A little blurb in the December 2012 issue of Trains Magazine says that UP is buying 225 new, 72 foot refrigerated cars for $61 million. That works out to $271,111 each.
It goes on to say that in 2011, UP had a fleet of 4920 refrigerated cars. Certainly, they’re not all new, but 5145 cars @ $271,111 would be something like $1.46 billion dollars worth of refrigerated cars.
Because of the constuction and the equipment, I’m sure a refrigerated car is about the most expensive common car on the railroad. Would a covered hopper cost half that much?
That would be true if they were all brand new. However, the data in various tables contained in UP’s form 10k for 2011 indicates they owned 2494 refrigerated cars and leased an additional 4300. The average age of the fleet was 23 years. I can’t account for the difference in car numbers…
The cost of freight cars of ALL types was $1.9 billion with an undepreciated book value of $896 million. I assume, but do not know, that most leased cars are excluded from those figures as operating (vs capitalized) leases.
A few years ago a new tank car was in the $70,000 range. My guess is a covered hopper is similar in costs. The cost for a refer car is high because of several factors:
The length of the cars are longer than covered hoppers.
Refer unit.
Insulation.
I dont know specifics, but am somewhat familiar with the cost differntial of refer trailers vs dry van trailers.
Interesting, that I could be looking out the window at $10 to $20 million worth of equipment rolling along on 2 steel rails, spiked down to wooden ties on a pile of gravel.
We have a couple Dedicated Contracts in the State of Washington we serve all year and we use Reefer trailers to do so. Bossman just bought 6 New trailers to serve them as it takes a total of 5 trailers and this way we can have a spare trailer for whatever needed. For 6 Brand new 2013 53 foot Reefers he spent Close to 600K for them or 100K each. Why are they so Expensive the Trailers where only 40K each and they are Ice Cream Spec Units we got. The Reefer Units are what Killed him at 60K each why the Emissions Regualtions got Tightened up on Reefer Units and it does not matter for Rail or OTR anymore if they are for Containers trailers or Railroad Cars if Thermo King or Carrier is Making them they will all meet CARB Standards is what he was told.
You want to hear the old school ka-ching of a cash register? Start adding up the costs of the vehicles inside a string of auto racks. In the eighties it used to run something like a million bucks every four or five cars.
Wish I could by a fire truck for a mere quarter million. A custom pumper will run $350K to $400K (and up) and a tillered aerial (the type where a firefighter steers the back end, too) can easily go for a million.
We have 2 local firetruck manufacturers- Rosenbauer, and Crimson Fire Apparatus. It’s pretty common for fire departments to have a drawing to see who gets to fly or drive out to South Dakota and pick up a new fire engine to drive home. I once met a group of guys from somewhere in Pennsylvania, who were picking up a firetruck at Rosenbauer (Then Central States Fire Apparatus). You couldn’t have met a prouder bunch of guys, than the ones who got to drive that truck home.
I knew someone that had a job delivering new firetrucks. He was a firefighter for years and it was funny… everyone envied him.
But as he put it: "I’m driving a truck with an empty water tank, governed at 55mph, with no radio". Plus he had more than one issue where one of these new trucks failed to stay running.
Oh, about any fruit or vegetable we eat save bananas. Cantaloupes, carrots, grapes, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, apples, etc.
These are “The last time I looked numbrs”:
California produces about half the fresh fruits and vegetables in the US - with significant exports to eastern Canada. They do ship this produce across the country in large volume. This was a core market for the SP and the loss of the business contributed greatly to that railroad’s decline.
Washington state produces 59% of the apples in the US They go country wide in significant volume.
Washington and Idaho combine to produce about one half of the potatoes in the US. Again, these spuds move nationwide. Per capita potato consumption is fairly high. It’s the only food I can think of that people will eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The UP covers the California producing areas with its old SP lines. It’s got a good presence in Washington. UP is the only railroad serving the Idaho potato production area.
Rob Leachman has a two part series about perishable traffic in the most recent issues of “The Streamliner” published by the Union Pacific Historical Society. I’ve read the first instalment and just ordered the second.
Into the 1970s the railroads were providing truck competitive service on California produce, at least to the east coast. If you remember that time, you’l
Thank you. I know it’s good to have truckers on the forum. They help define the rail environment and provide good information.
$60K for a TK unit is astounding. I hope everyone realizes that this is really a government imposed tax on the American people. The trucker has no place to get the money for the TK units other than to charge it through in his rates. Eventually those added costs go to the end users, and that is us.
Anyway, it will help the railroads. Using railcars, as the UP is doing, will mean fewer TK units are needed to move the product. A railcar and a truck each require one CARB compliant TK unit. But a railcar carries more potatoes, apples, etc. So the added cost per potato or apple will be less on the rail. But the consumer is still going to have to pay for it.
Speaking of delivering fire engines, in 1975, Ward-LaFrance went on strike, took our new four-wheel-drive pumper to their nearest dealer as they feared union sabotage. I ended up going from Crested Butte, Colorado, to wherever our new rig was (I don’t recall the town, nor the name of the dealership.) Arrived in a pouring rain, was met at the airport by the father of the then owner of the business (which I believe may have also been a manufacturer, but again I don’t recall the details.)
The father was quite drunk, not much help in getting me set up to drive to Colorado, such as providing the apparently-missing transit plate. I left the dealership, entered the New York Thruway, only to see a couple of patrol cars in the median, facing west-bound traffic. For whatever reason, or lack thereof, they did not stop me, so on I went.
I shall skip some of the rest of the adventure, as it would make this too long, so I shall conclude that, a few days after arriving in Crested Butte, the now-expired transit plate arrived in the mail.