http://rrpicturearchives.net/pictures/128058/20180524_121409.jpg
KYKX is the reporting mark, the car looks to be ex-NS. Who now owns it?
I need more information than what’s available to me to determine the owner of reporting marks KYKX.
I can confirm that KYKX 111500 was formerly NS 111500; it originated as Southern 118032, built in March 1974. This company owns ten such cars, range 111500-111536. But I can’t find the #$%^&* owner!
I don’t know enough about the private car business to make any form of ‘educated’ pronouncement about what I have seen taking place in recent years.
Over the past decade, and probably more, what were once railroad ownership cars have been going into private ownership (car intials end with X). Undoubtly this is some form of financial ploy - but I have no idea who is benefiting. The railroads by selling the cars off the books; the financial organizations that get the cars, maintenance of the cars, car hire generated by the cars and lease rates from customers for the cars. The formere railroad cars that I have seen in private service seem to be ‘free runner, general service’ type cars, hoppers, gons, flats - and as such I doubt that a railroad customer is the leasing party, I suspect the railroads are leasing fleets of these cars to sustain their car needs.
What the monetary difference is between ownership and leasing of the same cars is beyond my expertise.
I couldn’t find anythinf on RRPA which is what I usually try and look at. Infact I have the first picture of that mark on there.
I also decied to look up the line I found this on (NS). There’s a pulp mill I think that International Paper owns them. Not sure if it’s related to the lumber mill located nearbye that I think the cars are used for.
Built March 1974 - isn’t there a 40-year age limit on freight cars (2014), or could that have been waived?
- PDN.
You can apply for a life extension to 50 years.
After that point I believe cars are banned from interchange service.
I have recently seen a number of CN gondolas with mid-1960s build dates in revenue service, hauling scrap metal mostly. And many of our orange welded-rail train flatcars were built during the 1940s and are riveted together, not welded.
How do age regulations work for passenger equipment?
Age restrictions on passenger equipment? Well, up until recently when it appears that the current Amtrak “Big Cheese” is doing his damndest to lose the business there didn’t seem to be any age limit on privately owned passenger cars as long as they were Amtrak-compatable in all respects. Some of those cars go way back into the “heavyweight” era, and that’s 80 years or more.
I believe a lot of the “Am-Can” passenger cars are well over the 40-year mark but are still in service, they just keep rebuilding 'em and they just keep rolling.
The age limits in the US apply to cars used in Interchange Service. Cars in excess of the age limits can still be used on the owner property.
How that applies to Private Ownership (X) cars on a single property, I have no idea. I also have no idea of how the age limits apply to passenger cars.
That is a very good point about private cars, I wonder how far back the oldest “street legal” one dates!?
I was thinking more of the VIA Rail stainless steel and Amtrak “heritage fleet” cars, which were built during the 1950s if not earlier and are still in revenue service today.
Does a Amtrak or VIA train running on multiple freight railroads count as “interchange service”?
I BELIEVE there is a entirely different subset of Car Rules that apply to the aspects of Passenger Car Operation and their maintenance requirements and age limits if any.
Most of us have only been involved on the freight side of the railroad business and therefore have had limited if any involvement in the Passenger Car Rules.
I saw Jade Green ex-PC Hoppers around in 2015 so I think there are a few exceptions.
If cars stay on their owners property - there is no age restrictions. Depending upon the reporting marks on the Jade Green ex-PC cars - they can run anywhere on their owners property - the owner could be either CSX or NS; however cars with the NS family of reporting marks could not be on CSX and be legal.
Yes, but…I don’t want to sound like I’m searching for the exception, but it does make me wonder about something in reference to “Interchange Service”. For instance, the Dakota & Iowa Railroad hauls rock trains from their company owned quarry 20 miles down the road on D&I owned tracks. At that point they hop on the BNSF tracks formerly owned by the state of SD (long ago, Milwaukee Road). From there, they run another 75 or so miles to Sioux City Iowa, where the rock is dumped (I’ve been told) to be reloaded on an outgoing railroad’s cars. In a situation like that, are those cars owned by the D&I considered as being in Interchange service?
Only my opinion. but since the cars are handled in D&I trains using trackage rights over BNSF, they aren’t being interchanged. They aren’t being used in interline service.
Jeff
KYKX is the reporting mark of Kykenkee, Inc. The company’s been raound since 2010; it’s based in Vance, Alabama.
These cars have been granted a waiver to permit them to run up to 50 years after beig built.
They may have only started acquiring railcars in 2010, but the company has been around a lot longer than that:
Google Earth shows a rail spur with log and lumber cars at their mill.
I keep seeing people write there is an exception to the 50 limit if the car is not used in interchange. However, when I read the law, I see no such exception. It looks to me like the FRA has to approve of a freight car over 50 being used even if it is not interchanged.
The best example I can think of of were the CNW iron ore cars that ran through the 80s into the 90s in interchange service. I think the cars were built in the 30s but were still interchanged per agreement with the interchange partners.
They were 60+ years old before they were replaced.
I believe that the ore jennies were operated under an FRA waiver, probably because they were in what amounted to captive service.