I’ve recently seen a bunch of intermodal cars with the reporting marks “NOKL”. Looking it up, it’s a small shortline in Northwestern Oklahoma! What is this shortline doing with modern intermodal cars running in the northeast? It is primarily a railcar leasing company, or is really there that much intermodal business in norwest Oklahoma?
Confused on this one…
More than a few shortlines have owned more cars than they would have had room for on their railroad, all for the purpose of generating income.
NOKL is one of the many shortlines that lease out their marks to leasing companies. GE Capital for example owns freight cars that carry marks like AOK, TR, HS and NOKL. There are several other nuances to the arrangement that I can’t fully recall right now, since each arrangement depends on the type of lease - but the same thing can be applied to freight cars leased by major railroads. For example there are certain leased cars in the UP fleet that carry CHTT and more recently now CMO marks (which is similar but not exactly the same- UP still owns the CHTT/CMO marks and applies them to the car themselves to ID it as a lease fleet car in their fleet- while the NOKL cars, GE purchases the rights to use the marks on the car and leases it to any road that needs it). In short- the cars are not owned by the NOKL, but by a leasing company that pays a fee to use the marks on certain types of cars in their fleet.
IIRC - NOKL is now RailAmerica owned.
What it is/was is the remnant of the Northwest end of the old KATY (MKT) in Woodward, OK consisting of a yard and about 3 miles of old MKT/Beaver Meade & Englewood RR track near the Oklahoma panhandle badlands. There is a grain elevator on the property along with the car shops.
Go to the library and check out Katy Northwest.
I believe most of the NOKL cars are owned by First Union Rail Corporation.
Dale’s got it–for all intents and purposes, NOKL is First Union Rail when it comes to who gets the money these cars earn. If First Union Rail decides that it can earn more money using a railroad reporting mark (as opposed to one of its private-company marks), the car will have NOKL lettering. The trend currently seems to be away from NOKL, with covered hoppers and gons being relettered NDYX (another reporting mark of First Union Rail), but box cars and center-divider flats not being relettered. And, as was mentioned, the recently-built intermodal flats are being delivered with NOKL reporting marks.
You lost me there. How does the ownership of the reporting mark affect the earning power of a car?
Private cars collect car-hire on the basis of mileage only.
Railroad-owned reporting marks on cars entitle them to collect car hire on the basis of per diem (hourly compilation, last I checked) with a mileage component. There are different per diem rates for cars depending on age and value. So, conceivably, it could make more sense to have the cars in one reporting mark or another depending on their use, their age, and other factors. I’d probably have to be in the business to explain this better.