Keys for vehicles shipped via Autoracks, in some cases, will not directly accompany the shipment. Loaded racks have gotten to destination distribution centers without keys - making it very difficult to unload the autorack expeditiously.
KBC, you might be interested in this post fom a while back about the pre-autorack days:
KBC, The simple version is it’s much like RailBox, the auto racks are ‘generic’, so when a loading center needs 50, 50 show up. No one cares what name is on them. The railroads all share the costs to build based on the % they handle. If you are say CN hauling HD trucks out of Flint, Mi. or the GM Traverse, Acadia, Enclave, CTS, ATS out of Lansing, Mi., plus the XTS, Spark, and a few more out of Detroit, Mi., you are going to own a bunch of autoracks. BNSF & UP are going to own more because CN gets to Chicago and hands most of them over. As was mentioned before the RR the gets the most revenue buys the most racks.
The rail yard in Flint for CN will often have well over 150 empty racks in it just to ship Chevy & GMC HD series pickups.
They were alot more fun to watch back in the 60s and 70s when they weren’t enclosed… One could see the vehicles that were being shipped.
Yes, now the most you can tell now is if the cars are loaded or not–and then only if the light is right.
Yes (sigh!) not too many people got a look at the next new models ahead of the railroaders who moved them!
So in theory, a bridge line that little if any on or offloading of its own, but carries large sums of the cars through from road to road, might own them as well?
Simple answer would be yes. BUT, probably not going to happen. A railroad must agree to be part of the network agreement and pay for autoracks. Unless they originate or terminate the traffic they’re not going to spend the money. The bridge lines getting paid to haul cars.
The CP has Cottage Grove MN as their unloading point and the BNSF has Daytons Bluff both in Minneapolis/St. Paul
Back in the day (late '60s), ML-12 was the hottest thing on the NYC. It ran from Flint, MI to High Bridge, NY; normally with 60-80 bi-level and tri-level racks (this was before it dawned on somebody that damage claims could be reduced by enclosing the racks). ML-12 always got the best available power and “owned” the railroad.
As a trainee learning how to run a railroad, I boarded ML-12 at Collinwood, OH once and stood behind the engineer all the way to Buffalo. When I noticed the speedometer touching 80mph, I pulled out my pocket watch and started timing the mile posts. I calculated the speed at about 80 (where track speed was 60) and just pointed to the speedometer without saying anything. The engineer’s very gruff reply was, “It’s broke!” (on a brand new GP40).
[%-)]
Frisco used to have a lot with local Chrysler plant-in fact they developed the first auto rack, one is at our MOT donated by Frisco. They were later enclosed because of people throwing things or shooting at the cars. Chrysler closed a few years ago, and I’ve never seen any autoracks on BNSF, even before the closure.
I paid a little more attention to the heralds on one of the autoracks trains we met today. I saw logos from all current class 1 railroads, except CN. It was represented however, by one with a GTW logo. I saw a couple of P&W racks, one Ferromex and a couple with Conrail logos. There was even one with a TTX logo. There was a single KCS and a handfull for both CP and NS. CSX seemed to the most represented on this particular train. Second place was about even between UP and BNSF.
Jeff