CE 515 Railroad Engineering Car Ownership and Distribution Source: Armstrong, Ch 10 “Transportation exists to conquer space and time -”

Railroad Car Ownership? Balance – Too few = potential loss of business – Too many = more expenses Car ownership/upkeep is 15% of expenses

Originating & Terminating Carriers Originating carrier – Produce more products than consume – Usually short of cars Causes need to lease them Terminating Carriers – Consume more than produce – Have many “emptys”

Private Car Ownership Railroads encourage utilities to own their own cars – In exchange, get reduced freight rates – Example: power plant having their own coal cars Reduces railroads’ new car investments and maintenance costs Initials end in “X”

Car Rental Systems Bilateral Agreements – Use of another railroad’s cars – Terms and rate are private – Rail Inc (subsidy of AAR) keeps track of all “interchanges” and tracks balances Per Diem – Actually per hour – How bilateral agreements are charged

Rates Need to be high enough to have return to owner Low enough to encourage the railroad to keep it long enough to find a return load – Will improve overall car use Used to be regulated by ICC

Rates Equipment Assets Management Working Committee – Recommend rates – Members represent all rail carriers Rates established using formula involving original cost and age of car – Examples: Elderly 50’ plain boxcar:$0.18/hr + $0.054/mile Newer multilevel 89’ flatcar:$1.75/hr + $0.12/mile

Service and Distribution Rules Objectives 1.Ensure well-timed movement of empties 2.Reduce empty car mileage Example: – Empties can now take detours to be loaded instead of being always being sent directly back “home”

Assigned Service Cars Cover specific products between specific shippers & consignees Car ownership is often shared by different RR’s Cars almost always return empty

Leasing Industry Leaders For the most part is comprises of small/medium sized firms – Specialize in one or two types of cars Also large companies – General Electric Railcar Services Corp. Largest fleet in the industry – TTX – GATX Financial Corp _3_id=0&doc_id=4&start=all&all_news_In_Chanell=1& details=1

Railbox & Railgon TTX Corp. – Owned by major railroads – Own standardized plain cars for use by railroads – lower rates Railbox (RBOX) : plain box cars Railgon (GONX) : plain gondolas

Railgon picture

Universal Machine Language Equipment Register Date file updated daily Shows availability for all cars Maintained by Rail Inc

TRAIN II – Telerail Automated Information Network – Keeps location of every freight car – Covers all railroad interchanges in the US and Canada SAM – Shipper Assist Message – Lets shippers receive data from cars carrying their shipments

Car Route Optimization AAR continuously does studies to improve car use strategies Database the waybills of 1% of all trains – Over 200,00 per year Generate computer programs to evaluate the effect of car service

Sources Armstrong, The Railroad: What It IS, What It Does