Railroad Scrapping

How do railroads handle scrapping of old and damaged equipment? With metal prices the way they are right now it might be worth it to buy up government surplus old railcars and cut them up and maybe make a profit.
This 1953 6 axle friction bearing surplus flatcar is my example.
http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/v ... Id=1245127

Its an idea of mine. I know that there are a lot of things to consider, how do you move it, where do you store it, how much will it go for, so on and so fourth. The car is has friction bearings so I'll assume that transport directly by rail is improbable. In another post someone talked about flatcars used to haul mu's and damaged passenger cars, Is there a company that leases/sells equipment like that? How much could I be looking at for something like that? The ad says the car measures 58' by 10' so transport by truck would be a pain at best. According to the ad the car weighs about 50,000. 50,000 * $150 per ton = $4375 (ideally of course). IDK is something like this worth my time and effort, or am I just a little too starry eyed about it?

Let me state that I really have no business knowledge, nor do I know how a railroad really works. I just figured if anybody could help me fill in the blanks, this would be the place to ask

I've done some scrapping but it was more as a method of getting rid of junk than as an effort to make a profit.
My personal opinion is that the only option would be to scrap it in place. Trying to move that will chew up all your profit in transportation fees. It can't move over the rails and is too big to truck. Even if you cut it into sections, you will still need a crane to load and unload it and will require at least two trailers. Even if you got the car for free, I can't see moving it for much less than the estimated profit.
I believe the $150 a ton is for short steel, which means everything needs to be under 3' x 3'. That's a lot of cutting using a lot of acetylene and oxygen and a lot of cutoff wheels. The price drops down dramatically if it is larger pieces. You'd need a torch outfit, a cutoff saw and the ability to use them efficiently. Some of the stuff will be way too heavy to heave into the dumpster (Wheels, journal castings, couplers, etc), so a loader of some sort (i.e. Bobcat) would be needed.
I commend your adventurous spirit and don't want to be a dream crusher, but I think you would find that after all your expenses and labor, you would have done better spending the same amount of time flipping burgers.

I was thinkin more along the lines of a plasma cutter, and yes that's the lowball price for #1 short steel. I scrap stuff for extra loot occasionally. I'm just trying to piece together something a little bigger than stripping copper wire with my pocket knife on the weekends, thats real slow goings. The bigger the better right?

I'm glad to see you're more experienced than I orignially gave you credit for! At least you know the amount of work it would take.

How thick can a plasma cutter----cut? I would hate to see the price tag on that baby! I wish you the best-but I dont see you making your first milion cutting up railcars!

A good plasma cutter can cut 1" anymore and you really gotta fork out for one.

Let's see, you come to a railroad/railfan websight, and inquire about buying trains, to cut them up for scrap. (what a swell way to make money!!!) Then, you wonder if you are being "starry-eyed"? I can think of something, but stars sure as hell don't come into play........

Yes I understand that's very backwards from a railfan perspective. But at the back of every junkyard is a pile of old '57 Chevys. If I were to srap 50 ore jennies and come across an old heavyweight pullman, I might feel inclined to keep it. I know scrapping is frowned upon, but at heart I am still a railfan. If I don't ask those who know, how else would find out?

Back to my topic, do most railroads scrap their own, do they sell or auction off their scrap?

Aardvark wrote:Back to my topic, do most railroads scrap their own, do they sell or auction off their scrap?

Yes.

The railroad contracts out the cutting up of railroad cars (or at least they do here), in the yards after a switch crew destroys a car and after a derailment on the mainline.

It's not some old chevy, or a string of worn out ore jennies. Your talking about a single car, most likely with very little use, since it's a DOD car, from inside a plant. MOW service, or a museum, might have use for it. (get those loco parts out of the dirt, and store them on a flatcar) Did you see the group of Fairmont motorcars, also for sale, in the auction? Three cars, plus parts, no bidders...........

Seems to me that many years ago the Norfolk and Western sold some
steam locomotives to a scrapper in Roanoke and for some odd reason,
the engines were never cut up for scrap although they were only a shell.
They may still be there, I found information on this from the Norfolk and
Western site on railroaddotnet. I found there a few years back and it
may or may not still be there.
Noel Weaver

Oh boy, the topic of scrapping - a subject that I find very interesting - while I hate to see anything scrapped (even automobiles) its a necessary evil -

for one thing, sometimes things have to be stripped to keep other units/cars running - second - its necessary to get old junk out of the way - if they kept every piece of equipment since the dawn of railroading, every inch of track would be full of equipment!!! (HOWEVER, i think that AT LEAST one or two of every model should be saved.....)

for just one flatcar, i can't see it being real lucrative for you - now, if you say had property or a business where you had access to an intact siding, and could get cars delievered to you for scrap, then that would be more promising (and much easier, you wouldn't have to worry about trucking them in or anything)

That is a good point GA about the DOD flatcar - gotta wonder if any museums or organizations with decaying equipment ever thought of that.......

Ok, I'll agree the flatcar was a bad example...Thank you all for your input tho.

The steam engines were still there as of February.