Model Railroading > Car routings empty or loaded?

Ok I'm going to give an example of a car being loaded in the flats in Cleveland, Ohio on NS. Say I had a load of cement loaded in a cement hopper. Now the destination of this car would be El Paso, TX on lets say UP. Would this car go via Chicago, Ill or St Louis? Is there anything that would throw it one way or another?

I'm just curious as to what routing this would take from Cleveland.

Thanks in advance.

Scott

Posted from Android

The simple answer-it depends.
What railroad handled it on departing cleveland? If it was NYC, PC or Conrail, it would most likely go via St. Louis (via the Big 4 through Indianapolis). Cleveland via the NKP/NW/NS, probably via Bellevue, and on to interchange in Chicago. Since you said in your example a Cement hopper going via NS, it would most likely go via Chicago...
Now, most railroads would want to get the most mileage of a long haul agreement...SO, you could in theory run it Cleveland-Memphis, TN on NS, then interchange to the UP there...Or New Orleans, even...there are more than a few options here. this is where looking at other railroads maps and train routes comes in handy. The most direct NS route to the UP from Cleveland would be Chicago. St. Louis would require a trip to bellevue, then down to cincy, then over to st. louis. Chicago only requires a trip to bellevue, then get put on the UP-bound train to chicago.

You can imagine all kinds of routing, like the real RR Agents of yore...and play with the routings yourself to get your favourite railroads worked into the mix...
It also helps to keep the same freight cars on our layout going in different blocks of trains going different places...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/14 18:03 by DrLoco.

Tariff routing. Shipper will put routing on bill of lading. Now railroads have preferred interchanges and when they agree to a joint rate like this, the RR will specify where they want to receive the car. All railroads want the longest haul possible. On joint rates, the origin and destination railroad may have a few interchanges. Destination carrier will want the longest miles, but the origin carrier will not be happy and come back and say I want Interchange B instead of A, so that the origin carrier can make a few bucks more with more miles. All this falls under division of revenue agreements which is rocket science, lol

Why would an NS car going from Cleveland to St. Louis go to Cincinnati first? What precludes it from moving west via either Bellevue or Toledo, Fort Wayne, and Decatur?

And I know you're just offering an example, but no one's routing concrete from Cleveland to Texas. Maybe the opposite direction...Better might be tracking a BP refinery intermediate to another chemical plant in Texas or Oklahoma. There are probably a lot more real word cases... cars or car parts?

RichM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And I know you're just offering an example, but no
> one's routing concrete from Cleveland to Texas.
> Maybe the opposite direction...Better might be
> tracking a BP refinery intermediate to another
> chemical plant in Texas or Oklahoma. There are
> probably a lot more real word cases... cars or car
> parts?


First example I can think of would be oil-drilling pipe from Lorain. I don't know which train would take it to Bellevue, but then it would probably be put onto 15E for the Union Pacific at Sidney, Illinois, or be interchanged to BNSF at St. Louis via Decatur and Madison, Ill.

I assume you are asking this on the Model board because you are making up origin/destination points for your layout's freight-car waybills. It's definitely worth considering that certain cargoes tend to be regional in nature, while others travel cross-country. This generally depends on which parts of the country produce particular cargoes and the ready availability of regional substitutes. Cement and other aggregates like gravel tend not to be shipped long distances because they are mined in many different places, whereas grains, lumber, and steel do travel because of regional growing differences or, in the case of steel, because some steel products are only made at a limited number of mills.

To cite another example, rock salt from the mine underneath Lake Erie at Cleveland is more likely to go south/southeast or west because to ship it someplace beyond upstate New York would run it past several large salt mines in upstate New York that produce essentially the same product. And I recently suggested to a friend whose Virginia-themed layout includes a paper mill that the chlorine "consumed" there to bleach the paper would probably come from Niagara Falls, N.Y., rather than a plant in Washington state owned by the same supplier, because it wouldn't make any sense to ship it all the way across the country when the same commodity is produced much closer by.

Just something to think about if you're trying to be prototypically accurate, which your inquiry suggests you are.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/14 19:01 by toledopatch.

Well, before deregulation, actually the shipper puts the sequence of carriers on the bill, just not the junctions. Shipper decides the route (among carriers agreeing to participate in the tariff), carriers decide the junctions.

Best regards,

Rob L.

WAF Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tariff routing. Shipper will put routing on bill
> of lading. Now railroads have preferred
> interchanges and when they agree to a joint rate
> like this, the RR will specify where they want to
> receive the car. All railroads want the longest
> haul possible. On joint rates, the origin and
> destination railroad may have a few interchanges.
> Destination carrier will want the longest miles,
> but the origin carrier will not be happy and come
> back and say I want Interchange B instead of A, so
> that the origin carrier can make a few bucks more
> with more miles. All this falls under division of
> revenue agreements which is rocket science, lol

rob_l Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, before deregulation, actually the shipper
> puts the sequence of carriers on the bill, just
> not the junctions. Shipper decides the route
> (among carriers agreeing to participate in the
> tariff), carriers decide the junctions.
>
Prior to deregulation, rate and route was determined by the tariff. It was
ALWAYS recommended the shipper junction route his traffic on the bill
of lading. NEVER let the railroad decide the junction. It is your shipment,
your paying the freight (generally) and you decide how the shipment is
routed including junctions under the provisions of the tariff.

Example. There are two rates published in the tariff. One rate is $37.50
per ton and applies via NS-Chicago or St. Louis-UP routes. However, a
second rate item provides for a rate of $32.50 per ton when routed
NS-Memphis-UP. If you do not junction route, the railroad can route the
shipment via the higher rate and you, the shipper, are stuck for the $5 per
ton.

peddler

> Ok I'm going to give an example of a car being
> loaded in the flats in Cleveland, Ohio on NS. Say
> I had a load of cement loaded in a cement hopper.
> Now the destination of this car would be El Paso,
> TX on lets say UP. Would this car go via Chicago,
> Ill or St Louis? Is there anything that would
> throw it one way or another?


Hello Scott,

I used to do this for a living and can tell you for sure that there are a great many issues that can influence routings, but I'll keep things brief here, sticking to only a few of the key points. First, something like cement that's low-value and generic with many hundreds of supply points across the country wouldn't travel more than a few hundred miles in most cases. Price is the limitation there. A nearby supplier (CEMEX, etc) would come in well below the price of your Cleveland supplier's cement (mainly because of lower transpo. costs) and your guy wouldn't get the sale. So perhaps we should be talking about something else, such as chemicals, fabricated metal items, machine parts, plastics, etc., pick any one of those.

Since we're talking routings under deregulation (you mentioned NS, created in 1982), in this era routings are established in most cases by adding up the prices quoted by each RR (known as their "revenue requirement") over each junction they're willing to offer. In your case, maybe NS quotes rates to each of these UP interchanges: St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. UP offers quotes to those same 3 interchanges and you add up the total cost via each route. In this example, Chicago is excluded since neither RR elects to quote a price via that interchange for something like cement that would get in the way of priority traffic (intermodal, vehicle, autoparts, etc) and psgr trains that already congest that gateway. Once you have available prices via each route, you then consider them along with things like transit time, etc. and select the route you want. The decision in this case would be driven mainly by cost since cement isn't very service sensitive - it would be much more of a factor for auto parts, etc. So if you have the option of $3500 via St. Louis, $3200 via Memphis and $3700 via N.O., you probably go via Memphis. Note that this outcome would be typical, in that two-RR hauls like this most often "balance out" (roughly) in terms of mileage, the result of each wanting/negotiating to maximize their haul. So that's how the typical "loose car" shipment is priced and how the route is determined since 1980; note that it would be different for higher-valued, more service-sensitive shipments like most intermodal, auto parts, appliances, vehicles, etc), or specialized shipments: unit trains, high-wide loads, etc.


> I'm just curious as to what routing this would
> take from Cleveland.

Could be any one of several, and that could even change year-to-year as letter quotes / contracts expire and are renegotiated with RRs adjusting their rev. requirements, operating patterns and/or "service lane" preferences. So if this is a model RR exercise, you can see that you have quite a bit of wiggle room on routings, so I'd go ahead with the routing you prefer, one that suits your operation best.

Hope that helps.

Take care,

Mark



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/14 08:50 by mamfahr.

Good stuff for all of us interested in operations. Thanks for
posting.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Thank you to all who replied, I have a good idea now of what I need to consider.

Yes a load of cement was a bad choice. I just threw that in there out of not thinking about it.

thanks scott

Posted from Android

Yesterdays 15N Cleveland pick up included cars for the UP, BNSF and IAIS to be humped at Elkhart like others said. From Elkhart it would go to UP on 35E.

NS Cleveland, OH to UP El Paso, TX is guaranteed to via Kansas City, KS

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

funnelfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NS Cleveland, OH to UP El Paso, TX is guaranteed
> to via Kansas City, KS


Post Dereg, yes. Both roads happy

There are two methods of rail pricing. One is by referring to published tariffs, most of which are now on line and publicly accessed. By finding the commodity code for cement, for example, a rate can be obtained from most railroads web sites by entering origin and destination points. About 15% of rail traffic moves on tariff rates.
The other 85% of rail traffic moves on contracts, or "agreed" rates. If you want to ship 12,000 tons of wheat from Superior, Nebraska to Galveston, Texas, call any railroad that serves the origin point and request a quote. All unit trains and much of the manifest traffic moves under contracts. The amount you agree to under a contract is confidential - only the shipper, receiver, and carriers know what the price is. If you agree to furnish the cars, your rate will be lower than if you use rail owned cars.
If you agree to unload the train within 24 hours after arrival, your rate may be slightly lower. In short, contract rates are really very market driven.
Interesting note: Most of the major rail carriers had average revenues of about 6 cents per ton per mile in 2013. Therefore, a 100 ton load of grain should produce revenues of about $6.00 per mile, or $12,000 per car for a 2000 mile haul. Do you suppose the price for a unit train would be higher or lower than single car shipments?

Norm

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar

WAF Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> funnelfan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > NS Cleveland, OH to UP El Paso, TX is
> guaranteed
> > to via Kansas City, KS
>
>
> Post Dereg, yes. Both roads happy

Better yet, NS-KCITY-BNSF-UP delivery if consignee is open to switching.

peddler

Having been a railroad agent billing hundreds of cars of freight per year during the 1970s, I can tell you that (1) the shippers tendering bills of lading to me never specified the junctions, and (2) I never chose junctions which raised the rate above the minimum rate. If I were inclined to do so, I would make sure that was truly what the shipper wanted before doing it.

Being greedy in the way you suggest was not going to keep customers around for long.

In later years, after agencies were done away with and railroads became faceless bureaucracies, perhaps behavior as you suggest may have transpired.

Best regards,

Rob L.

peddler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> rob_l Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Well, before deregulation, actually the shipper
> > puts the sequence of carriers on the bill, just
> > not the junctions. Shipper decides the route
> > (among carriers agreeing to participate in the
> > tariff), carriers decide the junctions.
> >
> Prior to deregulation, rate and route was
> determined by the tariff. It was
> ALWAYS recommended the shipper junction route his
> traffic on the bill
> of lading. NEVER let the railroad decide the
> junction. It is your shipment,
> your paying the freight (generally) and you decide
> how the shipment is
> routed including junctions under the provisions of
> the tariff.
>
> Example. There are two rates published in the
> tariff. One rate is $37.50
> per ton and applies via NS-Chicago or St. Louis-UP
> routes. However, a
> second rate item provides for a rate of $32.50 per
> ton when routed
> NS-Memphis-UP. If you do not junction route, the
> railroad can route the
> shipment via the higher rate and you, the shipper,
> are stuck for the $5 per
> ton.
>
> peddler

Back in the regulated days and early Staggers, you would the same rate and two routes, NS-KC-UP and NS-KC-BNSF UP Del. I called this a "me too" rate"


peddler Wrote:



-------------------------------------------------------
> WAF Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > funnelfan Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > NS Cleveland, OH to UP El Paso, TX is
> > guaranteed
> > > to via Kansas City, KS
> >
> >
> > Post Dereg, yes. Both roads happy
>
> Better yet, NS-KCITY-BNSF-UP delivery if consignee
> is open to switching.
>
> peddler

> Back in the regulated days and early Staggers, you
> would the same rate and two routes, NS-KC-UP and
> NS-KC-BNSF UP Del. I called this a "me too" rate"


Yup, that was the most common situation. It was normal practice to have the origin & destination "line-haul" carriers absorb recip. switching charges (if any) at origin & destination, in cases where the distance of the haul (and resulting revenue) justified it. That effectively matched the rate of the other line-haul RRs in the lane you were competing in.

Take care,

Mark



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/14 20:33 by mamfahr.

Several others with vast experience have done a good job of explaining the complexities of routes. I'll just add a few details..

The percentage of tariff vs contract rates has really swung back towards tariff rates for carload (non unit train or intermodal) post ISS and esp. post fuel surcharge. Certainly the majority now moves on tariffs, and maybe closer to the 85% - completely flipping the former ratios. But, Norm was right for most of the dereg. period, this change is really pretty recent.

As far as how a shipper in Cleveland might get rates, the sky is practically the limit as far as combinations, especially if they're "open" - where maybe they're actually switched by NS, but CSXT can also quote them rates. Depending on the product, and how their relationship is with NS, they may just call up NS and have NS quote them the through rate to El Paso. The shipper doesn't know or care about the routing, and just pays the full amount to NS. NS then does the legwork to find the best (lowest overall rate and transit time, but highest division for NS) routing. NS's marketing manager/computer system will look at what rates the delivering and/or intermediate carriers are offering and figure this out. This is more typical of smaller shippers. For common traffic flows the railroads will have agreed to adopt each other's tariffs as part of a complete 'through' rate.

A larger shipper might take the time (or more frequently contract out to a third party since this is all so darn complex) to review all the route/rate/transit time options themselves. In these cases they may get a better rate by working with, for example, UP directly rather than having their origin carrier do this. They may then do Rule 11 (referring to the RR Accounting Rules) rates where they pay each carrier directly rather than the carriers working out divisions.

Also, a lot depends on who is supplying the cars. Are these private marks, shipper leased, consignee leased, NS supplied, UP back hauls, etc.? These can really determine routing as well.