The Home Shop - Trains Magazine

Repairing bad order cars is profitable.

If railroad A received a damaged car from railroad B, and railroad A's carmen discover the damage, then railroad A will bad order the car, repair it, and bill railroad B per the standard FRA interchange manual rates for parts and labor.

So it pay for each railroad to find and repair damaged cars before they forward them, simply because the charge to repair it "in house" is often less than the FRA billing rate they will be charged by the railroad they forward the car to.

As an example...lets say I or someone on my railroad bends a grab iron on a hopper, and we just send the car on without repairing it...the FRA book says to replace a grab iron on a hopper cost $50.00 for the grab iron, and 1.0 hours labor, or 1.25 hours if the rivets have to be drilled out.

So, if we forward this car with out repairing it, and the railroad we send it to catches this bent grab iron, we will be billed somewhere around $150.00 to repair it, plus we would pay the daily storage rate while the car sits still.

On the other hand, if we fix it before we forward the car, the grab iron bought in bulk, (300 or so per box) cost about $10.00, and a good torch man can blast off the old iron and rivets in about 5 minutes, mount and rivet the new iron in and be done with the car in under 30 minutes.

Our in house cost, about $60.00 with labor.

Which one would you want to pay?

So it benefits each railroad to find and repair cars before they are forwarded out, and to find and repair cars they receive from other railroads...pretty much a win, win all the way around.

If you think about it, this keeps railroad B from bending the heck out of a few cars, then forwarding them on and trying to make them someone else's problem...whoever they forward them to will inspect them on the inbound or receiving track and any damaged cars will be bad ordered...then who ever forwarded the car pays the bill...so if you miss a damaged inbound car, and forward it on to another railroad, you may end up paying for a car you didn't even damaged, thus inspecting inbound and outbound cars is a high priority for car departments...it earns them money by repairing inbound damaged cars, and save them money by catching any outbound damaged cars before they leave.

A home shop is the facility designated by the car owner for any major repairs or retrofits...smaller car owners do not have their own facilities, they often have the work contracted out to a specific shop.

Big lease fleets, like GATX, will often have the cars returned to their own shops for retrofits and major inspections, the same with UTLX, hence the home shop do not load sticker...the car may not be damaged, but may be due for a FRA mandated inspection...if it is loaded when the inspection comes up, it will finish that trip, then the agent for the lease company will arrange for the car to be returned to the designated home shop empty.

If our car department comes across a car that is due a specific inspection, and we are not able to perform that inspection, they will notify the car owner, apply the home shop sticker, and notify our chief clerk, who will make arrangements with the car owner for disposition and forwarding instructions.

Once empty, the car may not be loaded again until the "Home Shop" releases it.

Keep in mind the car may not be "damaged", in the case of a covered hopper, it may be time for the interior liner to be replaced, or a tankcar may be due a pressure relief valve test and tank pressure certification, something most yard shops are not able to accomplish.

If the car is in general revenue service, it works like I described above...if it is a privately owned car, no repairs except emergency repairs necessary to move the car can be done without the owners consent.

This is a rather simplified example...it gets really detailed on labor charges, parts, what has to be repaired and how it is repaired...if you can find a copies, read the Field Manual of the A.A.R. Interchange Rules and the A.A.R Manual of Standards...they describes and list every part, down to the type of washer and bolt grades and how many ounces of lube and what grades of lube, how many hours labor to charge on a certain repair, so forth and so on used in car repair.