When there is a wreck with a train carrying cars,Who owns the cars,what do they do with wrecked autos.Are they repaired,salvaged sold for parts.Are there companys that deal in this.It could get very expensive for who is liable.Just curious.
TTBOMK they are scrapped.
Norm
not nessessarily. they become the property of whom ever has the insurance liability. most railroads r self insured 4 small claims. they have insurance pools 4 big loses. think that English company pools of insurance named I forget? Maybe Loyds of London. it is someones job to reduce the loses so u may by one that's ben repaired usually from ur local buy here - pay here lot. or they are shredded and go to make coffee pots u buy at walmart from our friends in the orient!!
No matter what the commodity...cars, chocolates, couches, cans of food, the insurance company has an agent on the scene rather quickly, assess the value of the damaged goods, and is offering it to the highest bidder. There are salvagers who seem to know when derailments occur and will show up (often tipped off by railroad friends) at the scene or are on an insurance company list to call. They may bid or make offers on the merchandise and haul it away to sell.
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Autos are normally destroyed. There is too much liability to sell them afterwards.
In previous times if beer or autos were involved the dozers would dig a hole, dump the product into the hole and drive over the product to crush it, then it was buried.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Wow !! u are not familiar with the auto salvage business at all. u do not bury metal or anything else saleable. in Knoxville TN there is a company called Knox Rail Salvage. they buy anything and everything. there standard bid is 1 cent on the retail price. they mostly do tractor trailer accident salvage now but still buy every day that someone accepts there bid.
I was told by a railroader many years ago that a train with autos derailed on the Erie Lackawanna east of Port Jervis, NY in the hills. The cars were a loss and the whole thing was buried. The railroad re-laid right over the tops of the destroyed cars. There is a wide spot in the right-of-way where the wreck is supposedly buried. For car collectors, the cars destroyed were first year Mustangs,
that flag fell a long time ago. it was the right choice to reopen the road. today might be different. I bet there are Ford Mustang collectors about to stroke out when they verify this account?
I don't know if the story is true, but the EL DID serve the huge Ford plant in Mahwah, NJ which is on that same line.
The cars and trucks are normally scrapped as deh states. There is far too much liability in play to even sell them as used. Not even the parts can be sold. Between the railroad claim agents and the asset protection people, that stuff is ground down into tiny pieces of scrap. Used to be, but I have not seen lately, that some cars were donated, with provisions to never sell (*) ;carsto high school and technical schools for automotive mechanical training/troubleshooting.Most of that no longer happens. There is an occasional poster on here, ATSF/BNSF's Ken Fath , who handles these issues in the west.
(*) Never sell, never license, never run on public streets. Chrysler and GM used to be the big supporters of a program for competitive automotive trouble shooting that I can't remember the name of.
I just found a chat room that tells about an EL train wreck in the area that I stated before in 1964. If autos were part of the consist we may never know, but you are right, car collectors might be having a stroke right now.
Having seen a wrecked train with auto carriers in it, I wouldn't want one, at least not as transportation. The railroad cars were on their sides, with the autos still secured to their decks. Couldn't have been good for the frames of the autos.
My father worked for GM at their Milford Proving Grounds. It was common practice to take a car that was no longer suitable for transportation for whatever reason and run it over with a dozer - that would have been in the sixties, and unless they've gone back and dug them up, they're probably still buried there. Nowadays I'm sure they get scrapped, possibly being shredded right there at the facility.
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 at one time worked for a company that manufactured athletic lockers for school districts and the lockers were often shipped by rail. I remember a shipment of lockers that was destroyed in a derailment on the Rock Island in Kansas. The replacement lockers were paid for by the Rock Island directly not an insurance carrier. The lockers were built for and paid for by the school district before they were shipped. The lockers were owned by the school district at the time they were shipped. I believe the same situation exists when automobiles are shipped by the auto companies to the dealers which now own the cars once they leave the factory.
Insurance carriers sell damaged cars to recoup losses they suffer in paying claims because of derailments. They do the same when your car is damaged in a car accident. You get another car or its cash value and the insurance company gets the damaged vehicle which it will sell for salvage.
About 10 years ago we had a manifest that derailed into the side of an auto rack train meeting in on the adjacent (double main) track. Some of the auto racks on the fringe of the wreckage were barely scratched, just up damage to the end panels on one side. One car had only one truck off the rail, no visible damage to it. Most of the vehicles on all these cars were Cadillac Escalades. They scrapped all vehicles on all these auto racks, even those racks with no apparent damage.
They don't want the liability problems that could pop up down the road. If a car or part that came from that derailment eventually develops problems, you can bet someone (like a lawyer) would blame it on being involved in a derailment.
Jeff
I do not think they would bury the automobiles. The steel is worth some money to a scraper to sell to a steel mill.
Automobiles and trucks involved in a derailment get a one way ticket to a crusher for scrap. All movements of vehicles are documented and were such a vehicle to become involved in a highway incident it opens the vault wide for the ambulance chasers.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
caldreamer I do not think they would bury the automobiles. The steel is worth some money to a scraper to sell to a steel mill.
There was a time when the cost to properly scrap a vehicle was probably greater than the value of the vehicle as scrap - and that was at ta time when cars were mostly steel, not plastic. The steel industry was running full steam ahead and we had plenty of "fresh" steel - there was little need for recycling. It made more economic sense to bury the cars than to haul them away.
Nowdays, even the "graveyards of the rusted automobiles" are disappearing as the price of scrap rises. People are stealing the detritus of track and tie replacement projects (spikes, tie plates, etc) before the railroads can pick up the materials themselves.
I saw a fellow a while back headed for a local recycling center with a small duffle full of who-knows-what. It looked to be empty when he returned, probably with a couple of bucks in his pocket.
This also happens with ships delivering new cars. Perhaps the most notable example is the MV Cougar Ace a few years ago. Even though most of the cars were undamaged despite the vessel having a 60 degree list, Mazda scrapped all 4,703 of their vehicles on her which had a value well in excess of $100 million rather than take on the liability of selling them even as used.
if it can be sold as scraop or they are now consider used parts and there is no liability to the railroad as they do not own the freight they haul. it is up to the shippers agent. my kid goes to school in Kansas city with children of the Board members of the Kansa City Southern. I get to meet them at the father daughter days at school. TTX does not grind up damaged auto racks. they are tacken to the old NS yard in North Kansas city to be repaired and repainted and sent back out. if unrepairable all usable parts are removed. nothing is wasted. this a train form. perhaps this question should belong on a car/ automobile forum?
this an insurance question and at the dicression of the insured. the railroads are self insured for small claims and these amount r consideres small. toilet paper, grits in boxes, or cars if the railroad is on the hook they will get the most they can. it is there responsibility to there investors.
Please start running your posts through a word processor and let it suggest some grammar corrections. Your posts are extremely difficult to follow.
Worked at a yard serving a GM Assembly plant back in the 70's. At model changeover time the plant would ship out car loads of 'scrap'. Brand new parts that had been purposely damaged so as not to be pilfered from the scrap cars and reused.
Manufacturers are very particular about what products get in the hands of their customers.
About 25 years ago a few slightly damaged vehicles from a CP derailment were kept by CP for use by company officials. I saw one driven by a Deputy Superintendent; it had a plate fastened to the dash reading something like " Not to be resold, to be scrapped when taken out of CP Rail service.
so r my trains. we be high speed and only at night on the FEC
Back when I lived in Rochester, Mn,,, two brothers of high school age saved up their money and ordered a Red 1985 Ford Mustang GT. During delivery it rolled off of the auto carrier and was destroyed. Ford tried to tell the young men the destroyed Mustang was what they were getting. They took Ford to court and Ford ended up building them a bright red 86 Mustang GT.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
I should specify the Mustang rolled off of the rail car auto carrier and not a semi auto carrier.
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