Western Railroad Discussion > w/b 2x2 stacks

here is a w/b 2x2 stack train w/of kingman,az on the bnsf's seligman sub (between mcconico and griffith) on main #1.........

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Starting at about 00:30  there are a few of those old cars that have the verticle guides at the ends. I'm surprised to see that any of those are still in service.

With all those single stacked loads, how does the RR charge ??? do they bill by the container, by the ton mile, by the car load ?  I realize they probably need the container cars for back loads at the destination port, but I'm still curious about the billing ???

mrsaxtonsr Wrote:
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> With all those single stacked loads, how does the
> RR charge ??? do they bill by the container, by
> the ton mile, by the car load ?  I realize they
> probably need the container cars for back loads at
> the destination port, but I'm still curious about
> the billing ???

The railroad charges the shipper (in this case, steamship lines) per container, with rates established for size, load or empty, and international versus domestic, and eastbound vs. westbound. It's not at all uncommon for car utilization to be low going westbound (the backhaul of the import/export market).

The car utilization is the railroad's business, at least for westbound. For import traffic loaded ondock at marine terminals, it's important for the steamship lines and their terminals to maintain the highest possible car utilization, even if they're paying rates based on containers instead of the cars. If they don't the railroad will eventually bitch about it. Having a good track record of high slot utilization will also help to ensure that a steamship line or marine terminal gets preference when empty cars (bare tables) need to be supplied to a terminal.

The rails also have agreements with TTX regarding car supplies, and that can be a factor as to who is paying to move those underutilized cars.