Because I’m curious/nosy, I looked at the trip plan of a car that left our lumber yard. This car moseyed up to Superior WI and is now just parked. The BNSF web portal says it was placed for “Constructive placement’. Checking the definition on ye olde internets, it sounds like that means they couldn’t get to the destination, so they just parked it close and called it good?
A couple odd things: The route plan shows the next event to be a hand-off to another railroad, perhaps CP or CN? The equipment details info shows the car is privately owned, but can run on BNSF tracks only(?) What’s next for this car?
Constructive Placement: When a car cannot be actually placed or delivered because of any condition attributable to the consignee, consignor, loader or unloader, the car will be held by BNSF short of actual placement and notice will be sent or given that the car is held awaiting disposition instructions.
Such cars which have been placed by BNSF on private or other than team tracks, including lead tracks serving the loader or unloader, will be considered constructively placed without notice.
Constructive Placement is when the destination customer cannot accept delivery of the car at their facility for whatever the reason. When a car is Constructively Placed the Demurrage clock for the car starts running. The Demurrage Clock will continue to run as the car is actually placed and will end when the car is released from the facility.
The only ones that don’t understand are those that don’t have a material interest in the business processes involved in railroading.
Railroads operate by monetizing every possible action and inaction of their customers as well as the other carriers that they are involved with. Demurrage, Car Hire, Horsepower Hours, Car Repair billing and probably half a dozen other things have price tags - there are no free lunches when dealing with railroads.
… and the end user gets put on notice that the blunder in his back yard (usually caused by him) is gonna cost him…Queue up the puppy dog tears and indignation when the demurrage bill hits…
So why did the car get constructively placed at Superior, WI? How might this have been caused by the receiver in SD? Could there be other causes for constructive placement unrelated to the receiver? From the information given to Murphy, how is he supposed to know what action to take to get the car out of jail?
Those customer personnel involved in paying the freight and demurrage bills know the in’s and out’s of the rules. Those customer personnel NOT involved in the money aspects may not know. It is the responsibility of those handling the money for the customer to educate the other personnel within the customers organization everything they need to know about the rules for the benefit of the customers organization.
I don’t know the particulars for the industries that are involved in the situation that is being presented to us.
Hypothetically - Industry A has a process that takes loaded rail cars of X commodity and turns it into Y commoditiy. Their facility CAN handle upto 25 cars per day and for whatever reasons they have to stop their process. Railroad now has 100 cars for A at the serving yard for A, there are another 300 cars consigned to A in the carriers ‘pipeline’. The serving yard for A cannot handle any more cars for A until A’s processes get back on line and they restart doing their process, cars in the pipeline, when they can operationally go no further, will be Constructively Placed. None of the cars can be Actually Placed at A until A gets their manufacturing process moving again. Once A gets back in full production and they can accept cars and work down the backlog things can eventually get back to normal.
Constructively Placed cars are not in jail. Their release and further movement to the customers actual property is dependent upon the customer’s ability to handle, process and release the cars.
Euclid
So why did the car get constructively placed at Superior, WI? How might this have been caused by the receiver in SD? Could there be other causes for constructive placement unrelated to the receiver? From the information given to Murphy, how is he supposed to know what action to take to get the car out of jail?
I don’t know the particulars for the industries that are involved in the situation that is being presented to us.
Hypothetically - Industry A has a process that takes loaded rail cars of X commodity and turns it into Y commoditiy. Their facility CAN handle upto 25 cars per day and for whatever reasons they have to stop their process. Railroad now has 100 cars for A at the serving yard for A, there are another 300 cars consigned to A in the carriers ‘pipeline’. The serving yard for A cannot handle any more cars for A until A’s processes get back on line and they restart doing their process, cars in the pipeline, when they can operationally go no further, will be Constructively Placed. None of the cars can be Actually Placed at A until A gets their manufacturing process moving again. Once A gets back in full production and they can accept cars and work down the backlog things can eventually get back to normal.
Constructively Placed cars are not in jail. Their release and further movement to the customers actual property is dependent upon the customer’s ability to handle, process and release the ca