Today’s (wed) Wall Street Journal indicated that there is a shortage of RR car carriers… UP was cited as especially hard up for carriers. However the artivle only said Ford and GM are backed up about 1 day on the average. Another article I found stated RR pulled 22,661 cars of various types out of storage last week.
Link (I hope) to the article, as follows:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703385404576258994245530196.html
“Rail Woes Hit Auto Deliveries - Fairgrounds, Storage Lots Fill as Freight Car Shortages Stall Detroit Shipments”, by Jeff Bennett and Sharon Terlep, Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2011, “Auto” section, page B-6 or -8 (?)
Some of the comments are interesting, esp. those from Lawrence Kauffman, an occasional author in Trains.
- Paul North.
UP does not have a shortage of autoracks, as a matter of fact they have at least twenty of these cars in storage at Grandville Wisconsin.
Several questions;
1. Is this on UP or some or some other RR?
2. Are the cars trapped behind other cars?.
3. Are these TTX cars with UP auto racks on top?.Remember the racks and the logos on top of cars are not the car owner?
4. Are they possibly bad order? Do they look like they are in state of good repair? (SOGR?)
5. Are the brake inspections up to date (COTS less than 5 years)
6. What type of racks? Give id marks may be older type?
7. Anyone else any items?
I thought there were numerous instances where marginal short lines were being paid to warehouse idle racks on their dormant mains? I’ve heard guys mention miles of such online storage out amidst the corn fields , broken only for the occasional grade crossing