When rail cars (passenger or freight) are sitting on a siding or in a yard, what term (word) is used to describe their situation - i.e.are they “parked” or is some other term applied to rail cars?
One’s mind goes into “deep” thinking at times. [%-)]
Sometimes they are ‘set out’…
Jim
I wouldn’t say “parked”. Re Jim’s comment, cars are “set out” on a siding and then “picked up” by another train later. It kinda refers more to the action of setting out a car I think?? I’ve usually just heard them as being “in the side track” or “on track 3” etc., though perhaps “sitting” might work (i.e. “that Conrail boxcar is sitting in the cement company spur track”.)??
I think you could ask a 100 different railroaders and probably get a 100 different answers. Terms in general usage one place may get you blank stares somewhere else, even on the same railroad.
If you said to me those cars were “parked,” I would think they were in long term storage. If you said those cars were “spotted up,” I would think they were at a customers dock being loaded/unloaded. If you said those cars were “set out,” I would think they were waiting to be switched or picked up by another train (block swapping).
Jeff
Part of the confusion in terminology is the need to explain why a car is standing still, rather than moving. Moving cars are making money, standing cars cost money.
A ‘spotted’ car is one which has been put where needed to load, unload, be repaired or whatever. A ‘dropped’ car is one which, having been left by a passing train, requires some TLC to get it in position for the next move in the sequence that will eventually get it to a spot. As Rich said, the only cars usually referred to as ‘parked’ are those which are temporarily surplus to requirements.
Frequently cars are referred to by present location (in Extra 2101, at Burns Fuel #2 rack, on track 4, going to XYZ interchange…) rather than by such a generic term as ‘parked.’
Mundanes park their (rubber-tired) cars wherever is convenient. Railroads have to put every car in a very specific place for a very specific reason.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - car cards, waybills, TTTO 24/30)
Not disagreeing at all - but other terms that come to mind are ‘‘stored’’, ‘‘moth-balled’’, ‘‘inactive’’, etc. ‘‘Laid-up’’ is sometimes used for locomotives under repair, but sometimes also for ‘‘stored inactive’’. Jeff’s 1st para. above sums it up.
- Paul North.
Indeed.
On the PRR those were destination cuts such as:
Chicago,Detroit,C&O,N&W,NYC,B&O,Sands(Sandusky),Pitts(Pittsburgh) local,home storage etc.
Basically the same on the C&O under the Chessie banner except for the cars destination being different.
Howdy Richard; My first full time job out of High School was at Pillar Furniture Mfg. Pillar had a spur served by the SP with three “spots” for (1) lumber yard, (2) receiving and (3) shipping. Pillar would specify where the car should be spotted. If the spot was occupied the SP would “set out” the car at the head end of the spur to be spotted when the specified spot was clear. Both the SP and customer used the same terminology. Some businesses have “spot” numbers on the doors.
Have fun, Rob
**Set Out…**A car or cars that have been set out are cars that have been placed on an auxiliary track by a train or engine, as in “the local set those cars out at the brewery.” Cars that have been set out may be “spotted”
**Spotted…**To spot a car means to place it in a precise location, usually at an industry served by the railroad. Example would be the local set out those cars at the brewery, but the need to be spotted for loading.
**Tied Down…**This term has grown in frequency as a generic term for leaving equipment someplace. Its origins come from the application of a handbrake and sometimes a rail skid or chocks or by chaining the equipment to the rail to prevent uncontolled movement of the equipment, in essence "tying the equipment down. To tie down something now generically means to leave it somewhere, applying the handbrake and air brakes and other measures as needed under the rules to prevent its uncontrolled movement, as in “that cut of cars has been tied down on the lead for 4 hours”. Its precise meaning still refers only to the practice of securing the equipment.
So, if euipment has been set out, spotted and tied down…never mind.
I would disagree with this ( a bit pedantically)…
Empty cars not waiting to be loaded cost money… at least if they are on someone else’s track and empty cars on your own track aren’t returning the investment in them or the track.
Standing cars can be part way through a journey, waiting to be loaded/unloaded or (and this was my original thoughton the point) they can be acting as temporary/mobile warehouses for the load’s owners. Bulk commodities such as ore and coalcould be moved up fromthe mines to close to ports and held ready for peak demand.
This especially applied where several different types or grades of the product occurred. Rather than try to guess what amounts of which specific material would be wanted the producers or mddle men would hold stocks in reserve.
The stocks could be held at the mine or somewhere else on the ground but handling on and off the ground took time, cost money and could degrade the material. (It could particularly make coalmore dusty). Also, when the product had to be loaded into a ship, they wanted to turn the ship round as fast as possible - a ship standing “idle” costing a lot more thn a train or three. So it paid to have a percentage of coal, ore or whatever else on hand in cars waiting to be rolled forward on demand.
I believe that this also applied to a degree with grain products.
This has changed drastically in the last couple of decades with increasing “Just in time” delivery… so, as always, practices are very era specific.
At the same time I am aware that some products (specifically coffee beans) are shipped in containers and sent off on what
It occurs to me that one area that can cause confusion can be when anyone says that cars to be collected or left on a spot are “in front of” or “behind” cars already on a track. Neither term is really clear as to whether it means the cars are on the approach side of the cars already there or beyond them.
[:P]
Locomotives are stored; Dead stored, stored servicable, or stored unservicable. Ships get laid up and moth-balled or cosmolined (sp?) at least on the western roads. Maybe it is different elseware. I think Jeff said it best… Ask 100 different railroaders and you will get 200 different answers.
I side with Chuck, in the vast majority of cases, moving cars are making money, standing cars are costing money.
If a standing car is making money, it is making waaaaaaaaay less money than it could be moving.
Dave H.
Two ways that a steanding car makes money:
1)Its a enroute load in terminal dwell time.
- The owning railroad is collecting demurrage fees…
I think that I covered this…
A car standing to be loaded/unloaded and/or waiting for such and/or delayed by someone other than the RR will be earning revenue. Maybe not so much but it will not be costing money.
Similarly a car standing on home lines may be considered neutral. So long as it isn’t still being paid for it’s only cost on home tracks should be the right off of its original cost. Of course one would not want it to be displacing home road stock onto other RR tracks that will be charged for… one reason out-of-use cars get scrapped rather than mothballed… all depends on how much spare yard space or “dead”/umused spurs you have available.
Then again, the significant point that both the real RR overlooked at times and modellers miss is that non-paying back hauls for cars to get to their next job or take the next load in captive service (e.g. mine runs) cost at least fuel and crew time. if they travel over another RR’s tracks they may incur a further cost there as well. As I said, the costs of backhaul should be factored into the charge to the customer but they didn’t always get it right… or it could over-price the job and the RR would lose out to another (as in the BN example) or to trucking.
Another example of cars on the move being a cost… loco fuel had to be shipped out from source to depots. That was a straight cost in providing cars, crews, track occupancy (instead of revenue earning cars), maintenance and labour… plus the caol (or oil) they shipped had to be bought in. I guess that this is an explanation for modern locos being fuelled direct by on hand local suppliers… I hadn’t thought of that.</
Can’t agree.
- A car loaded or empty sitting in a yard makes nobody any money, loaded or empty. Its a money loser for the railroad and for the customer. Taking it to the extreme, if I get $2000 for a shipment and I let the the car sit in the yard for 2 years, I am earning $1000 a year with the car. If I let the the car sit in the yard for 4 years, I am earning $500 a year with the car. If I let the the car sit in the yard for 4 years, I am earning $500 a year with the car. If I let the the car sit in the yard for 10 years, I am earning $200 a year with the car. Exagerated point I know, but the concept is the same. The longer the car sits the less opportunity i have to make money with it and the longer time I have to spread the revenue over. Over an entire system, cutting a couple hours of terminal dwell out of the overall transit times is worth millions of a dollars. The longer a car sits in the yard the more cars you need, the more tracks you need to build, the more handling costs you have, the more maintenance costs you have.
A car sitting in a yard waiting for the next train is a money loser.
- Demurrage runs what, about $75 dollars a day? Assume that a car get only 2 loads a month. 15 days of demurrage at $75 a day is $1125. If the car can generate more than $1125 of revenue with a load, then the railroad is losing money on demurrage. If its a high priced load such as chemicals or auto parts or such that generates thousands of dollars of revenue and turns quickly where it can get 3-4 loads a month, then demurrage is huge money loser.
If stopped cars make a railroad money then how come every time a railroad’s operations bog do
Sorry Dave,You fail to see the whole picture…
That empty car is making demurrage money as long as it sits in another railroad’s terminal.A empty car sitting for weeks on home rails makes no money.
A enroute shipment stopped in a 20-40 hour terminal dwell time is still making money because its still enroute unlike a empty would-unless of course its collecting demurrage fees for its owning railroad.
Ever wonder why railroads hustle empties back to their home rails or the nearest connecting road? Nobody wants to pay demurrage fees which can become quite expensive by the time you start adding the daily fees for X Many cars found on *your rails.*I am sure you will stand before the man answering questions about those fees.
No confusion. A car that sits third behind two others is referred to as being “third out”, etc.
Actually I work with some of the guys that figure this sort of stuff out for a class one railroad and trust me, a sitting car is a money loser.
Actually its the opposite. Demurrage is paid when a car is suposed to be loaded or unloaded and the industry does not do so within the required time. It is a penalty the industry pays for delaying the car. So if the car is not placed or constructively placed, demurrage cannot be charged. If a car is just intransit in a yard, it does not accrue demurrage. Plus demurrage is paid to the serving railroad, not the railroad owning the car. Demurrage only accrues on a railroad owned car and does not accrue on a private car (or railroad car leased by the customer) on a private track (or railroad track leased by the customer).
So if the BNSF spots a C&HV boxcar at an industry in San Diego, and the industry does not load it for 4 days the BNSF, not the C&HV, collects demurrage.
Demurrage ONLY accrues if the load is placed or constructively placed NOT, repeat NOT due to delays in transit. Demurrage does not, repreat not accrue to the owner of the car, it only accrues to the railroad serving the customer.
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Ever wonder why railroads hustle empties back to their home rails or the nearest connecting road? Nobody wants to pay demurrage fees which can become quite expensive by the time you start adding t
A furniture factory in NC orders a boxcar load of wood from a lumber mill in Washington state. The lumber mill calls the BN and the WP (this is prior to all the megamergers) and requests a shipping quote. That quote is going to contain all the costs, including demurrage (currently 30-100 dollars per day) at both ends. The quote will also indicate the car grade required. If your shipping wood you want a clean leak proof car that didn’t have manure as its last load. (paper products always required the cleanest cars.) The WP wins the contract. The route is going to be WP-UP-DRGW-SOU-N&W (this is an example only, that route may not exist). The BN would have gone BN-NYC-CHESSIE-N&W. These routes are official approved station to station routes. Every load going from Station code A to Station code Z on the WP follows this same route.
Now the WP searches for a suitable boxcar in its closest yard. The noon turn is bringing back an empty SOU boxcar that’s a fit. There is also a WP boxcar in the yard that can be used. Which one to use? Depends, it’s possible that the SOU and WP have a deal, “You send me my car back with a load in it and I’ll refund the car hire”. So we pick the SOU car and spot it at the lumber mill. They have 24 hours to load it or demurrage kicks in. They calls us, we pick the car up and sent it on its way. We car racking up car hire at the rate of x cents per mile and y cents per hour. Car hire goes from midnight to midnight so we want that SOU car off our rails before midnight. We drop it of at the WP-UP interchange track and hand the waybill to the UP. Now the UP is racking up car hire charges payable to the SOU.
Car then gets handled off to the DRGW who delivers it to the SOU who gives it to the N&W who spots it at the factory. The shipping contract gives them 48 hours to unload before our buddy demurrage kicks in. The N&W is racking up car hire during this process.
Our car is empti