I am so curious, what is the legal definition of the switching district, like Chicago or E St Louis switching districts?
Thanks
Craig
These are areas in which a railroad does not charge another railroad for spotting or pulling a car to be interchanged to them. For example, if CSX brings a car for delivery to an industry in the Chicago Switching District that happens to be on UP, the shipper doesn’t have to pay UP a portion of the bill.
At least I think that’s how it works.
A switching district allows neutral (fixed) switching charges. For example, a customer located on Railroad A wanted to ship a carload to a destination on Railroad B then Railroad B would absorb Railroad A’s “terminal switch charge.” (Railroad A would switch the industry and deliver to Railroad B’s interchange within the district. The industry would provide the bill of lading to Railroad B).
This neutrality within a switching district allows for competitive access to multiple rail carriers. It prevents a situation in which, say Railroad A also served the same destination as Railroad B and impose a higher switch charge against Railroad B, making it economically unfeasible to ship via Railroad B. Railroad A would then have a monopoly (they desire the longest haul possible and want all the business for themselves).
Sometimes, railroads make exceptions and you’ll find that on various railroad’s switching circulars there are some industries that are not open to reciprocal switching and thus do not benefit from a switching district.
DPJ
Texas specified that all industries at the same station were within the switching limits on intrastate traffic.
An example of what Mr. Wilcox pointed out.
I work for the PTRA, Port Terminal Railroad Association.
We are a neutral switching association, on the Houston ship channel.
We serve the majority of the industries on the north and south shores.
Our member lines are BNSF, UP and TexMex (KCS).
Any of our customers can ship on any of the member lines.
(This can depend or change due to specific or exclusive contracts between shippers and the Class 1 carrier)
All member lines deliver and pick up only from our interchange points, North Yard, Pasadena and the Storage yard.
We take the cars they deliver to the customers, pull and spot them, and offer all inter and intraplant switching services.
The entire PTRA is considered for legal purposes as a neutral switching district.
We have the exclusive contract to service the entire district, including the city docks and public grain elevator.
Regardless of which member line brings the car to us, we charge the same switching and service fees to the customer.
In this manner, no one class 1 receives any preference, nor will any customer inside the switching district be penalized for using one class 1 instead of another.
Ed
The switching district is typically defined by the serving carrier listing in its swithing tariff the industries “open” to reciprocal switching.
Ed and Bob:
Great answers, as always from you guys.
Ed, do you know what you folks charge for switching/delivering a car to a customer? Is it the same for all cars, or do different customers get charged different amounts based on the commodity, complexity of the switch, etc. Or rather, I should say the railroad gets charged, rather than the customer.
Are there volume discounts for multiple cars shipped? For example, if a customer shipped 1 car/day vs 20 cars per day. Ed, how many industries do you folks switch perday. I recall a Trains issue from teh late 90’s describing the Houston district. What an industrial complex that is.
Do you folks have SIT yards? or do the line haul carriers have those?
thanks again,
ed
At Wichita,KS we have the Wichita Terminal Assocation which works just like PTRA in Houston. The WTA serves about a dozen shippers in the north Wichita industry district. These are two large flour mills, a oilseed refinery, large feed mill, scrapyard and several grain elevators. The operation was first begun in 1889 by the city stockyards and packing plants in north Wichita. In 1910 the four city rrs took over naming it Wic Term Assn. Since that time the rrs have taken turns on a yr by yr rotation in furnishing switch pwr. Today, WTA is owned by BNSF & UP w/each rr having a 50% share. Engs are rotated every 18 months. At present, BNSF is providing switch engs.Current operations are a 1st & 3rd shift job M-F and a 3rd shift job on wknds. WTA workers are covered by UTU & BLE agreements and is not a non union sub contract operation as what some stupid know it all railfans have refered to the company.
The PTRA can charge the customer directly, but normally this happens only for the demurrage services and charges. The USUAL arrangement, is the switching district (as defined by the tarrif for the locality in question) charges are recriprocal between the line-haul roads. The road doing the actual spotting and pulling charges the line-haul road, not the customer. The explanations above from BNFAN and Ed B should explain the rest.
As a side, PNWRMNM adds an interesting note. In the industry we have a book call the “Open and Shut”. This tarrif does several things, ONE of which is to state where the RSD’s are, their boundries, recriprocal services offered and the charges for such services (some restrictions apply - batteries not included).
There are many varations on this theme, but this is the basic tune.
In a switching district, the terminal roads such as BRC, IHB, TRRA, etc. must also sell their services to the connecting line-haul roads on overhead moves, especially if direct interchange is an option. BRC has become especially good at doing this in the aftermath of the near shutdown of Clearing in the early 1990’s.
Here is a link for the tariff…and some other number stuff.
http://www.ptra.com/pages/Tariff_Index.htm
http://www.portofhouston.com/pdf/maritime/tariff18.pdf
http://www.portofhouston.com/maritime/tariffs.html
Yes, we have a SIT yard, it is called the Marshalling yard, most of the petrochemical shippers on the south side of the channel store their excess cars there.
BNSF has a SIT yard for plastics, Casey Yard, just northwest of Houston, about two mile from where I live on their main line, and there is Dayton yards and CMC S.I.T yards on the UP’s Lafayette sub just to the northeast.
Lots of plastic, I mean lots!
Two things are interesting about what the PTRA charges the road haul roads for switching. 1.) Once a year the UP and BNSF get financial data from the PTRA showing last year’s expenses. The switch charge is set to just cover the expensesl. 2.) In the last 25 years the charge has dropped as the PTRA has gotten more efficent.
Bob
This is the most common arrangement where a switching road is jointly owned by the roads it serves.
True. The odd thing is that the PTRA is owned by the Port of Houston. The road haul carries act as a management board but the port commisioners set policy. The BNSF and UP can only act if the Port of Houstn feels it meets their needs. As an example, if the BNSF and UP wanted to close the PTRA after dividing up the industries between themselves they would need to get the Port of Houston’s permission. In today’s world they would never get the Port’s permission.
Another oddity is the PTRA’s serive area. They serve all industry within a certain distance from the center of the Houston Ship Channel. The Class I railroads were never allowed to build into the PTRAs service area on interstate or intrastate traffic. Their was a lot of presure put on by Shell and others to break this monopoly when the PTRA had a meltdown in the 1970s but it did not happen. Of course the PTRA has not had another meltdown either.