Western Railroad Discussion > Average cost of rail car

What is the average cost of a generic rail car. I would appreciate any general range cost figures.

What type? Freight or passenger? And what are you going to do with it?

If you're looking for a passnger car, in which case I suggest a peek at the following sites (do a Google or Lycos URL search):

Ozark Mountain Railway

Illinois Transit

D.F. Barnhardt and Associates

In a nutshell, if you want a passenger car in usable condition, be prepared to ->start<- at $150K and work up. Even if you buy a "bargain", by the time you have it certified and in good shape the cost will total well over that. And then there's the delightful questions of where are ya gonna park it? Security? Facilities? Access?

That's enough for a start!

Hi!

From Gunderson press release: 100 new-generation
and 106 modified mechanical refrigeration boxcars.
$20 Million

A product list:

http://www.gbrx.com/products/products_frame.html

Tony Burzio
San Diego, CA

Hi!

More info:

Freight car manufacturing, always cyclical, is
on a definite upswing. Since May, Gunderson's
parent company has received $230 million in
orders for 4,300 new rail cars, the highest
backlog since November 2000.


That would put the average at about $55G
per car (some more, some less)...

Tony Burzio
San Diego, CA

Not sure what you are looking for. Cost of a new car or of existing cars? I assume freight, not passenger.

One example is a group of tired bulkhead flats I got a notice on today selling for only $3,500 each. New rail cars cost from the high five figures to the low six figures depending upon type, construction, order size, etc...

As most cars are custom built these days based upon customer orders and often customer specifications it is difficult even to set a price on a new boxcar from year to year.

R

Well the loss attributed to the total destruction of a coal car this Sunday, when the helpers which had just cut off the coal train ran into it, was pegged at about $47,500 IIRC.

This rule of thumb was given to me by an engineer who has designed cars for Thrall and, more recently, Greenbrier. It doesn't apply to special types (tanks), but would work for intermodal, boxcars, and gondolas. I would assume that figure is US dollars too.

Here's some for your RFE AAK:

How many loaded miles does a single open top coal hopper have to run off to cover its purchase?

How many loaded trips will it make in a year?

Over its (15, 20, 40...) year lifetime, how much income will it generate for BNSF?

(IIRC the car is outlawed from interchange at 40 years.)

It seems to me I saw a while back where coal ships for about 2 cents per ton mile. So a 100 ton car earns $2 per mile give or take a half cent. Running a 1000 mile trip (each way) it earns roughly $2000 per trip. Most coal train roundtrips I am familiar with require approx 5 days to make a 2000 mile round trip. (That is 16mph average including loading/unloading and all of the other sitting). So a $50,000 car would require only 25 trips or 125 days to pay for itself.

Of course only a small fraction of that $2000 per trip goes to pay off the car. You have to pay crews, fuel, loco purchase and upkeep, track MOW, signal, dispatchers, taxes, etc etc.

More figures? I'll wildly guess and ballpark merely using what I know from my own experiences.

Fuel?
When I was working as hostler in Alliance in 1974 we were dispatching 7 unit empties towards the Powder River (4 on point and 3 slaves 65 cars deep). We'd fill em up before they left and re-fill upon return. Each took about 2400 gallons for a 730 mile roundtrip. That is 16,800 gallons for 103 cars or about 0.2 gallons per car mile.

Today it takes 550 gallons on 3 units to go 160 miles with 115 cars which is 0.9 gpc plus some fuel for helpers part way, maybe another 0.2 gpc. A total of 0.12 gallon per car mile.

Those are different routes and the second one does not count empties coming back so I think you can safely say approximately 0.2 gallons per car per mile. If they pay 80 cents for fuel (a guess?) that is 16 cents per mile per car for fuel. For a 2000 mile roundtrip that is $320 for fuel per car.

Locos?
$6 million for 3 MACs. Say they last 15 years. That is $400,000 per year just for purchase cost. If those 3 locos haul a 115 car coal train all year then each car is accountable for $9.50 per day or about $50 per 5 day roundtrip. That is just for purchase price. I'd guess you can double that for financing and maintenance. $100 per trip per car for locos.

Crew?
With vacations, health and other benefits about $3 per mile or for a 115 car train about 2.5 cents per mile per car. For a 2000 mile trip that is $50 per car.

I am not going to hazard a guess on the other stuff (MOW, clerks, dispatchers, signal, taxes, etc) but we are already up to $470 in costs per car for this round trip for which each car generates $2000.

Appreciate the responses. Sorry I should have been more specific; looking for new freight cars. The response by cn6218 of generically a dollar per pound for non-specialized cars pretty much provides me the answer I needed.

Thanks to all who responded!