Plastic from Piont A to Piont B?

[Anonymous]

How does a hopper car of plastic's get from Point A to Point B. Example: A whiskey bottling company in New Hampshire needs to make more bottles so it buy's a car load of plastic's from a company on the Texas coast. The problem is the whiskey firm's siding is serviced by Guildford R.R. So in order to get that car of plastic,that car will have to travel on Houston Harbor to the Union Pacific to the Norfork & Southern to the Guildford R.R. My questions are:
1.Would the shipping company have to contact all these railroads and make indivisual contracts with them to get the car moved?
2. Who would get paid the most for this move would Guildford because the final distination is on there track?
3. If the hopper is owned by the U.P. would they get more because they own the car?
4. How do railroads communicate with one another to make this move happen?
TIM A

[Anonymous]

A very educated question Tim!
1. No, the shipper only need contact the serving carrier.
2. Who would get paid more would depend on the route and how the line haul revenue is divided. These are agreed upon percentages between the carriers. The routes are established to permit the car to move via the closest route. There's a lot you can elaborate on this, too!
3. The equipment owner would not receive more of the line haul revenue revenue just for owning the car. Car hire is a separate item based on time and mileage. Now there's a conversation topic as well!!!!!
4. Railroads communicate with each other electronically as well as through a paper trail. They also use Association of American Railroad computers. To move a car, there must be a waybill. That tells ops where and how the car is to move. Listed on the waybill are the origin, destination, route and any special instructions involved such as hazmat, do not hump, etc. Some waybills have the charges listed on them but that is not necessary to move the car. A copy of the waybill moves with the car so that each road, in turn knows how to handle it. Another copy is electronically transmitted to each road's accounting department.
All revenue from a line haul move is settled by the destination carrier, even if the charges are prepaid by the shipper. In a case like that, the origin road collects the money and sends it direct to the destination road. The destination road then apportions it according based on the agreed to divisions of revenue. Each road keeps a record of the cars it handles and will trace the destination road if its revenue portion is not received. I believe they start tracing at three months, but I'm not sure, a lot has changed since I've been involved with that. Interline revenue and car hire records are matched to ensure that neither moneys due from transportation nor car hire are omitted, undercharged or overcharged. It's not a perfect system, but what is? It does allow the railroads to achieve a error rate within an acceptable range. This is a very broad topic and what's written here is hardly more than a name introduction. There are several sub-departments of the accounting departments devoted to these different facets.

[Anonymous]

Oops!, forgot to sign off the previous post! I get that way sometimes!!!!! gdc

[wabash1]

i might add that when a car goes from lets say the up to the ns the agents would notify a day in advance or even that day that the car rbox 000 will be interchanged. so when the up delivers this car for handling on the ns they call again time and date is recorded.by both agents. the up job is done. Now the ns will pick up rbox 000 and take it to a yard if its picked up on line of road.where soometime in the next week it will get classified to a train. ( we cant let our people down) then just as soon as there is enough people and a train light on tonnage the yard master will get this car on a train. (never mind the train is headed the wrong way. this is someone elses job to catch this and route it the right way next week.) now the load that was headed for new york and was in knoxville is setting in st.louis. this is where somebody will say new york is east and head the car the right direction. when the delivering road gets this car the following week and delivers it the same day. this is where the conductor comes in. he gets to here how the customer been waiting on this car for 2 weeks now. and how bad the service was. all becouse he recived the car in interchange and delivered it the same day. i can give you instance after instance of this. and the clerk/agents dont care. makes you wonder how we make a profit.

[Anonymous]

Misroutes occur accidently and, in some cases, as "J" has described. But they are a minority and service is much better. Both NS and CSXT experienced a crisis immediately follwing the Conrail transaction which lead to refunds and claims paid to certain customers for service interruptions. That congestion has been addressed and chronicled many times. There were a lot of hours and a lot of time away from home by many dedicated and hardworking people from all roads to pick through the mess and get trains running. Having a view of both, the NS mess was not as severe as that at CSXT. gdc

[edblysard]

Hi Tim, We could use real examples for this, say your whiskey bottler called Phillips Plastics for a hopper of plastic suitable for injection molding. Phillips shipping agent, working with Up, BNSF , NS or CSX, would determine which route was a: cheapest, b: fastest, or c: a combination of both. Phillip's agent would know this as they are familar with the railroads agents and are on a first name basis with them, after all, they work together every day. When the buyer, Whiskey Bottles Inc, and Phillips agree on a price and a shipping route, then Phillips would call us, PTRA, and either request we pull a certain car from the storage yard, or pick up the car at their plant. We would then pull the car, take it to the north yard, and add it to whichever carriers outbound the agents had decided upon. Entering the yard, the car passes a AIE scanner, those funny looking boxes you see at the throat of railyards. This picks up the cars information, and places it in a common data bank, accessable by the other railroads. When we add the car to an outbound, and it leaves the yard heading, say to engelwood yard,(UP) then the scanner would again record the cars reporting marks into the same data base, along with the time the cars left the PTRA's north yard and its location in the train. By now the cars destination, contents, shipper and recievers info has also been added to the data that goes with this car. This info is forwared to the recieveing yard,(UP) and compared with the scan they perform when the train arrives there. It would arrive at engelwood, be scanned again, then switched over the hump into whichever outbound train UP had going towards a yard nearest the buyers destination. At each yard the car enters, it would be scanned, and the computers would assign it to a track or train heading in the right direction. If UP didnt serve the buyers plant proper, but instead NS did, then at some point, the car would be intechanged with NS, often at a pre determined yard, and NS would take the car to its final destination. Each railroad the car travels on would get a part of the revenue the cars generates, I am sure gdc will explain that in depth in the miss r.r revenue post. But keep in mind that before the advent of computers and the scanning system, the car was tracked by clerks, walking a train as it enters a yard, or in the receiving tracks, noting each car and it destination on paper, and then returning to their office, when they made up switch list by hand, and forward these to the yardmaster, who in turn give the list to yardmen, (switchmen) to sort out the cars into their proper tracks. Imagine the number of clerks and the tons of paper used every day just to move a train! Ever notice on some older box cars and tank cars a small wooden plaque about 8"x10" at chest hight? At one time, an actual routing card was tacked to this, with the destination and other required info written on it. Clerks had to read that and decide where the car goes. The scanner system makes that unnecessary now, although mistakes do occur, not as often as they once did.The little gray tag you see attached about chest high on cars is a small transmitter, which sends the cars reporting make via a weak raido signal to the reciever/scanner. This tag only works within a few yards of the scanners, as it is activated by the light raido signal the scanner sends out, and for a few seconds the tag and scanned exchange the cars info. No batteries needed. With a scanner at the entrance and exit points of a yard, and sometimes along the route with defect detectors, a cars progress can be followed, somewhat. On some roads, these tags give info to the defect detectors, on some roads not.
Hope this helps,
Ed

[Anonymous]

Ed, I tried to answer all of Tim's questions in my post of 12/15. Your answer was more thorough.
Have a safe day!!! gdc

[Anonymous]

Have you ever thought about writing for trains magazine? That was a first class explanation. For the first time I understand how railroads get paid.
TIM A

[edblysard]

I second that motion, surley you have submited something for publication before?
Ed

[Anonymous]

J did bring up a interesting thought. What if our hopper car of plastic made it as far as Chicago. While in Chicago it was discovered a bad wheel bearing. Now the car of plastic has to sit in a car repair line that is back-logged. Trouble is this plastic is time sencetive the manufactor needs this plastic for holiday whiskey jug's. If the whiskey company can show lost revenue who foots the bill? The contract originator the car owner or the railroad that pulled the car for repair?
TIM A

[Anonymous]

One other thing. I hope I am not being a bother but, who pay's to have the car sent back to Texas? Is that included in the shipping cost? Also even though the car is empty does the car owner still get paid or does the owner have to pay other railroads to get his car back to home territory?

[Anonymous]

Tim, you're not a bother. Empty returns are free but car owners do receive the same car hire rates whenever the car is moving off line. Car hire is a whole different subject, just, if not more, involved than revenue. That's why railroads love to load a car being returned. There are some very definative rules about this as well.
gdc

[Anonymous]

This is another subject that doesn't have an easy answer. Major repairs of other railroads' equipment requires the approval of the owner. IF the repair is smaller, known as running repairs, they are completed as necessary and the car is forwarded on its route. The railroad term for a car needing repair is "bad order". Such a car would be so tagged with a bright orange placard with the words Bad Order boldly showing with smaller spaces for defect(s) date, etc. Wheels, wheel sets, bearings, etc. would be a major repair. Running repairs are things like brake shoes or air hoses. Ordinarily, service delays caused by defective equipment are not compensatory to the customer, but that can mitigated by individual customer relations. gdc