Let me see if I got the way freight moves in railroads is right. Say “Jamestown Paper company” ships plain newspaper (1 boxcar full) to “Jacksonville paper” in Jacksonville. Now, that car arrives in Jacksonville yard, then CSX unloads it, and then, the newspaper comes and picks it up, right?
Sorta.
The loaded paper boxcar gets to the yard and then is taken to the customer via a local train.
The customer unloads the car at thier dock.
They have these big rolls of paper that are fed into the printing presses.
Just maybe it’s convient to reload that boxcar with tomorrow’s newspaper and return it to the origin city to be distributed.
If the news paper that wants the boxcar load of newsprint rolls does not have a rail dock, they can specify the car to be sent somewhere to be forklift transferred onto a drayage truck-trailer that will take it to the news print building.
So the company must have a dock at the yard? Do they build there own docks, or do they just use them along with many other companies? Is there a limit to how small a shipment can be? Can it be like a washing mashince inside a 50ft. boxcar? I guess as long as the costumer pays for it, anything can go in it… What about coal cars? Do the power plants have shortlines running to there facility? Because I have never seen a coal truck.
it depends some places share unloading facilites some have there own where I live in Indiana Notre dame still has their own power plant there are tracks that run to the coal pile but the tracks and bridge need work, ND owns them. ND even thought they have tons of money are frugal with it so what we do is take it to a unloading building a several miles away and drop off the cars they share a unloading track with a coke company that hauls coke to small mills in the area and they unload it and truck it to the coal piles in ND and the coke company does the same
1.) RR spots empty car at Jamestown Paper’s dock.
2.) Jamestown employees load car.
3.) RR pulls loaded car.
4.) Loaded car enters traffic flow.
5.) RR spots load at Jacksonville Paper’s dock.
6.) Jacksonville employees unload car.
Said docks do not have to be at a yard. They can be anywhere the railroad runs. The dock could be privately owned and for the exclusive use of the owning company. There are also communal docks, usually called team tracks or transloading facilities, where anyone can receive and load or unload a railcar for a fee.
Unless the transloading is being handled under contract by the railroad (or one of its subsidiaries), railroad employees have little to do with the loading or unloading of a car, beyond spotting it at the proper location.
The shipment size can be what ever you’re willing to pay for. Although for ecomonic reasons, it’s exceedingly rare to ship anything less then a carload.
Nick
I doubt that it’s still done, but when I started w/ the RR a shipper could get a carload rate w/ multiple stops. We would occasionally get a car consigned to a local consignee w/ a “partial load” that would be sent on to the next consignee when the car was released. Now if you’ve got less than a full carload you’re directed to the nearest trucker.
Not the nearest trucker, you will be giving the load at the lowest accepted rate by the most wretched and starving trucker willing to take a loss just to get back into profitable lands. That trucker may be two states away and willing to get that load, especially if it is heading his way.
Nick is 100% correct in his description of the ways this load would be handled. The only thing I would add is that where he states, “3) RR pulls car”, might well involve more than one railroad which could be either major roads, shortlines, or any combination thereof.
Mark
NBroder wrote: “…The shipment size can be what ever you’re willing to pay for. Although for ecomonic reasons, it’s exceedingly rare to ship anything less then a carload.”
Economic is the key working issue. How bad the product is needed starts the process, the next step is which is the cheapest transportation, can we use an excess of the product?[ This being an issue of a partial load vs. a full load/ an exclusive use of the transport ie only the item needed or a carload/truckload of those items]. What are the available facilities at the destination to unload- is there a rail siding at the destination that can be used/truck unloading dock? The cost vs. convienence works back to what method is economically feasible for that reciever of the needed goods, as to transport.
Kind of an over simplification, but you can get the idea.