Western Railroad Discussion > all-time low for new rail equipment?

I can't recall a time in my 30+ years of rail interest when we had such little to talk about as far as new locomotives, new freight cars, and new passenger cars. When we once had a multitude of different locomotive models being delivered simultaneously, we are lucky to see or hear about a new Gevo or ACe hit the rails once in a while. And what about freight cars? I see posts on here maybe once every few months for some new TBOX's or gondolas. What trend is going on? Is there a graph showing the patterns of the last ten years of deliveries? Is this related to the slow economy or just the way the industry is these days or both? Maybe railroads are running more efficient and/or equipment is built better to not warrant new products so often? I don't know, I'm just guessing. But picking up a 1979 TRAINS Magazine and flipping through it revealed an eye-popping display of new products.

Discuss...

If you want variety, flip through the 1974 Car & Locomotive Cyclopedia.
having said that..
- We have the container revolution, almost a 2 for one in regards to carload freight.
- FRA limits cars to 50 years (AAR, 40) provided they pass inspection or have a waiver. Until about five years ago, you could still see GN and NP woodchip gons from 1969 in original paint, save graffiti.
- national trackage has been continually reduced since the 1930's, go to the STB's site for latest abandonment proceedings.
Motive power and rolling stock are built to last and are expensive, the supply is decent and most everything's fine for now.

I still think there is alot of stuff being built Fizz, I just saw new 11/12 GATX tank cars, Theres new boxcars out there for TTX, BNSF, CN(DWC), new tons for UP, GNTX. New C6's for BNSF. What your seeing right is a focus on some new freight car types specifically, sand cars, tanks, 53' intermodal equipment etc. Most railfans don't pay attention to the train after the power passes and so very little is discussed here about freight cars which I think is a shame.

Lots of new cars out.... New up cmo and UP grain hoppers, up sand cars, up gons , up rapid dump coal sets cmo and up reporting marks. I also have seen new GATX hoppers in soda trains and shorter hoppers similar to Ashx cars also in soda trains.

Posted from Android

Let's not panic just yet. I'm sure one has to look at things like orders vs. backlogs, and so forth. From what I've gathered, tank cars are doing pretty well, with demand for crude transport. If you'd like a look at new freight-car production, there's a site for that:

http://dgcasdor.ipower.com/dgcasdorph/id5.html

Additions always welcome.

For the record, the tally on the first page shows over 75,000 cars built (or documented) for 2010-2012 so far. Just yesterday I saw a manifest with two unreported series of Trinity-built covered hoppers...you can add nearly 1000 cars to that total.

Carl Shaver
Lombard, IL

Why would they need to buy new stuff? There is enough "left overs" from all the mega mergers, combined with LESS generic industrial loads, which translates to less demand.

UP has dozens of locomotives rotting away here in Nampa, ID; Every spare/unused siding from Portland to Pocatello is crammed with spare rail cars.

Surprising number of new TBOX boxcars...


Allen

I'm also at a lifetime lull for interest in locomotives and freight cars. I don't even bother looking at nearby Albina Yard anymore because its nothing but "modern" UP 6 axle units. Or go walk down to the Kenton Line to see what's on the siding at Woodlawn when at my girlfriend's house, a pleasant 6 block walk.

Yawn.

I'm glad I got to live trackside in Davis, CA from '03 - '06, since that was my last chance to see regular SP power in regular service, and a hodgepodge of rent-a-wrecks. Vancouver WA wasn't too shabby in '08 with matched sets of SF SD40-2s, but those are all gone now, too, and the garbage trains sport "old" AC4400 warpumpkins.

I do see the NP and GN woodchip gons, though. They got sold to a 2nd party a couple years ago and the original makrings were patched over. Poorly, so you can still see Rocky's outline...

Ah well, at least trains are still moving, traffic is pretty good. And the sounds they make -- whistles, whines, screeches, are all still pretty good.

Ted in OR

Fizzboy7 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can't recall a time in my 30+ years of rail
> interest when we had such little to talk about as
> far as new locomotives, new freight cars, and new
> passenger cars. When we once had a multitude of
> different locomotive models being delivered
> simultaneously, we are lucky to see or hear about
> a new Gevo or ACe hit the rails once in a while.
> And what about freight cars? I see posts on here
> maybe once every few months for some new TBOX's or
> gondolas. What trend is going on? Is there a
> graph showing the patterns of the last ten years
> of deliveries? Is this related to the slow
> economy or just the way the industry is these days
> or both? Maybe railroads are running more
> efficient and/or equipment is built better to not
> warrant new products so often? I don't know, I'm
> just guessing. But picking up a 1979 TRAINS
> Magazine and flipping through it revealed an
> eye-popping display of new products.
>
> Discuss...

Hmm. let's see beyond the obvious new locomotives of ES44AC and SD70ACe you have, the first brand-new four axle locomotives built by EMD since 1994.

The CP GP20C-ECO which will number 150 over the next few years, the first photos can be seen here although Muncie hasn't released them yet.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,2931826

CP also will have 30 SD30ECO rebuilds coming soon, these will be coming from Progress Rail at Mayfield. They have been spotted by a couple of fans in primer and will look similar to an SD45X. They are being built from SD40-2s.

BNSF has three SD32ECOs coming from Progress Rail at Tacoma, likely they will look similar to the CP units and will be built from SD45-2 cores.

BNSF should be receiving their first 10 SD70ACe-P4 locomotives in the first quarter of 2013.

That's a fair amount of new locomotives in a fairly short period of time.

tons of new locos in 2012

There is a major shortage of tank cars and reefers, expect to see new orders.

I'm surprised at the reefers, I thought the trucks took all that business long ago. What are they used for?