It sounds like the OP is in good hands with site operations.
Time period, of course, matters which rail cars or road names you would see. By way of example, duringthe 1960’s, and 1970’s thru mid-1980’s, GM preferred:
86’ box cars with 8 doors [4 per side] Athearn & Walthers
60’ ACF single door box cars (Atlas)
Ford Preferred:
86’ box cars with 4 doors (2 per side). Ford preferred Pullman Standard (Athearn/Walthers)
60’ P-S 7315 waffle auto parts cars (ExactRail)
60’ Greenville 7100 auto parts cars (ExactRail)
If others can add in appropriate auto parts cars - please do.
There is a lot of good information over at TrainOrders on autoparts trains; here is one topic:
Very interesting thread to read through! Also, re:
I have wondered this myself, and although I’m no expert in economics, I suspect that trucking has been superseding rail largely because all of the trucking infrastructure is paid for by the government with public tax money.
All the highways, streets, intersections, signs, bridges, traffic lights, etc… none of it has to be directly paid for by the company transporting things. All they need is a truck and a driver.
In contrast, if my understanding is correct, railroads have to foot the bill for everything. Starting with the actual land on which the railroads run, on top of that they need to build and maintain tracks, switches, signals, bridges and tunnels, probably grade crossings, CTC facilities, and the list goes on. Adding all that up, and paying for the driver and even the locomotive itself is probably a minor expense.
Just something I’m guessing at though- anyone with any knowledge and/or numbers please chime in.
The whole thing is way more complicated than just infrastructure costs. Any time the issue of "why isn’t it rail served’ comes up, it always has an unspoken assumption that the local railroad wants to serve a given customer or that the customer’s needs can be met.
The first mile problem at a parts maker might introduce a delay in transloading that an automaker isn’t interested in having and it is faster to just have the same truck carry it the whole way.