I was out fanning the CN today and heard a local talking to what I think was CN Customer Service. Seems an industry wasn’t ready or couldn’t handle the incoming cars. Is this kind of thing common and what happens next?
Demurrage charges
Yep, having worked in the Customer Service Area for my employer, Canadian Pacific Railway, that could be a possibility. I’m wondering if the customer actually ordered in the car(s); then decided at the last minute against it or if they were constructively placed to begin with and the crew P/U’d them in error. I would think that if it were the former there would be some extra switching charges assessed to the customer.
Depends on the situation. With many industries we serve, as soon as the cars hit the terminal, they go into Constructive Placement status. Most of those are privates.
The fun starts when the local or industry job attempts to deliver them on the next available trip. When you get to the plant or siding, and cannot get them physically in, you put a hold status and a reason why the work was not done, and the time. From that time forward, they get billed. Some customers on the day they get a spot, will supply us with a list of cars to pull, and those to spot. Those cars which were not ordered, remain in the yard and are billed because they are “available”.
Other customers who use system cars, have ordered them, and again have to take them on arrival, or get billed. If however it is the Railroad’s problem, it’s a gratis.
There is no such thing as a yard with room for storing cars for customers any more. This is why most customers are on-line looking at their fleet, where they are at, and when they will arrive and plan for it. These customers are on the phone every morning to make sure their cars get out on the locals.
Things like system grain hoppers cost way too much to have sitting around. If you order them, you agree to have room for them on arrival. If we have other customers waiting for the same types of cars, we just simply re-bill them. Sometimes this happens without asking, other times, we need to request it.
We have a pool of cement hoppers for two plants in town. They arrive no-billed, and are held for the next car order from the customers, usually within the same day. The cars in the pool never change, and are not directly assigned to any one customer. Keeping a balance between both customers require
I have seen this happen at this place previously but not had a scanner with me to hear the “behind the scenes” exchange of info. I assumed that the plant simply over-ordered. Can the RR refuse service if the errors/refusals clog and delay other service in the nearest yard? I’d speculate that if this happened enough someone would make a phone call and ‘suggest’ in polite terms that the industry figure out the problem.
Look at the AAR embargo sheets and see all the industries with “congestion” issues.
On most roads you probably wouldn’t hear this, but CN has decided to add congestion to the radio, and not allow train crews to report car movements (placing, pickups, etc.) via phone. It gets rough when the crews have to list each car over the radio. Between the RTC, customer service, Diesel Doctors, detectors and train crews doing switching work, the radio gets quite congested.
CN has a “Customer Service Dept?” You must be kidding? I thought Hunter did away will as such nuisances in the name of getting to a better operating ratio.
Did you know that if you want CN to mail an invoice to you, they charge an extra $8.00 for it? You must accept invoices via EDI (electronic) or you pay Hunter even more for the privilege of riding his RR.
What’s the big deal? The airlines have been doing this for a while with e-tickets and lots of banks won’t send you your cancelled checks anymore, only photocopies.
That’s just good business sense. It costs useless extra money to print and snail mail thousands of invoices per day when it can be done with less expense electronically. CN would be remis if they weren’t trying to hold their costs down.
And it is a privilege, not a right, to use their railroad. If they want to charge extra for paper invoices, that’s their own right. After all, it is their railroad, not the customer’s.
Extra Demurage (sp) charges are quite common on CSX, at least on the Louisville Division. There are many customers that really have a troublesome time trying to figure out where the need cars and what cars need to be loaded and unloaded. There are several of CSX’s customers right in the Louisville Terminal that get extra demurage charges simply because they can’t make up their minds as to which cars need to be pulled, placed, and re spoted.
CSX customer service had it out the with a company called Louisville Packing because every time a crew went over to swich out their industry they would order a Place car in the same spot that a car they weren’t finished unloading was. Because of this crews would take the place car over and leave it infront of the other spoted cars. Then after that was done, the forman on the job would fill out the Work Order on the computer, then the Louisville Division would get a “hit” because on the computer it looks as if the crew didn’t do something the customer ordered. In turn it falls back on CSX and the charges for that car are droped. So basiclly Louisville Packing was trying to get a “free switch” or a “free spot”.