My RR is primarily Pennsy with, B&O, C&O and DT&I running too, I operate two small but separate yards with an interchange between the rr's.
While I have a PRR loco facility I am kicking around the idea of including a car repair shop. My goal is a highly detailed, inside and out, foreground building. This leads to my question, would foreign cars be worked on in another RR's shops? I am leaning towards the idea of light repairs, bad cars etc as opposed to heavy or routine maintenance.
Appreciate any insight.
My understanding is that if a car had a defect on another railroad, like a problem with the wheels or a coupler or something, that the railroad the car was on would fix the problem in their shops, and then bill the car's owner for the repairs. I suspect for greater damage, they might just send it back like on a flatcar, to the owner. It's not unusual on Virtual Railfan site in their every-other-day highlight show to see damaged cars on a flatcar, with the trucks removed (on a separate car or loaded on the same flatcar.)
wjstix is correct. The railroad repairs the car and bills the owning railroad or company. Attached is the AAR Field Manual Interchange Rules. It has a section on car repairs.
https://railroads.dot.gov/elibrary/field-manual-interchange-rules
Ok interesting, just planning a car shop area / scene and thinking how it should look. Thanks for the replies and info, that link is not working.
basementdweller:
Try copying the link and pasting it into a new window. Then go to the new window and
try opening it. If that does not work let me know with your email address and I will attach the document to an email and send it to you.
to you.
There are basically 4 types of car shop/repair situations.
Rip tracks are railroad owned facilities that do running repairs on the cars passing through the yard. They do running repairs (just enough to make them safe and able to be moved) on any cars from any railroad or owner that are found defective in that yard. Cars spend 12-36 hours on a rip track in most cases. All sort term work.
Railroad shops are railroad owned facilities that build and do heavy repairs to the railroad's own equipment as projects. They will build, rebuild or repair a series of cars or rebuild heavily damaged or wrecked cars. They might also repaint a series of cars. Generally they do not work on other road's cars, but might contract with another road to do a series of cars on a project basis. For example the Reading took old 40 ft boxcars and "kitbashed" them into 50 ft cars, one batch for the RDG and another for the Rutland.
Private car shops do contract work for whoever wants them to work on cars. Mostly they are private owner cars, but they may also do other railroads for special projects or rebuilds.
Car builders build cars and sell them to railroads and car owners, they may also do project work rebuilding cars for railroads or primarily private owners.
If you want a variety of car owners, you probably want a "rip track" insead of a "car shop".
If you have a rip track it will be a smaller facility, generally a car shed with one or two tracks. Rarely did they have an overhead crane. Most rip track buildings I have seen were metal sheds A rip track generally is double ended, bad order cars are spotted in one end, then rolled through theshed, repaired and then rolled out the other end repaired and once a day or once a shift, the Rip is pulled and the repaired cars are taken back to the yard to be fixed.
They would work on any car coming through the yard. Damaged grab irons andladders, broken brake rigging or handbrakes, damaged doors or interiors, bad wheels or bearings, broken springs, damaged or cracked drawbars or draft gear, that sort of stuff.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Thank you. I see what you mean about the RIP track vs repair shop. Something to think about.