To be clear, I released the car. Once BNSF took it off the property we were done with it. The issue is now between BNSF and whichever railroad they are trying to hand it off to in Superior.
A majority of the cars coming to us from Canada do come through Noyes. I saw that name often enough that I went exploring Google Maps and went down that rabbit hole again. I could spend days on Google Maps just looking at interesting stuff.
Hypothetically, is it at all possible that the “constructive placement” was made to benefit a customer, rather than to penalize them? We see a lot of gleeful references in this forum to demurrage, and other ways the railroads find to make their customers regret their relationship with them…but I wonder… could this situation at hand be as simple as…the railroad has a customer who requires 20 empties per day…and this car has been placed in the pipeline to be made available to them…on schedule?
Surely if the railroad knows the customer will be needing the car, then having it ~available nearby~ serves the interest of the railroad as well as the specific customer?
One additional thought …isn’t the practice of avoiding empty backhauls supposed to be considered “smart railroading”? Could the constructive placement of this car be part of such a strategy?
Now I’ll have to check out Noyes. Google Earth is always on my tabs bar and an SPV atlas is always close at hand. In the last few days I’ve been all over both Lackawanna Cutoffs, Saluda grade, the Old Fort grade, Ukrainian railways, and located Ohio Electric’s interurban tunnel near Zanesville. A big surprise was England, where I used to think you couldn’t go east-west more than two hours or north-south more than five without encountering ocean. Guess I’d imagined the place being the size of Delmarva. It’s embarassing because I was a geography whiz as a kid and later on a surveyor. Google Earth and Japanese rural railways suck me in every time.
Rick
Constructive Placement is a specific procedure that is tied to Demurrage.
Telling a customer that a car has ‘entered their pipeline’ is not constructive placement - it is simple notification.
The basics of demurrage start with - upon arrival at the destination station the customer is entitled to one placement of the car at the spot of the customer’s choice. Demurrage starts with the first 7 AM after placement. When I was working customers were allowed 48 hours from that first 7 AM to either load or unload the car as necessary. If the necessary actions require more time, then Demurrage Penalties will begin with the 3rd 7 AM and will continue until the car is released. Pulling the car from it’s original spot that the customer specified is done for free. If the customer directs the railroad to move the car from its original spot location to a different spot location, the customer is ‘on the hook’ for a intraplant switch charge; intraplant switch charges are the reason many customers buy locomotives or trackmobiles to move cars around their facili
Maybe that varies among railroads. The BNSF starts our clock at midnight after the car is placed.
In your initial post you mention that the car currently in question was privately owned. Do the railroads charge demurrage on privately owned cars after they are placed on a customer owned siding?
Sure they do. I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten a railroad owned car in. The only way I could see them not charging us demurrage on a privately owned car would be if we were the ones who owned it. Chemical companies come to mind.
I have been retired for 5 years - the years before PSR was implemented on US Class 1 carriers. Part of PSR, in addition to changing Operating Plans and cutting head count on the railroads was also a rewriting the rules of Accesorial Charges - such as Demurrage, Intraplant Switching and a raft of other charges that can be applied when the situation happens. Needless to say the rewriting of these rules was done to benefit the railroads, not the customer.
And why not, customers who are captive to rail have very few options these days… you either pay and do as you’re told or go without.
What type of cars do you get?
I guess I’ve always figured box cars and center beam flats. Outside of TrailerTrain centerbeam cars, I think all of those kind I’ve seen were owned by a railroad.
Plenty of private owned box cars out there.
Jeff
What I get to see operating on CSX’s Old Main Line indicates that railroads are selling a significant part of their car inventory to Leasing Company’s that apply their private owner initials and numbers to the cars and they seem to continue to operate much as they did when railroad owned. I am not familar with how this is being accomplished as it regards Car Hire and Accessorial Charges.
When private owner cars were predominately tank cars or other ‘special’ cars, t
Maybe I’m wrong and I’m assuming they’re private. Most recent cars had reporting marks like:WRWK****** TTZX****** ATW****** IC******
Center beam flats.
Those are railroad controlled cars. The TTZX counts as a railroad controlled car.
Car Initials that end in X are Private owner cars. Car Initials not ending in X are railroad owned.
Car Initials that have TT somewhere within the first 3
Well… there is a limit to how many cowhides you can ship back to a Canadian lumber mill… [:-,]
Back when most freight moved by boxcar, they could haul most anything. There were specialized boxcars, but you get my gist.
There’s not a lot you can haul on a centerbeam flat, other than lumber products. And a lot of other cars are similarly specialized. I would guess that you’re not going to haul sand in a grain hopper, etc, and so on.
An attempt to haul general freight in auto racks didn’t do well here on the forum.
I have seen steel beams being hauled on centebeam flats In CSX’s Dewitt yard. Defininitely an exception, but I’ve seen it on more than one occasion.
Murphy you would go nuts then tracing our LOADED cars on the UP recently. UP hauls them from Houston where they get them from the late Ed’s of this forums Belt Railway of Houston to KC where they get interchanged to the BNSF and onto us. That is what the contract they have with the shipper states that the shipper has with them. We as the consignee are not happy with this arrangement but are stuck with it. Now KC from Houston is roughly 12 hours by truck. Just why do our loaded cars need to go to El Paso Tx before heading to KC is beyond me. Recently starting about 4 months ago everything we get has been routed from Beumont Yard to El Paso then gets put back on a train back to Beumont Yard then up to KC. It is like what the hell is going on at the UP. When they get to KC and hand them over BNSF gets them to us within 2 days as they go to Galesburg the first day get put into the local which is the train for the Maywood Logistic Park and sent onward. We had one last year that took 5 months to get to us off the UP right now it is taking about 2 months in transit for a load my drivers can do in 2 days.
A lot of the specialized cars are stenciled “Restricted Loading, See Equipment Register”. Loaded backhauls are not possible in that case.