P&W autoracks in Providence

I'm curious, why does the P&W have automobile cars? Where in their system are they serving anyplace that new autos arrive? It seems that autos would come from domestic points of manufacture well outside their range, or that import offloading would occur in the ports of Newark or Boston. How do autos end up on the railroad from places other than these within the northeast?

P&W carries autos imported via the port of Davisville, RI.

I don't know whether the Port of Boston receives autos or not, but there's no rail service anymore, so if it does get any there's probably not a very large operation.

TrainManTy wrote:I don't know whether the Port of Boston receives autos or not, but there's no rail service anymore, so if it does get any there's probably not a very large operation.

Import autos still come into the Moran Terminal in Charlestown, but as you note there's no longer any rail service there.

P&W has also been receiving loaded auto racks with new Subarus . I assume that those are being unloaded at Davisville for local delivery. As a note to modelers P&W now has their auto racks , white with the P&W logo.

I saw one of those heading south through Baltimore MD last weekend.

Over the summer I saw P&W autoracks in Cleveland. Tried to get a pic but the train was too fast.

They load VW/Audis into the midwest. I think the Subarus at Davisville are for New England delivery, while Subarus unloaded in Charlestown go to the Metro NY/NJ and upstate NY. Subaru Outbacks are built in Indiana or Ohio, and hauled east. Diversified Automotive(owned by the NY/NJ disributor) hauls theirs to Charlsetown to be processed, then combined with the port cars and trucked to NY and NJ. I suspect that the New England distributor rails his back to Davisville to be combined with his port freight and trucked to New England by BPS, which they own. Locking in a 2 way haul for an autorack must be very profitable, they usually run empty back to the midwest from New England.

I drive over the Tobin each morning and have a good view of Moran Terminal. Up until the last month or so, it seemed that about once a week a new ship would dock to unload cars, so it was decently busy. Certainly seems like enough traffic to sustain a rail connection.

I think the issue in Charlestown wasn't sustainability, it was train length/interference with the commuter rail at FX interlocking/BET area. There is old discussion on this somewhere in one of the relevant forums, I have forgotten which.

consist wrote:I think the issue in Charlestown wasn't sustainability, it was train length/interference with the commuter rail at FX interlocking/BET area. There is old discussion on this somewhere in one of the relevant forums, I have forgotten which.

Couldn't they just send the trains across FX from Midnight to 6?

I believe an autorack is to tall to get to charlestown. (i think it was mentioned somewhere in an older thread.)

I recall Subaru's were of loaded at Castle Island(?) from ships in the 1990's, then trucked to their respective designations. The BOCH auto empire had some arrangement where only they had the franchise to unload Subaru's in Boston also.

Boch is the New England distributor for Subaru, his cars come into Davisville. Subaru Distributors, parent company of Diversified Automotive( the grey and blue car carriers seen all over) get theirs in Charlestown. Many of the cars you see from the Tobin are actually used cars going to Africa and the Middle East. There is a rumor floating around that either Toyota or Honda may start using Charlestown also.

I was in Toronto this past weekend and was surprised to see a P&W autorack being pulled by a couple of CN engines. The entire train consisted of autoracks from a variety of major rail lines and seeing a P&W rack up there seemed odd. Does anyone know what they might be doing up in Canada? It was past the Ford's Oakville, Ontario plant, so I doubt it was for them.

Also on a different note,
Do RR autoracks typically make it around the country on different lines via leases/etc, or do RRs try and keep their own cars on their track. Thanks.