Is there any difference between what the shortlines of the 1970s did with the IPD boxcars and what modern shortlines are doing by selling there names out to leasing companies?(For instance Arkansas-Oklahoma Railway leases it’s name out to Greenbriar)
From a practical standpoint, probably not, from the point of view of railfans seeing the results. But each leasing agreement is specific to that project, and there may be legal and financial differendes between different leasiing agreements. You would have to examine the agreements to learn the differences.
David,
Back in the 70’s, there was a perceived shortage of box cars. The ‘fleet’ of interchange ready box cars was shrinking, and there was little interest by the class 1 railroads in investing in a new fleet. The government provide incentives like relaxed interchange rules to increase the productivity of these cars. This IPD test was for a finite time limit. Trailer-Train(TTX) built a fleet of ‘RailBox’ box cars, and many investment groups sold investors on ‘buying’ a new box car as an investment tool. The ‘IPD’ cars were all over. When the recession hit, many of these cars were back to the shortlines they were stenciled for and just ‘sat’. A lot of the investors were still paying for their cars and now had to pay storage fees as the car were not making money.
When the economy turned around, the march to ‘containerization’ was in full swing, and the ‘IPD’ test term had expired. I remember seeing a scrap yard in the Chicago area with pieces of yellow ‘RailBox’ cars waiting to go to the steel mill.
Jim
So… the leasing is for an entirely different reason and will hopefully benefit and hurt the parties.