I found it to be a very interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

This was a very interesting article.  I enjoyed it and was quite surprised this was such an issue.

 

 

(But this belongs in the real trains forum)

I work in automotive sales. There is also a shortage of car carriers. Vehicles are built and can take a month or more until they are shipped.

Restrains - I too found the article interesting and informational. Thanks for posting.

I would be happy to help out too.

Sounds like the old "betweeen a rock and a hard place".  New boxcars won't last

long enough to pay for themselves due to Big Brother.  Gee, what happened to all

those Railbox yellow cars, covered in miles of lovely kudzu green I saw on old sidings

across the south years ago?

I have noticed on freight train through my area.CSX stack trains and mixed freight with many of the cars being ether tankcars or covered hopper cars and a few boxcars.Which is fallowed by woodchip highside gons.I think rail roads should get some more boxcars made.Before the customers starts calling it quit.

EdsTrains:

 

Very informative article. Thanks for posting. I don't know what they can do to resolve this that's economically viable.

 

Colorado HiRailer:

 

Those cars may not have been there that long. You know you'll be covered in Kudzu if you stand in one place for more than 10 minutes.

Wonderful article.T hank you.

Interesting article. Part of the reason given was low demand, sounds like all the paper people should get together and place an order for a pile of cars at a lower price and see if the mfg will build them. A big enough one time order could break the bottleneck.

The possible life extension would also help but you need a good inspection program then which also costs a lot.

Wonder why the don't use containers. Boxcars would have to be unloaded directly into the factory/wearhouse, assuming there is a serviceable siding. With a container, it is simply just picked up, put onto a tractor/trailer rig, and delivered directly to the customer's facility, i.e. no siding and MUCH faster delivery time.

I wonder why containers aren't used for paper products.

 

NH Joe

Containers are not sturdy enough to handle the weight of paper/ wood products. I wonder why Ga Pacific does not have their own box cars built. Many companies own their own cars (oil companies, for example) and CSX indicates that 2/3 of the cars that run on CSX tracks are owned by someone else. I find it hard to believe that manufacturers that produce box cars would not be able to do so if a company places an order and has the financing. 

"Shippers unhappy, boxcar shortage"

 

  They are lucky they don't need S scale reefers :> .....DaveB

We're down by the Port of Los Angeles. They call containers "cans" and for good reason. Except for the frame, containers are literally big thin steel cans. When they drop one, a lot of times it twists, bends, or breaks open. If you loaded one with paper or wood products, odds are if the load shifted it would rip the thing apart. At best, the sides would get seriously distorted.

That makes perfect sense. The COOP principle worked for grain elevators, it could work for a fleet of purpose-built box cars.

I believe that the wider width of a boxcar allows for more efficient loading, than what will fit in a container. If I remember what I have seen of paper rolls, they will fit two wide in a boxcar, but not in a container.

 

 Also, a boxcar will handle more weight, than a container will, so for what one boxcar will handle, two containers would be needed, which would erode the cost savings of rail transport.

 

 Many of the paper producer/consumer pairs are old enough that they are better set up to handle loading and unloading of railcars, and may not have adequate truck dock capacity to change transport mode ratios to a large extent.

 

Doug

Interesting that the article says the emphasis now is tank cars.

 

FWIW: Recently I have handled TRAINS of brand spanking new tank cars (still with the paper inspection tags on them and never loaded)... going to storage courtesy of the downturn in the oil field.

There is another drawback to containers for some of these industries, namely the doors are on the end and too small. It is much easier to load a double door box.

 

Great article! I found it interesting that 60' will be the new standard.