Freight car type ratios on Modern rails

[rochsub]

I need to purchase about 20 more freight cars for the Geneva Sub.  Does anyone out there know where I can find information as to the numbers of freight cars in use today and the ratio of box cars to tank to covered hoppers to flats to gondola, etc. Excluding inter-modal, autoracks, and coal cars as I run those mostly as unit trains.  Any help would be appreciated.
Daryl

[C855B]

Summarizing Jeff's (Rossford Yard) post from a similar discussion on the Atlas forum six months ago, this was a breakdown drawn from recent equipment registry:

  Covered Hoppers - 30%
  Tank cars - 17.4%
  Gondolas - 15%
  Hoppers - 13%
  Boxcars - 12%
  Flat cars - 10%
  Other - <1%

But I do think the final conclusion was "really, it's regional". For example, covered hoppers on trains outside of the corn belt would be a much smaller percentage, and boxcars and flats would be higher on the West Coast in support of the lumber trade. Tank cars will comprise a higher ratio on trains in and out of the Gulf Coast. Also, discount "hoppers" and "gondolas" extensively since those numbers are going to include your coal fleets, and do the same for flats because I think intermodal is lumped into that number.

[C855B]

Oops... left off reefers, at 2%.

FWIW, the little I've seen of recent reefer traffic also tends to favor unit trains. Trucks have sort of cleaned the RR's clocks on produce since the transloading process and delays in classification yards resulted in significant product loss.

[rochsub]

Thanks for info!!

Here's my ratio

Box – 29 or 21%
Covered Hopper – 44 or 32%
Flat – 13 or 9.5%
Gondola – 9 or 6.5%
Tank – 26 or 19%
Refer – 17 or 12%

Refers are high because Rochelle is a big warehouse area and we see a lot more refers than 2%
Looks like I need mostly gondolas and flats

So, if I buy 10 gondolas, 6 covered hoppers and 4 tanks it will be

Covered Hopper – 50 or 32%
Tank – 30 or 19%
Gondola – 19 or 12%
Box – 29 or 18%
Flat – 13 or 8%
Refr – 17 or 11%


More box cars and refers than the average, but everything else is in line.

Thanks again for the info.  I was thinking I needed more box cars.

Daryl

[Rossford Yard]

Logged on to reply to DK and then I find its been done for me!

I will note that this data is now 9-10 years old, and I would expect the trend to tankers and covered hoppers to accelerate, but that is just a guess.

Besides the regionalism mentioned, you should probably do some math to figure out the imbalance of coal and stack trains, which you probably represent with just one trainset running back and forth over the layout, while each manifest has unique combinations.

I did that on my 600 car fleet, and it raises the percentage of all the manifest cars (ie. non coal and intermodal) by a percent or two, but not really much.

If you are like most of us, I suspect if you try to make your fleet numerically correct, it might end up that you sell some box cars and buy even more tankers and covered hoppers.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Whoa whoa whoa there.

Keep in mind, that just because these are the ratios for the cars in the country, they're NOT the ratios for the cars in the trains at any given location.

Daryl, knowing your prototype focus, I think you'll really need to observe the trains that you're trying to model and make general notes, because I'd bet that you might not see the true natural averages.

[John]

Daryl . the quantities for your layout size also seems rather small .. I would think you could accomodate 200-300 cars online without problems ..

[GaryHinshaw]

As noted, there will be lots of variation by line.  For modern prototype modelers like yourself, videos of your line are a great way to take stock of the typical mix.  And I'm sure there are plenty of Roch-Sub videos available...

[Ryan87]

UP & BNSF in the Midwest... More Covered Hoppers!  

I think if you exclude Intermodal & Coal, Covered hoppers should make up almost half of your fleet... at least that's what I have observed...
 

[Kev1340]

Daryl - I was trying to answer similar questions myself a while back.

For me the best option (as I live in the UK) was looking at photos and videos on sites like http://www.railpictures.net/ of the region I was modelling, and some sites I found that were area specific. It helped me a lot to get a real 'feel' for the area, and how it had changed over recent years.

Cheers,

Kev

[John]

I think you could just drive down the street - and count them

[C855B]

I think you could just drive down the street - and count them

That's what I was sorta thinking, but the Rochelle railfan park is a 6-hour drive for me.  :-\

[rochsub]

Daryl . the quantities for your layout size also seems rather small .. I would think you could accomodate 200-300 cars online without problems ..

The numbers I quoted did not include coal cars (80), Autoracks (21), Double stacks (43 wells) and TOFCs (9).  Once I get track laid at Global III I will need more intermodal cars and autoracks.

I was just thinking about cars needed to fill out the Proviso/Clinton yards.

Daryl

[rochsub]

I think you could just drive down the street - and count them

Yea, you're right I should do that.  The railroad park is less than a mile from our house.  I need to video tape once or twice a week for a couple of months and count what goes past.  With Christmas coming up and harvest in full swing, its one of the busiest times of the year.  However, I'm having so much fun running trains its hard to get down to the park.

Daryl

[John]

Daryl . the quantities for your layout size also seems rather small .. I would think you could accomodate 200-300 cars online without problems ..

The numbers I quoted did not include coal cars (80), Autoracks (21), Double stacks (43 wells) and TOFCs (9).  Once I get track laid at Global III I will need more intermodal cars and autoracks.

I was just thinking about cars needed to fill out the Proviso/Clinton yards.

Daryl

Gotcha ..

better than that .. start with this video, then the other 31 on youtube while you are making turnouts