I posted a similar question on the Model Railroader forum but perhaps this is a more appropriate place for the question. When a railroad (any railroad) delivers a boxcar to a customer/consignee and that car is unloaded, where does the railroad take the car next? Does it go back to the yard and sit until needed again or could it be sent right from one customers loading dock to another customers loading dock. I'm talking about an empty car. Are they brought to the yard and inspected to make sure they are fairly clean and undamaged before sending them out for another load?
Thanks
Jim
The simple answer is Yes!
There are nominally 2 kinds of box cars....Free Runners and Assigned. Assigned cars have been placed into a pool for the loading service of a particular shipper at at particular location...when the car is made empty it is returned to it's loading location to be reloaded and reshipped to the same or a different consignee.
Free Runners when made empty are returned to the yard, graded by the Car Inspectors and the handled as needed in concert with car orders the carrier has. The carrier will attempt to fill most of these order with the carriers own cars and return all possible foreign ownership cars to the owner in order to minimize car hire costs. If the carrier is unable to fill all it's car orders with it's own cars, they will use the foreign ownership car. The carrier will move cars about it's property as necessary to fill car orders. The thing to remember is that most of the Car Orders and empty car releases occur on a predictable basis, thus regular paths are established for the movement of empty car....not the chaotic situation that it would appear on the surface.
When the economy slows, cars will tend to accumulate at the normal serving yards for prospective loading. The Car Distribution department will then review their customers needs and if necessary make arrangement to put some of the cars in storage. The storage location can either be on the carriers property or they make arrangement with a connecting short line to store the cars on the short line, with the Class I carrier paying the short line for the privilege of storing the cars.
The pattern is the same for all varieties of cars that are able to handle multiple types of loads without leaving the car in a contaminated condition for handling a following load. If the load being handled will leave the car in a 'contaminated' condition, it will be used in Assigned service to handle that particular commodity exclusively.
The carriers keep track of all the cars in assigned service and to who and where they are assigned and what contaminating commodities they are restricted to handling.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Thank you for the information, it was very helpful.
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