Auto Racks

Do Auto Racks require specific equipment to load/unload? If they don't, would it be possible for dealerships close to the rails to take delivery of a few Auto-racks and perhaps reduce freight costs?

The loading of auto racks has been perfected. I am not a expert but have spotted cars for Nissan and Saturn plants in Nashville. We spotted about 60 auto racks up in 4 different tracks---you would spot 5 cars on special marks leave a 300 foot gap---spot 5 more cars up----leave a 300 ft gap and then go to the next track and do the same. The tracks were in the middle of a huge asphalt parking lot----there is not ballast!

When I say the loading of auto racks has been perfected I mean--these guys can load a whole track (about 15 auto racks) in about 2 hours or so.
Most bi-level racks hold 8 cars--so thats 120 cars loaded in over 2 hours.

They set ramps up on one side of the five cars and ramps between the cars and then they start driving the hell out of them. As fast as they can they-drive up-spot it-park it--jump out and get in a van with 10-12 other
people and the van takes them back to where the cars are ready for pick
up-----it is a sight to see. Hope this helps!

You don't happen to work in the Baltimore Terminal Division do you? The scene you described looks alot like something one sees from southbound I-895. You don't have to answer that.

Does anyone think it would be practical or cost effective for a dealership to take delivery by racks and not by truck?

gprimr1 wrote:You don't happen to work in the Baltimore Terminal Division do you? The scene you described looks alot like something one sees from southbound I-895. You don't have to answer that.

Does anyone think it would be practical or cost effective for a dealership to take delivery by racks and not by truck?

No it would not. The dealerships would have to pay for the Auto Racks to be spotted its kind of a gray area as they would have to pay late fees for how ever long that auto rack is held up as well. Outher things to account for is the location of the dealership if hes on a branch line it my be restricted by hight and weaght for some Rail Cars due to low bridges and or track structure. It is easer to keep the Auto Racks in full blocks and unload them all at once rather than split them up with one car going here 2 going there and so forth.

I might add to that that autos in racks are classified only by terminal - not by dealer. The racks may be loaded from the Cobalt plant in Lordstown, going to Buffalo...so, you have ten racks of Cobalts, no other cars, going to Buffalo, with some cars consigned to Jamestown and some to Olean and some to Lockport. With unloading the cars are identified, grouped, and loaded (with other models of the same manufacturer) to dealers in the same general vicinity.

Then there's contracts with the delivery company. Allowing local dealers would cut them out of their work, in addition to adding confusion to the grouping process. Nobody wins, and the trucking companies would have a ready reason to block the change.

I agree with CR Engr right up until the last paragraph. Cutting someone out of "their" work is the wrong mindset. Everybody's job is subject to competition. The truckers don't have a "right" to the work, they have it because it makes the most economic sense. If it made better operations to have sidings right to the dealers, the railroads would do so and the truckers would have no way to "block the change" - it's not their choice.

Autos move as they do because as stated above it is the most efficient cost effective way to do it. Loading and switching individual cars to a given dealer would not be practical.

Aji-tater wrote:I agree with CR Engr right up until the last paragraph. Cutting someone out of "their" work is the wrong mindset. Everybody's job is subject to competition. The truckers don't have a "right" to the work, they have it because it makes the most economic sense. If it made better operations to have sidings right to the dealers, the railroads would do so and the truckers would have no way to "block the change" - it's not their choice.

No real argument there...except that the auto-loaders DO have a contract and it has to be honored. There are other absurd examples...with some intermodal shipments, the containers are off-loaded in Cleveland (probably other places as well) and moved by truck to Chicago or other places they could easily have been sent via rail.

I'm not talking right and wrong. I'm talking the reality of the situation. Putting dealer porters in the unloading stage would create pandemonium and stir up problems with the auto-loaders with no real benefit. Any savings would be offset by the labor cost to have dozens of porters do drive-aways for what could be each auto carrier.

Is there room for expansion of the auto rack trains in the eastern United States? Do railroads carry just about all of the cars or are some of them still trucked longer distances?

SecaucusJunction wrote:Is there room for expansion of the auto rack trains in the eastern United States? Do railroads carry just about all of the cars or are some of them still trucked longer distances?

I would suspect that Autos are hauled by train if there going long distance and maybe trucked if going to a lot with in a tri-state region if there leaveing the factory to near by dealers. I have seen maybe 4 or 5 trucks with full sleeper cabs in my life time that were out fitted haul autos long distance.

Back in the mid-1950s, prior to the introduction and general use of railroad auto racks, one could not drive more than a few miles on any major U.S. highway such as U.S. Route 6, 20 or 30 without encountering a tractor trailer auto hauling rig. Sure glad that is not the case today.

TB Diamond wrote:Back in the mid-1950s, prior to the introduction and general use of railroad auto racks, one could not drive more than a few miles on any major U.S. highway such as U.S. Route 6, 20 or 30 without encountering a tractor trailer auto hauling rig. Sure glad that is not the case today.

I could also guess that with the ever growing size of semi trucks over the years and the larger amount of cars that they can haul it might take a bit longer for one semi to get from point A to B with all the detours he might incounter along the way with low bridges and outher obsticals. Just the outher day (Tuesday) the state was out checking the clearnce of traffic lights on 5 where State Route 321 come out, they were also seen in Elbridge and in Auburn later that day.

My father back a few years ago was at the gas sation on the corner of RT 5 & 90 near Free Bridge by the Montazuma wildlife refuge when a West Bound Semi with autos took out several beams on the top part of the Bridge the Post Standered still has the photos that my father took of the accdent. In fact if you look up when you drive over the bridge you can still see beams that are are twisted, and or missing from the accdent in spots where they had to cut them out to unload the cars from the top of the trailer so as to free the truck and get it off the Bridge. In all I think 4 or 5 cars or SUV's were destroyed.