Boxcar question

[Baghdad firefighter]

Can someone tell me what US made modern commodities  are shipped in box cars. The 2nd part of the question is along the lines of how many box cars of say of  tires would you say a typical factory would ship in a day/ week  Maybe I’m in the dark but I can not see  any warehouse receiving more than one 60 ft boxcar a week of say tires or frozen meals  I know this is a very open  question thanks

[Railway Man]

Baghdad firefighter

Can someone tell me what US made modern commodities  are shipped in box cars. The 2nd part of the question is along the lines of how many box cars of say of  tires would you say a typical factory would ship in a day/ week  Maybe I’m in the dark but I can not see  any warehouse receiving more than one 60 ft boxcar a week of say tires or frozen meals  I know this is a very open  question thanks

 

Here's a 10-second list.  As to your second question, a good-sized tire warehouse might receive a dozen boxcars weekly of tires.

Manufactured Goods:

1. Tires
2. Auto Parts
   
3. Appliances
4. Plumbing fixtures
5. Knocked-down cabinets and office furniture

Metals and Minerals

1. Lead ingots
2. Bagged cement
3. Bagged Clays
4. Salt, bagged and bulk
5. Silicon metal, in supersacks
6. Foundry and steel mill alloys, in supersacks or bagged

Forest Products:

1. Plywood
2. 2x4 studs
3. Particle Board
4. Waferwood and OSB
5. Newsprint
6. Paper
7. Paperboard

Agricultural Products

1. Cotton
2. Cottonseed
3. Animal feed, bagged and bulk
4. Bagged fertilizer

Scrap materials:

1. Paper
2. Cardstock
3. Rags
4. Baled scrap aluminum (Boeing ships a lot, for example)

RWM

[BRAKIE]

This should help.

http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=customers.acquanted#DOC26911

 

A busy warehouse could recieve several boxcars a day..

 Your tire manufacturer could ship several boxcars a day..You see the tire shipments would be needed daily by the automobile manufacturer(s) and tire distribution centers.

A food distributor in a large city could receive 3-4 boxcars a day plus reefers since a distributor can serve the surrounding cities and towns..The distributors customer base will include grocery stores,restaurants,box stores that sell groceries,schools,convenient stores etc

 Its a never ending supply process.

 

 

 

[ericsp]

Some other commodities are canned foods, tomato products (various types of packaging), wine, beer, whey, powdered milk. 

[dehusman]

Baghdad firefighter

Can someone tell me what US made modern commodities  are shipped in box cars.

Do you want all 10 or 20 thousand commodities?

 Anything that is packaged on a pallet or can be handled by a forklift can and does move in a boxcar.

 

The 2nd part of the question is along the lines of how many box cars of say of  tires would you say a typical factory would ship in a day/ week 

As many as it produces. There is really no way to answer that.  Pick a number.

Maybe I’m in the dark but I can not see  any warehouse receiving more than one 60 ft boxcar a week of say tires or frozen meals

Are you asking about shipping or recieving?

An auto plant in full production can recieve dozens of boxcars of parts a day and may have warehouses all over the area around the plant.  So it is possible that a warehouse could get 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 boxcars of tires.

Same with reefers.  A warehouse in Texas I know distributed french fries for a local fast food chain.  They regularlky recieved multiple reefers of frozen taters.

[santafemikie]

Hi All,

You're absolutely correct when you talk about tire factories. However, the numbers are staggering. Depending on the era, and the product mix of the factory, typical capacities of a tire factory would be in the 10,000 to 25,000 tires a DAY range. During the eighties, we used to a lot of 86' box cars and the old 75' Southern tabacco cars specially fitted with roof vents to let the tire fumes out. Earthmover tires were moved in topless boxcars. The rest of the tires went in any combination of regular length boxcars of the day. At one point, our plant made motorcycle, rear farm, front farm, bias truck, radial truck, blackwall and whitewall bias car, radial passenger and earthmover tires. Our average production was 23,000 tires a day. So the product lines also dictate where they all go. Caterpillar and John Deere and obviously the big four (or three) were the largest single destinations of our tires. Our plant also has a distribution center, so it was common to have INBOUND cars from other plants with different tire lines than ours. 

Mike    

[BerkshireSteam]

What about concrete? There's a concrete distributor right by the apartment that is rail served (the other one isn't even though it's bigger). I hardley ever see trucks there, but there are always a crud load of ACF 2 bays. Maybe this week I will go down there and take a small inventory list of the car numbers to see how long they sit there. They probably have around 2 dozen. I've never seen the place get switched. Not that it doesn't I just haven't seen the crew spotting cars, I've seen trains sitting on the companies spur. Back to the point though they get concrete shipped to them in the mentioned ACF 2 bays (I think around 3500 cu. ft.) and it gets put in the large 3-bay semi trailers and hauled off to who knows where. I haven't been able to really find any info on this business so I can't help you much more than that. I plan to have a concrete distributor on my layout.

[ericsp]

Most likely the hoppers are carrying cement (a component of concrete). 

[ndbprr]

 

The cereal plants in Battle Creek, Mi ship many cars a day.  The Sears East Coast distribution center received 20-30 cars of appliances a day in its prime.  The Naval Supply Depot in NE Phily got hundreds of cars per day since it supplied 100% of Navy uniforms among other items.  Supermarket warehouses also received many cars daily to distribute to the stores.  Sloan Blabon roofing received granules for shigles, tar, tar paper, machinery, etc.,  Phico Radio received parts and shipped radios, Publishing companies receive huge rolls of  paper in box cars and ship magazines and newspapers.