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Today I was down at the ADM soy bean prossessing plant watching them switch out hoppers and noticed mixed in with thw UP stock some ADM hoppers. Made me wonder: Is it common for a company to have their own cars. If it is, how big would the company need to be and how is it set up?
I am not sure of the process but anyone can buy cars and lease them out. For example you can buy 2 freight cars and lease them to a Co. to use and you dont have to be a large Co. either. Keep in mind that about 60% of freight cars out there are in semi captive service which means they will go back and forth from where they are loaded back to the same place to be unloaded. This is why a lot of the times you can see the same cars throughout the year on the same line and if you were keeping records of the car numbers you would be surprised how many go back and forth.
Thanks Mark. So, are you saying a third party company would do the leasing or would, say, UP lease to ADM or could ADM own the cars outright?
I'm modeling a retail lumber and coal company and with rail service but not planning anything that would have a large coal drag. My thoughts are to use the company name on a few cars only. From what you say that sounds like it would work. What do you think?
Some companies lease to other companies but retain their own reporting marks.
TTX and autoracks is a good example.
In general any car bearing marks that end with an X are lease or non railway owned, so my paper mill will be getting two boxcars with FMPX markings soon.
Here's one site that lists some, there are more out there... http://www.nrhs.com/reporting_marks/aar_reporting_marks.htm
The company I work for has a large fleet of railcars which we have modified extensively to fit our product. We also have 2 buildings which are dedicated to the maintenance, and fabrication of the railcars. I'm not sure if my company leases or owns these railcars, but I know that we do all the maintenance on them.
Here are some examples from Co.s on the RR I work on.
There is Willimantic Waste which bought used freight cars for C&D Waste and re-stenciled them for their Co. WWPX. They own the cars.
Then theres OMYA which ships Limestone and Limestone Slurry in Hoppers and Tank Cars. They have long term leases on the cars and they are painted with their logo.
Then you have a RR owned car in dedicated service between Milton, VT and Franklin, CT carrying limestone for a feed mill. There were 5 or 6 dedicated cars and they never left the RR as the just went back and forth.
Then you would have cars that just show up randomly from various rr's. The shipper requests a car for a certain product and the RR gives him a car matching his request so it can be painted in any RR markings. As for leasing cars its usually a 3rd party that does that not RR's.
That clears things up a bit. On the road to railroad knowledge,I'm about a foot into the first mile. It's good to know that there is an outstanding knowledge base in the forums here and everyone is so willing to share.
Hi guys and thanks for all the info. I'm even behind John when it comes to this kind of knowledge. Actually, I have never been what you would concider a knowledgeable rail fan as far as knowiing all this information. Of course my interest revolves around the 1880's to about 1920 so it's far removed from the present time but your info is still very worth while.
There are hundreds of thousands of cars that are not owned by the railways. Many companies lease cars from one of several different leasing companies.
Many companies just let the railroads supply the cars, or lease a set amount of cars and let the lease company control the fleet, or they lease or buy the cars and have them lettered under their own private reporting marks and control their own cars directly. (They may still be leased or owned outright.)
Check out some of the following leased and/or privately operated equipment:
They would be leased from a third party that specializes in leasing, like GE Capital Rail, CIT Group, First Union, etc. or owned outright by a division of ADM.
MGWSY- I see those OMYA cars on an almost daily basis becuase of their plant across the NY-VT border in Procter, VT. Whitehall, NY yard has a few tracks with OMYA cars on it and Fort Edward, NY yard always has some OMYA cars that are waiting for the local run between the two. When my dad did overhead crane service he actually went to work inside the plant, i wish i had been into trains then because he came back with about 3 of the OMYA crushed limestone and limestone slurry cars, which are hard to find in HO scale now.
