Railroaders' Nostalgia > Wrong car, wrong place, wrong date

The stories of damaged cars of alcohol prompted a memory of a very awkward example of a supposedly empty car furnished for loading, but turns out wasn't empty.  Leaving off the names, there was a road which crossed from the US into Canada and served a boxcar loader there.  This was fairly recently after Customs introduced their Automated Manifest System and the fancy x-ray equipment for when cars came into the US.  The requirements for crossing a car into the US are especiallty strict - the entire train's paperwork must be in order, and waybill lading information must be precise.  Any deviation is cause for the car to be set out, impounded, and heavy fines levied against all involved.  Too many mistakes and they'll revoke the railroad's bond to cross the border.

Anyway, imagine the surprise of this shipper when he opens the doors to load his boxcar when he discovers it is completely loaded with Zima.  Now, not only does our poor railroad have to explain to Canada Customs why they've smuggled a boxcar load of alcohol into Canada, but they have to turn around and persuade US Customs to let it back into the US. And find a truely empty boxcar for the shipper to load.  It took about a month, as I recall, all the while paying car hire on the car.

I personally have never tried it, but have heard enough to convince me that some distributor somewhere was just trying to dump the stuff!

I have had several 40' containers I routed from Michigan to the west coast with domestic freight accidently be placed on a ship for Asia.  8 or so weeks later, they return to the US where customs holds them for several weeks,  In all cases, "bad" waybilling was put in place by someone else before we waybilled the containers.  While the errors were found days before the containers reached the west coast, nobody seemed able to stop their movement to Asia. 

When do we talk about "lost" or "misrouted" cars?  We routed a load of apple juice from Michigan to Arizona that was found frozen in Calgary 6 months after it departed Michigan.

It was Zima--you actually did the general populace a great service in having that car stuck in customs for that long...nobody should drink ZIma.

DrLoco Wrote:
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> It was Zima--you actually did the general populace
> a great service in having that car stuck in
> customs for that long...nobody should drink ZIma.

Nobody drank Zima, except to try it once!

mapboy

mapboy Wrote:
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> DrLoco Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It was Zima--you actually did the general
> populace
> > a great service in having that car stuck in
> > customs for that long...nobody should drink
> ZIma.
>
> Nobody drank Zima, except to try it once!
>
> mapboy

I never drank it. I believed my friends who did try it, once...

I tried it, once.

mapboy