the price of gasoline dropping that caused Verasun to go bankrupt. They contracted for corn thinking the price would remain high or go higher, then the price of corn dropped dramatically.
I've read in the local paper recently that some corn producers are again saying the price of corn is near the break even point.
The price of fuel has gone down, the price of corn has gone down, yet food prices remain up and probably will for some time.
Jeff
Of course the ideal situation would have loads going both directions...a boxcar takes say cardboard packing boxes to from city A to an industry in city B, then once the car is empty load it with whatever product the industry makes and then haul those products back to city A. It rarely works out that well of course, but they would try to find a load going from some industry in city B to somewhere so the car wasn't sitting idle.
One of the advantages of computers is that railroads can "see" empties more easily, as soon as an industry releases them empty, before they have even been pulled, and so can assign them to their next load more quickly.