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”
http://redlightnaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/thomas.jpg
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
https://www.railinc.com/rportal/web/guest/home
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
http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/blogs/investorcentric/uploaded_images/dollar-bill-question-mark-734386.jpg
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
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qH8XMxwphWA/0.jpg
Leasing Industry Leaders
• For the most part is comprises of
small/medium sized firms
– Specialize in one or two types of cars
http://rscat.com/index.php?gr_1_id=19&gr_2_id=7&gr
_3_id=0&doc_id=4&start=all&all_news_In_Chanell=1&
details=1
• Also large companies
– General Electric Railcar Services Corp.
• Largest fleet in the industry
– TTX
– GATX Financial Corp
http://tankcarhomepage.railfan.net/photos2/gatx6105.jpg
Railbox & Railgon
• TTX Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boxcar_railbox.jpg
– 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
http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/NTCGRR/railgon8.JPG
https://www.railinc.com/rportal/web/guest/umleremis
• 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
http://4rail.net/4rmedia/nam/usa_gatx_ca_bakersfield_tankcarLPG_gatx57162__2008_XL.jpg
Sources
•http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-113855705.html
•Armstrong, The Railroad: What It IS, What It Does
•http://www.answers.com/topic/rental-of-railroad-cars