How does the freight car bussiness work?

[jettrainfan]

I'm sure im not the only one wondering this (if i am... oh well!   ), But how does the freight car business work?

Now, I've learned from previous threads that this subject is a bit broad, so i'll narrow it down the best i can to a few simpler questions.
1. If a railroad is using another railroad's freight car, I.E. NS using a CSX freight car, does CSX get paid for their freight car being used?
2. How does a company get freight cars? like if NS didn't have any cars on the property, do they contact someone or (i seriously doubt this   ) go send a couple of MP15s to go snatch some from someone else's storage yard?
3. If a car gets in a wreck, does the owner pay for the repairs, does the railroad it happened on pay for the repairs, or if its a reroute/trackage rights, does the railroad in charge of the train pay for the repairs?

I'll probably come up with a few more as time goes by, mainly if someone can answer #1.

[Desertdweller]

Jet,

I used to handle this stuff on full-size railroads.

If a freight car is being used for a customer on one railroad, and is owned by another railroad, the railroad that is using the car has to pay the railroad that owns the car.  In fact, the "borrowing" railroad has to pay the "owning" railroad for each day that car is on their property, empty or not.  This is called a "Per Diem" charge, and varies according to the type of car.  Specially equipped cars cost more in Per Diem than plain cars.

Many cars are privately-owned.  These have reporting marks (initials) that end in an "X" (not CSX-that is a railroad).  These operate under contract to the railroad or the shipper.

There is also a charge for holding cars at a customer's facility longer than 2-3 days for loading or unloading.  This is called "Demurrage".  The charge goes up as days pass and the cars are not released.  The purpose of Demurrage is to discourage customers from using cars as storage warehouses, ie: holding the loaded cars hoping the price for the commodity will go up, or to avoid having to maintain storage facilities.

How do companies get freight cars?  If the company is a railroad customer, they pick up the phone and order them from the railroad that serves them.  The railroad sees what they have on hand to fill the order, or orders cars from other railroads.
If the company is the railroad itself, it consults its Traffic Department.  Railroads keep car inventories on computer.  A Car Distributor will issue routing orders to transfer the needed cars to the point ordering them.
If cars are needed from other railroads to load, they will be ordered at that level.
If the cars are privately-owned (not railroad owned), there is usually a contract between the customer and the owner of the cars that will include provisions for ordering.  Naturally, the railroads has to be kept "in the loop".

Cars that are damaged on a railroad are generally repaired on that railroad.  Damaged cars are not allowed to be interchanged between railroads unless the damage does not affect safety.  Most railroads have repair facilities, the little ones that do not contract with commercial car repair companies to come on their property and fix the cars.  The railroad that does the repairs charge the owner of the car for the repairs.
If the cars are damaged in a wreck that is the fault of the railroad, the railroad has to pay for the damage.

No, you are not allowed to send a crew into another railroad's yard to steal cars.

Les

[J3a-614]

Well, I'll start off as best I can, but keep in mind, this is not something I'm an expert in, and I'll be working from memory, so anybody else who reads this is free to make corrections.

1.  Railroads do pay each other for the use of cars.  This payment used to be by the day, and was called "per diem" (hey, you just picked up a bit of Latin!); I've heard that in the late steam era, it would have been about $10.00 or so for standard cars, like box cars.  Today it's obviously higher, and has a mileage component.  It also varies with certain car types; standard cars cost less, while special cars, such as insulated box cars, or box cars with special loading devices, command a higher rate.

As you can imagine, each road has (or used to have) a car records bureau that kept track of cars, and directed payments to other roads.  On some roads, this would have been a small army of employees--indeed, "non-operating" employees often outnumbered the "operating" employees--and there are some interesting stories about tracking down cars that were either "lost" with a shipment that someone needed, or a car that was wanted for a return to its "home" road, but the car tracking bureau was always one step behind yardmasters and shippers who found an empty car, and loaded it and sent it on its way.

Got to go, will come back later. . .

[Desertdweller]

J3,

And how about those surprises, when a customer orders an empty car, only to open it and find it filled with some else's "lost" load?

Once, I was working on a railroad that had a string of covered hoppers on a remote siding that had been used for bentonite loading.  Bentonite is a clay that is impervious to water.  It is used for sealing earthen dams, well drilling mud, etc.

An individual noticed these cars had residual clay caked inside them.  He assumed it was cement powder.  He called to ask if he could clean the cars out and use the "cement" powder for the concrete foundation of a house he was building!

I hope he asked me before he tried to use it.

Another time (and I've seen this happen on more than one railroad), a grain elevator would open an "empty" car to find it all or partially filled with grain.  I would trace the car back to the last place it arrived at loaded.  No one at the receiving customer would take responsibility for sending the car back loaded: they would swear it was empty when it left.

Sounds like you maybe used to play these games, too.

Les

[jettrainfan]

Desertdweller & J3, Thanks for the info! The two reasons i asked was personal curiosity and because im doing a model railroad series soon. The Catch is, i want it to be about running a railroad with the same characteristics as Thomas the tank engine (Talking trains, lessons to learn, ETC). One of the "ideas" on my online notebook was a project of L&W cars, with the LW reporting marks. The cars include gondolas, box cars, center beam flat cars, coil cars and a couple of fictional cars of my personal choosing, sense they don't have covered hoppers, open hoppers or cabooses. I definitely want to get a few gondolas and box cars, sense I've seen them in person. So that would be a way to make some profit past loaning historic equipment to museums, or anywhere that likes running that kind of stuff, the CV&WS is a good customer with that one, they love to loan cars for their photo freights! (model railroad club, but it is true, they use most of my stuff on photo freights  )

Would love to hear some of those stories about lost loads and such, always makes my day a bit brighter reading about interesting railroad events!

[jward]

one note on companies using other companie's track.

this can ONLY be done with the permission of the owning railroad's dispatcher or yardmaster. for safety reasons, the railroad MUST know where all crews are working at all times. to do otherwise is to invite disater. even a collision at yard speeds can cause death, injury and massive amounts of property damage.

in addition to the permission required to operate on another railroad's tracks, the operating employees must also be qualified to operate on that line, have that railroad's timetable and rulebook in their posession, and have that rialroad's switch keys as well. yes, different railroads lock their switches with different locks. this ensures that only authorized personnel can open a switch. also, industrial spurs off signalled mainline tracks are protected with an electric lock tied into the signal system. if a train is not in the block when the switch is opened, opening the switch will set the nearest signals to stop. if there is a train in the block, it must be within about 100 feet from the switch for the electric lock to release. trains have to pull up to the switch and stop before the switch can be opened.

not only is sneaking onto another line to grab cars without permission expressly forbidden, the above procedures mean that if this were ever to occur, the railroad would have a very good idea who was responsible.

[uncbob]

What % of a typical consist in the Transition Era would be home Road

[Desertdweller]

unbob,

There is no answer to your question, because there are too many variables.  It would depend on the type of cars in the train vs. what the railroad had available to fill the demand.  It could vary from 100% to none at all.

If I were to model a typical mixed freight, I would try to keep about half the cars home road just to help establish the identity.

Les