Boxcars?

Railway Age report on freight car backlog for 2014

I gave it a quick look-over, should tell you most of the info you seek.

---PCJ

With trade and manufacturing being on a world wide scale, the use of containers allows movement of goods door to door on a world wide basis.  As manufacturing has changed from a domestic activity to a world wide activity, traffic has moved from boxcars to containers.  Other factors, including the government allowing larger and heavier trailers also caused traffic to move from boxcars to trailers and containers.  

There is still traffic that is best moved in boxcars.  High cubic volume traffic, like auto parts, still are shipped in boxcars. New boxcars are still built as needed to handle the traffic. The railroads are not just using up the remaining boxcars.  The shipper selects the type of car or container they want to ship in, not the railroad. If these was no longer any use for boxcars, there would be no boxcars.  

Railroad freight cars are made of heavy steel with little else used in the cars, other than some wood for flooring and side lining. There are around 1,500,000 freight cars in service in North America. These cars last for about 35 years. Building freight cars is a high volume business.  It is a competitive business and the cars are not particularly expensive. For these reasons when a railroad sells a freight car for scrap it actually recovers a fair amount of the original cost.  When cars are no longer needed the railroads will quickly get rid of them. 

Odd that you happened to post this today Mike.  I'm in Mobile at one of our plant sites and took a tour of area rail yards yesterday afternoon with one of our carriers.  There were a tremendous number of boxcars in both the NS, AGR and State Docks rail yards.

Additionally, a few moments ago, I heard a train blowing for the crossing near our plant site.  I stepped to the window and saw a southbound AGR freight that was nothing but boxcars, including many new ones apparently leased from GATX.  I'd estimate the train was about 50 cars.

I guess I shouldn't find boxcar traffic unusual in this area of the country given the number of pulp and paper mills, both of which use boxcars extensively.  That said, this was the first all boxcar train I can remember seeing in several decades.

Curt

Interesting info.  My thoughts were correct that boxcars are still relevant...if not slightly more used today than in the 70's and 80's.   Its sad that trucks seem to get what they want when travelling on tax payer supplied roads...larger trailers....retreads that blow and cause danger.  If a train wheel broke and sprayed a city street the railroad would be this huge big dangerous enemy.  This makes me think of all the oil train issues.  I bet you can total the number of deaths on HWYs involving tractor trailers and the number would be far greater than any oil train casualties.  Sure some of those accidents are the result of bad auto drivers but the truck still presents the danger.

I was talking to the acting Administrator of NHTSA recently about the recent statics regarding highway fatalities. The numbers are actuating coming down slowly.  He said in a recent year there were about 38,000 highway fatalities. About 1/3 of these were attributed to drunk drivers.  About 1/3 were accidents involving large trucks.  The last third was all other causes. The other thing he said was there was no hope for teen aged boys when there was more than one teenager in the car. Their accident rate was ten times the average. 

Mike as a Professional Commercial Driver with 26 YEARS/2,000,000++ Miles Experience, I don't even know what to say to this except WOW.

 As far as those "Taxpayer Supplied Roads" the average commercial vehicle pays MORE in HWY Taxes than in a year than you pay for FUEL, never mind your actual fuel tax. Commercial vehicles are "Taxpayers" too.

 The Railroads do own and maintain their right of ways, but there are more RR subsidies than most realize. The RR's do NOT operate completely free of government subsidies.

 SOME of those accidents are the result of bad auto drivers, but the TRUCK still presents the DANGER????

NO, the BAD DRIVERS(both Truck AND Auto) Present the Danger. The last statistic that I have seen placed approximately 76% of the blame in Auto/Commercial vehicle accidents squarely on the AUTO driver.

I realize that this is a TRAIN specific forum, and as such, I expect some slanted points of view, but you would probably be Surprised just how many Truck Drivers are Rail Fans.

Comparing Commercial Vehicle/auto stats to OIL Train stats, isn't even an Apples/Oranges comparison. How many oil trains(or any trains) does the average motorist even see in a day? and those are on a separate right of way. How many trucks is the average motorist within 5-10 FEET of, cutting off, and doing other stupid things around each day, THAT number is TRULY STAGGERING.

 Have you seen the "Give Trucks More Room" signs that have become common in the last 5 years or so? There is a REASON for those signs, the way auto drivers cut off large vehicles has become a SERIOUS safety issue.

 The unsafe passing distance issue has become serious enough in the state of Washington, that, the State Patrol will periodically have Troopers do Ride Alongs with Truck drivers, and when(NOT IF) an Auto makes an unsafe lane change in front of a truck, the Trooper radios patrol cars to make the stop/issue the citations.

Given the choice, I would rather be on a HWY full of Large trucks, than autos, sure there will still be some Bad Drivers out there, but the PERCENTAGE of Bad Drivers would be a LOT Lower.

Doug

Yeah I do agree my post was rail slanted.  Bad auto drivers are most definitely often the cause of accidents.  Slamming on brakes, cutting trucks/cars off...you name it.  I have met several railfans who are truck drivers as well.  

I guess my post was fueled by the fact that I see retreads daily on my Interstate commute as well as speeding trucks.  But sorry if my post sounded a bit more blanket statement than it should...not really the intention.  With the subsidy thing...yes all forms of transit receive some form of subsidies as that's what the taxes are paid for..the public good.  And the public receives some form of benefit indirectly from the subsidies.  But gov was more my criticism...interstates are still in bad repair in some cases despite how much is paid by the truckers.  Gov just seems more anti railroad than truck.  Even with little things like allowing no horn zones...which I'm unclear as to whether the RR is released of any liability in those zones due to crossing accidents.

Also, to get some facts right, the tire carcases you see on the road are the result of tires run flat until they explode off the rim.  Whether they are retreads or original treads has nothing to do with it.  Both will cause the same thing when they are run with less than about 80 PSI for very long, especially if the truck/trailer is loaded.  Many times, if the trailer loses one of the four inside tires, they may well not even be aware that it has happened. At my employer, ANY tire with less than 85 PSI is considered flat and must be removed and a cause for the air loss found. Also, tire pressure monitoring systems are finding their way into big trucks, and I'm sure they will be mandated at some point in the near future by the feds.  That should eliminate 90% of the tire carcass problem.