Shipping Scrap Metal by Rail

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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The following are excerpts taken from the March/April 2005 issue of Scrap (www.scrap.org). Article by Lynn R. Novelli.

In a survey conducted by ISRI (Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries) last July, 88% of the respondents rated rail transportation as “somewhat” to “very important” to their companies. Unfortunately, almost as many–82%–rated the railroads’ service as “fair” to “poor”.

“Service is the most important issue to scrap shippers”, says Steve Hirsch (of the ISRI). 79% of respondents rated consistency and reliability as the most important elements of rail service, outweighing price more than 6 to 1.

“Declines in transport speed, extended dwell times and turnaround times, and lack of power on the rail lines contribute to a domino effect”, says Doug Starosta, a member of the ISRI. “If the railroads were fluent, it would help the railcar situation tremendously”, he says. “That’s also why throwing more cars on the line will just bottlekneck the system more and not solve the problem”.

In a report by Tom Pellington, senior director of transportation for the David J. Joseph Co. (Cincinnati) says the UP has experienced a 4% decline in train speed and a 6% increase in dwell time. CSX has seen their speed decline by 9% and dwell times increase by 13%, NS speeds declined by 7% and dwell times increase by 2%. Only the BNSF has come closest to holding speeds steady with only a 1% decrease in speed with a 0% increase in dwell times.

According to the National Industrial Transportation League, Class 1 track mileage has declined by 100,000 miles in the last 20 years, from 270,000 in 1980 to 170,000 in 2002. In that same period, the number of railroad employees slid from 450,000 to 150,000. Meanwhile, the number of carloads has grown by 6,000,000.

Also, the railroads are still trying to sort out the problems stemming from their various mergers, says Greg Dixon, chair of ISRI’s rail transportation task force. For instance, mer

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In short scrap is low paying cargo, gets non priority service no difference then used newspapers or other similar very cheap commodities. [:o)][8D]

[quote]
Originally posted by zardoz
[

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I think BNSF’s policy is a good idea. The rest of the railroads should follow suit.

How many employees does BNSF have in the operations (engine crews, yard crews)?

How does it compare with the other railroads?

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Scrap metal operators/ recyclers survive under the thinnest of margins. This has been a fact for as long as I can remember. SPbed is correct. What the scrappers ought to print in their industry rag, but won’t, is a request to get their own houses in order. From a trackman’s perspective:

(1) The maintenance of their facilities is non-existant. Track is in terrible shape.
(2) They do a poor job (Most, but not all) of keeping the area around tracks clear. These industries are like minefields to any switchman that has to work them.
(3) There are enough jury-rigged devices around these tracks to either kill or maim dozens with clearance, stumbling and other assorted hazzards.
(4) You go to inform these folks to fix something before somebody gets hurt and all you get is bellyaches about shipping rates.

It is a two way street, they just do not see it until the OSHA or FRA man come to hit them where it hurts. As soon as the inspector leaves, it’s back to business as usual.

[soapbox][soapbox][soapbox]

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The scrap dealers lobbying group’s statement about not giving a high priority to low rates in one of the most bizarre statements I have run across in a long time. Only a scrap dealer could make such a statement.

When we got people off the training program we use to let them make scrap rates as a baptism under fire in the real world far, far away from their University campus.

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I will second mudchickens statements…
We serve two scrappers on the PTRA…
If given the choice of walking a120 car grain train in the middle of august, or spotting a pair of gons in either ones of these plants,the grain train wins, every time.

What he forgot to mention are the guard dogs…on hand to keep the thieves from raiding the place…and they are very good at keeping switchmen from pulling the empties and spotting the loads.

Filithy beyond what you could ever dream up, and in both of these places, the tracks disappear into the dirt, and are often covered up with scrap spilled from the gons you are supposed to pull.

We bad order these places two out of every three times, no walkways, (they are there, just buried in junk) no lights, no keepers on the gates, or the gates no longer have a railroad lock, and we can’t get in…along with the dogs loose inside the fence…

One of our switchmen did a dog in recently, it was hiding under the car he was sent to pull, and attacked him.

He grabbed the first thing at hand, which happened to be a aluminum I beam, and whacked it on the head…while he was backing up between a dumpster and the gon.
He said it dropped like a rock, must have got in a lucky shot!

He also ended up getting several stiches on his arm, which got sliced on some coiled steel scraps leaning against the dumpster, along with a tetnus shot…

And the scrapper complained over the dog, and the fact the switchman didnt pull the empty, and spot the load before calling a relief!

Ed

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Crew member: 1 Dog: 0.

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That is a pretty good reason for the switching delays but what about the loads on the trains; the in terminal waits? Have the railroads publicly told them the reasons for this so everybody else listening hears this? If no than they should because I agree with the railroads in that why should their workers get injured in that kind of a mess particularly if the load isn’t worth that much to begin with.

I was fortunate to be able to have the opportunity to tag along with Trillium’s St.Catharines switching crew and when we went in to pull out some of those DJJX high side gondolas, that yard was actually pretty decent looking. Obviously then this is not the norm for every scrapyard. Can the scrapyards be reported for any safety violations or is there any way that the railroads can file grievences through an agency to have them ensure that their switching crews are

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Junctiuon,

The most practical solution is to not switch the place until it is safe. Railroad management seldom has the guts to do that.

Mac

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I agree with what everyone says about the safety (or lack thereof) in the scrap facilities. I sustained my only railroad work injury when as a brakeman switching a scrap facility at night, I stepped on some scrap metal buried in muck (broke my ankle); in addition, I now work at a metal recycling center (fancy name for a junk yard [but don’t let the boss hear you call it ‘junk’]), so I can attest to the conditions in some scrap yards (actually we do keep ours clean).

My intention of the original post was to show how some shippers view the railroads and their operations, as well as the program that BNSF uses. I thought it was interesting.

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Thank you. While I never worked in the RR industry I was a manager in the steamship industry. Since there were always more import loads then export loads we would have to load empties to balance out the system. No matter if a container is loaded or empty you have to pay the stevedore for the lift on here & the lift off at discharge. So we came up with a plan to take the highest possible rates for loading & unloading then add in a profit & offer that rate to what we termed very “low paying cargo” like scrap & used newspapers. That insured that the low paying freight was paying to return a empty steamship container not the steamship line. if we got lucky & booked higher revenue cargo well we would just leave behind the low paying freight on the dock for the next vessel. That cycle would continue vessel after vessel after vessel. i’m am sure something similar occurs with scrap in the RR biz. [:o)][:D]

[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

Scrap metal operators/ recyclers survive under the thinnest of margins. This has been a fact for as long as I can remember. SPbed is correct. What the scrappers ought to print in their industry rag, but won’t, is a request to get their own houses in order. From a trackman’s perspective:

(1) The maintenance of their facilities is non-existant. Track is in terrible shape.
(2) They do a poor job (Most, but not all) of keeping the area around tracks clear. These industries are like minefields to any switchman that has to work them.
(3) There are enough jury-rigged devices around these tracks to either kill or maim dozens with clearance, stumbling and other assorted hazzards.
(4) You go to inform these folks to fix something before somebody gets hurt and all you get is bellyaches about shipping rates.

It is a two way street, they just do not see it until the OSHA or FRA man come to hit them where it hurts. As soon as the inspector leaves, it’s back to business as usual.

[soapbox][so

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In spite of the gripes - there is a lot of scrap moving by rail. The margins are so thin that moving much scrap by truck is almost out of the question.

dd

ps - a daylight ride on Amtak most anywhere will pass a lot of scrap yards that confirm mud’s statements.

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SPBED,

Once a car gets in the system it gets handled with the normal flow. It is not worth the trouble to sharpshoot the traffic as you describe. If you hold cars you have to have a hold track, you have to switch it now and then, and you are paying car hire on the cars.

I do not know if it still aplies, but the scrappers in the last years of regulation got special hold downs when other products took general rate increases, which had the effect of depressing their rates relative to other matierials. Nice of the ICC to force the rails to subsidize the scrappers wasn’t it?

Mac

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I do understand the RRs are not the steamship industry. What I am saying is if you have 2 calls for say a gond car but you only have 1 gond car available I would presume the RR would give the car to the shipper whose freight pays the most. [:D][:o)][:p]

[quote]
Originally posted by PNWRMNM

SPBED,

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SPBED

Probably not. That is discrimination, which if not illegal is at least immoral and fattening. Practical answer is it will go to closest loading point or to whoever’s order is oldest, depending on how car management system is designed.

Mac

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You know what? Forget the rail service to these scrap yards. Foundrys should be built nearby to melt the scrap down to pig iron or whatever we call them today.

Then these loads can be shipped out of the foundry on trucks or train as revenue.

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Normal safety inspections by the local government authorities would solve the problem. Why don’t they do it? Are they being bought off? But there is no reason why you railroaders reading this post cannot call the police after subjecting yourselves to some horror at a scrapmetal siding and report all the safety violations. If all railroaders did this consistantly would not the jobs for all be a lot safer?

Sure it takes time. But time you take may prevent future injury!

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Yes heard that word a whole bunch in the S/ship industry “discrimination” used every day by shippers of low paying cargo. They use to complain to the Federal Maritime Commision. There were investigations yada, yada, yada but in the end PROFITS always was the end product of everything. Never any fines. In the S/ship industry no matter if the container was low paying cargo or high paying container it cost the same to load & unload it. I’m sure lets say from NYC to CHIC via CSX the costs to move a car of low paying freight & high paying freight is more or less the same. Again I have not been employed in the RR biz just worked very closely with them & if the RRs are not interested in making mega bucks then oh well to them. [:o)][:p][:D][:)]

[quote]
Originally posted by PNWRMNM

SPBED

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My favorite train is NS 177 which is a Chicago - Ft Wayne/Cincinnati manifest. When I hear it on the scanner, I go watch it. It almost always has at least 40 cars of scrap metal.

Something sort of neat, as an economic railfan, after watching train after train of containers and auto racks to watch a REAL train with boxcars, tanks, covered hoppers, and gons loaded to the brim with scrap metal.

I look at it this way…NS177 usually has 100+ cars. If 40 of those are scrap metal, then that is still a very profitable train.

Anyone know where rates can be found on scrap? What would a load from Chicago to Ft. Wayne pay?

ed

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No maybe at the NS site they have a calculator of freight charges you can use to get the number? [:o)][:)][:D]

[quote]
Originally posted by spbed