Pan Am/GTI profits

I do apologize for resurrecting this topic, but I had spoken yesterday while railfanning to a kind fellow who had recently retired from Guilford management. The autorack traffic did not have a great effect on Guilford's bottom line. Guilford was paid only $100 per car to move the train through Hill Yard to the CSXT facility. A few drops in the bucket.

Guilford was paid only $100 per car to move the train through Hill Yard to the CSXT facility. A few drops in the bucket.

Interesting. I wonder why PAR built another auto unloading facility (yet to be used) at Ayer then? Was it built to handle anticipated NS auto traffic?

B&MYoshi wrote:The autorack traffic did not have a great effect on Guilford's bottom line. Guilford was paid only $100 per car to move the train through Hill Yard to the CSXT facility. A few drops in the bucket.

Don't know where you're getting that $100 figure, but ST was making close to $600 per car on the Ford traffic.

What does GRS/PAR get for a delivery of a boxcar to a company??

The cost will vary with the amount of cargo carried in the car along with how far Guilford has to move the car. Moving the car from Deerfield to Waterville will net them more than moving the same car from Deerfield to Ayer.

Robert, I had received the $100 figure from a former Guilford employee in management. However, I do believe that he had given $100 for the move through Hill Yard to the facility. Perhaps the extra $500 could very well come from service between Worcester and Ayer?

Railroads don't break out their revenue by segment of road. Generally speaking, railroads generate revenue through linehaul movements and accessorial charges. Linehaul is the origin-to-destination movement over the road. Accessorial charges (also called supplemental services) are any additional charges incidental to the customer activity, whether it relates to a particular linehaul movement or not. For instance, if a customer needs a car moved from one part of his plant to another, the railroad's fee for performing that service is published in the company's accessorial services tariff. That service, btw, is typically $150-200... which gives you an idea that a $100 linehaul is understated.

The accessorial tariffs also state charges such as for weighing cars, special train movements, intra-terminal switching, etc.... If you're interested, most roads publish them on their websites under tariffs or publications.

Three other points and I'll shut up: (1) Customers also negotiate confidential agreements with railroads, so the rates you're looking at on-line are not necessarily what each customer is paying. (2) Joint-line, i.e., multiple carrier linehaul rates are typically bundled, and the customer doesn't know how much each railroad's cut is of the total linehaul. Each railroad's cut is called a "division." Divisions are set by agreement or negotiated individually... and can be really screwy based on competitive factors. (I've seen a carrier get ~70% of the revenue for 10% of the move.) Shortlines typically get an inordinate share vs class 1s. (3) Railroad pricing is not as bad as airline pricing, but it's still pretty screwy... pricing has largely migrated to a per-car basis and length-of-haul is only one factor.

You have to remember,

43 cars per weekday? That seems a little high.