Freight car routing

[PapaRugica]

I'm relatively new to the hobby but have loved trains all my life. I'm really getting interested in operations now and have a question about freight car routing that I am almost embarrassed to ask. If an average customer on railroad XYZ has a shipment to send, does railroad provide the freight car from its roster? I pretty much understand TTX, car pools for the likes of the auto industry, and customer lease cars. But does XYZ have to provide the customer with an XYZ box car? Or if they have an empty ABC box, and the receiving customer is on the ABC, can they use that car?

[nkalanaga]

Short answer, YES, they can use any road's car that fits the need.  The owning road gets per-diem payments as long as it's on another road.

An empty general-service car is to be returned to the owning road "by the service route", the same route it took to get to wherever it is.  Since the handling road(s) don't get paid for moving empty cars, finding a load makes sense.  A loaded car doesn't have to be sent home.

The exception is cars stenciled for some particular service or customer.  Most will say "For (whatever) Loading Only" or "When Empty Return To (whomever/Wherever)".  By the late 50s it wasn't uncommon to see boxcars with special loading stencils, as companies started customizing load restraining equipment.

Most tank cars have always been owned by private companies, rather than the railroads, and are restricted to certain uses, simply because many of the products can't be mixed.  The tank would have to be thoroughly cleaned before something else was hauled. 

[garethashenden]

One thing to add is that cars will be selected if the load takes them in the direction of home. It matters less now with so few railroads, but that was the system. If you're in Detroit with a load that needs to go to Texas, and you have a choice between a Maine Central and a Southern Pacific boxcar, you'd choose the SP one. Even if its not going to touch SP rails in this trip. Now, when it arrives, it could be the only car available and get loaded with a load headed east again without making it "home" in between.
Boxcars and flatcars were generally in a national pool. There were exceptions, and the payments were complicated, but most anything could show up.

[packers#1]

Somewhat ironically @Tad_T just did an excellent write up of the applicable car routing rules for his time frame in his Mill Loop Layout Engineering thread that might be worth a read, as it deals with this exact subject.

[DirtyD79]

"Embarrassment is the cost of entry. If you aren't willing to look like a foolish beginner, you will never become a graceful master." - writer and former heavyweight boxer Ed Latimore

Never be embarrassed to ask questions on a model railroad forum about how the real thing worked or how to do something. Learning how to get better at something in some way or another is the real purpose of reading hobby magazines, blogs, and books as well as joining hobby message boards. Not just model trains but all hobbies and skills. At least that's why I do it.
 

[learmoia]

Here is a link to Tad's thread...
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=58551.50

I'm working through the same process on my layout but I'm documenting (most of it) in Youtube live videos...

@Tad_T is a bit further than I am...


My initial struggle with JMRI was that I do this type of stuff as my day job on a real Railroad.. so it took some time for me tinker with JMRI and try to get a result that 'looks' real...

Here is my Journey so far..
Pt 1 .. Prototype documents and Formatting.
https://www.youtube.com/live/3Ej-rlbpbK0

My biggest struggle was JMRI combines Customer and Track into one datapoint, and there is no way to split it off..

The reason I want to split them:
If I'm picking a car up, I want to know where it goes (Customer) but I don't need to know the track.
If I'm setting a car out I'd probably want to see both.. so no issues there.
If I'm switching a car inside a customer, I don't need to see the customer name in the From Track and To Track fields.

Pt 2: Tweaking JMRI settings to look more prototypical and Formatting data..
https://www.youtube.com/live/OYLGw8OfMZI
Tabular Format is great for keeping columns aligned as long as your data is formatted properly.. and there is a whole system for doing that in the prototype.. (I go through that in Part 2).
Once I setup formatted data in the Demo Railroad, I reluctantly accepted Customer and Track in the same field.


Pt 3: Entering Stations and Tracks.
https://www.youtube.com/live/zOI7HdiQQyg
.. I did Locations and Track entries last night on stream..


Next week I'm going to try to dig into Train schedules.
 
~Ian

[Missaberoad]

Very much depends on the era you are interested in and the specific car you want.

[learmoia]

Very much depends on the era you are interested in and the specific car you want.

True.. Technically, if your modeling anything before the early 1960s, what JMRI offers likely isn't prototypical for your time period.

[Tad_T]

Very much depends on the era you are interested in and the specific car you want.

 Very much so.

[Tad_T]

Here is a link to Tad's thread...
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=58551.50

I'm working through the same process on my layout but I'm documenting (most of it) in Youtube live videos...

@Tad_T is a bit further than I am...


My initial struggle with JMRI was that I do this type of stuff as my day job on a real Railroad.. so it took some time for me tinker with JMRI and try to get a result that 'looks' real...

Here is my Journey so far..
Pt 1 .. Prototype documents and Formatting.
https://www.youtube.com/live/3Ej-rlbpbK0

My biggest struggle was JMRI combines Customer and Track into one datapoint, and there is no way to split it off..

The reason I want to split them:
If I'm picking a car up, I want to know where it goes (Customer) but I don't need to know the track.
If I'm setting a car out I'd probably want to see both.. so no issues there.
If I'm switching a car inside a customer, I don't need to see the customer name in the From Track and To Track fields.

Pt 2: Tweaking JMRI settings to look more prototypical and Formatting data..
https://www.youtube.com/live/OYLGw8OfMZI
Tabular Format is great for keeping columns aligned as long as your data is formatted properly.. and there is a whole system for doing that in the prototype.. (I go through that in Part 2).
Once I setup formatted data in the Demo Railroad, I reluctantly accepted Customer and Track in the same field.


Pt 3: Entering Stations and Tracks.
https://www.youtube.com/live/zOI7HdiQQyg
.. I did Locations and Track entries last night on stream..


Next week I'm going to try to dig into Train schedules.
 
~Ian

You can do a lot of what you’re talking about within Ops Pro. It’s not always obvious how to. And I would submit that some of it is called something different and not what you would expect.

Especially given your prototype experience.

[learmoia]

I would submit that some of it is called something different and not what you would expect.

Especially given your prototype experience.

Ohhh Yeah... definitely... but to their defense.. they struck a pretty good balance of realism and simplicity....

If you make it more realistic, the learning curve goes up exponentially.

~Ian

[nkalanaga]

And I suspect that car routing today, with the proliferation of leasing companies, is much different than my 1974 era.

[Tad_T]

Somewhat ironically @Tad_T just did an excellent write up of the applicable car routing rules for his time frame in his Mill Loop Layout Engineering thread that might be worth a read, as it deals with this exact subject.

Thank you, sir.

[Tad_T]

Ohhh Yeah... definitely... but to their defense.. they struck a pretty good balance of realism and simplicity....

If you make it more realistic, the learning curve goes up exponentially.

~Ian

No reason to defend, I’m not attacking.

I’m glad to hear that you feel that way. I’ve heard several others with prototype experience say that it wasn’t realistic because… I’ve tried to keep those things in mind as I have worked on designing my operations.

I’m definitely a JMRI Ops Pro fan. It takes some work to figure out how to make it do what you want. It also takes a clear vision of what you want before you try to figure that out.

I’ll definitely have to watch your videos.

 Now that I have my Yards Module figured out, I am fixing to implement schedules myself.

[Missaberoad]

And I suspect that car routing today, with the proliferation of leasing companies, is much different than my 1974 era.

Lots more assigned service, lots of cars leased by specific customers. Even "free runners" such as grain cars run in train lots, with cuts pulled from unit trains to serve smaller elevators. Boxcars are mostly assigned to specific shippers or commodities.

From a boots on the ground perspective there is no local agent that bills cars, its all handled by a central office and we just get lists of cars or workorders with already assigned class codes (destination codes).

Often the destination we are given is simply the next place it must be classified. (Ie: calgary, winnipeg, st. paul) and the car will get a new class code(s) on its way to its FDOL (final destination on line)