Private cars

Private cars are usually owned by a company (e.g. SRLX) or leased to companies (e.g. UTLX).  No "home point" is shown in the ORER because the cars are leased and the ORER has no way of knowing who the lessee's are or when the leases are up.

The owner or lessee determines where the car goes.  If an oil company leases 100 UTLX tank cars then they can assign them to their refineries as they see fit.  50 cars to one, 25 cars to the other two.  Whatever.  The railroad returns them to the point specified by the lessee. 

Empties are typically reverse routed.  The AAR car zones don't have anything to do with private cars.  Its the lessee or owner's instructions.

Ben

Ben, if you'll tell me what private marks and car types you're interested in, if they align with what ran on my prototype, I can provide some info about how the empties were routed.  Certainly not an exact science, but perhaps slightly more accurate than guessing.

No guessing...

….necessary.  If they are empties, that presumably means they were loads.  Reverse route them.

Next question is does the detail really matter?  How many routes off your layout are there?  For example I have effectively four, Reading on the N end, Coatesville PRR (cars going west) and the PRR and B&O at Wilmington (cars going south).  That's really all the choices I have.  If the car goes to California, how will YOUR RR handle it differently than if the car goes to Texas?  Your yardmaster doesn't have to get it to destination, he just has to get it off your railroad.

The real answer to the question is don't use the car cards for empty routing, use the waybill and reverse route it.  If the car is routed UP-KCMO-MP-StL-PRR-Hrsburg-RDG, then it reverse routes RDG-Hrsburg-PRR-StL-MP-KCMO-UP.  Car zones are irrelevant.

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@Joe - Hi Joe, the cars I have are some covered hoppers (ICMX), some mechanical reefers (FGEX) and several tank cars (RCRX, OWIX, UTLX), 

@Dave- Hi there Dave thanks for the info. I prefer to have the car if it is on my modeled section of railroad once the waybill (load) is fulfilled and removed (an empty car) that the car card will annotate what zone(s) the car "belongs to" thereby giving my yard master the discretion to send it back to its home railroad on whatever train he sees fit. I have two staging yards at each end of the layout and a couple interchanges as well. I realize that it can be done on the waybill but I'd like to model it this way to give some latitude to the yard master. 

Routing

I understand what you are doing and whatever works for you.  

On a real railroad the yardmaster wouldn't have that latitude.  The cars are reverse routed, which means that all the roads that participated in the loaded move, participate in the empty move.

Interestingly, my 1987 ORER shows no cars with OIWX or ICMX reporting marks.

RCRX is Reagent Chemical, which has a HQ in Ringoes, NJ, but its only an office.

UTLX could go any one of a couple thousand companies from coast to coast.

If you just had to pick one spot, Texas or Louisiana are always a safe bet for tank cars if they are hazmat cars or plastics covered hoppers.  On the east coast, northern New Jersey and along the Delaware River from Baltimore to Philadelphia is a big chemical area.  A lot of it depends on what they are carrying.

If the covered hopper is a grain car then west towards the corn belt from Ohio to Kansas and Nebraska would be a safe bet.

FGEX is controlled by CSX so the southeast would be a safe bet for an FGEX car.

Jump back to the Carter years, Dave

Per his sig, he models 1980.

OWIX (Old World Transportation, Ltd) was not in the January 1980 ORER.

ICMX was Illinois Cereal Mills, I think.  The mark now belongs to Cargill.  Not listed in the 1/80 ORER either, nor was it in several earlier ORERs I looked in.  That said, not every private fleet was listed in the ORER, especially if they were only routed over one railroad.  In other words, not interchanged.

Did you mean to type IMCX, International Minerals & Chemical Corp?  They showed up in the ORER in the late '60s and had a LOT of home points listed, all over the U.S.  Their empties could literally be routed anywhere per owner instructions.  That said, a lot of their traffic came out of Florida's Bone Valley, so for your Roanoke & Southern it would be phosphate loads north and empties south via SCL, which had the Bone Valley business to itself.

RCRX (Reagent Chemical & Research) was listed in 1/80 with general offices in Houston, Texas.  Most of their tank cars (86 of 101) hauled muriatic acid.  The other 15 hauled liquid sulphur.  These very specialized tanks would definitely move only on the owner's instructions.  Your yardmaster would have no say in their routing.

As Mr. Husman wrote, UTLX (Union Tank Car Line) owned lots of tank cars and leased every one of them to shippers, either on a trip basis or long term.  Most of them were leased long term so they would generally go back the way they came, aka reverse route.  This is not always true, as either UTLX or the lessee could reroute them as needed.

FGEX (Fruit Growers Express) was owned by a number of railroads, mainly eastern roads, but operated as part of an alliance with Burlington Refrigerator Express and Western Fruit Express (Great Northern) that was called the Associated Companies.  This allowed equipment from the three companies to follow the harvests around their owners' territories.  These cars moved on trip basis, so empties would generally be hustled off to the nearest harvest.

Truth be told though, by 1980 the biggest use for FGEX mechanical reefers was for hauling frozen potatoes.  Which is why, once CSX became the sole owner of FGE in the late '80s, FGE got rid of its mechanical reefers.  No potato harvests to speak of in CSX's territory.

Scott Chatfield

Private empties always have waybills

Another important point is privately owned (non-railroad) cars _always_ move on a waybill, loaded or empty.  The empty rate was historically 1/3rd that of the loaded rate.  (What it is post-1980 and the Staggers Act is a private contract matter between the railroad(s) and the shipper, but I gather the 1/3rd rule is still common.)

What this means for the modeler using car cards and waybills is you generally use a two-sided waybill and the waybill is just flipped in the car card, never removed unless replaced with a new waybill.  For most of them the empty route is simply the reverse of the loaded route.  There should not be a "when empty return to yard" notation on the car card.

Now this does not apply to "pool" cars like Railbox and Trailer Train.  Those cars are indirectly owned by the member railroads and can be held when empty for the next load the railroad can find.  Indeed that's the whole point of having the pool.

Scott Chatfield

Private Car Distribution

For a time, I distributed empty equipment at NS as a supervisor in Car Management before I exercised my seniority and went back to being a locomotive engineer.  One of the positions I handled was making sure the private marked cars were moving in accordance with Car Service Rules.

For private marked cars, other than tank cars and TTX owned equipment, they are either owned or leased by the shippers.  Cars carrying chemical related traffic generally remain captive to a single product and will often load out at the same origin.  Many originate in TX and LA.  Houston, TX is also called the chemical coast.  A lot of plastic pellets originate on the BNSF or UP at or around Houston.

Private leased grain hoppers are managed by the shippers and can and often will be diverted upon empty release to their next assignment wherever they will be needed for their next load.

Railroads have tariffs in place to make sure revenue is protected against private marked cars.  Once a private marked car is released empty, it will automatically be billed back reverse route of its last loaded waybill.  If an empty comes through an interchange and not moving on a reverse route waybill from a previous loaded waybill during a specific timeframe determined by each railroad’s tariff, then it will move on a revenue empty waybill.

Other times private empties move on empty revenue waybills are when a back to back empty move is made.  For example, a private empty is diverted after it pulls the destination class code.  This can happen when cars show up at a serving yard and are not needed for loading or rejected by a customer.  They will also incur charges if they aren’t released empty within a certain time frame.  On NS, it is six months or 180 days from the date of the last loaded waybill.

Tank cars move on mileage.  At the end of a specified time period (can’t remember if it is monthly or yearly), the total number of loaded miles is factored against the total empty miles.  Payment for empty miles will occur when it exceeds the loaded miles.

For model railroad purposes, the simplest way of distributing private marked cars is just to simply reverse route them based on their previously loaded waybill. Hope this helps.

Tim Garland

Ben

Yeah, with all the great info from Dave, Scott, and Tim above, I'm going to recognize when I'm out of my league and bow out of this one.   I have a few routings from my era where there was no reverse routing, but the data lines up with what the experts said above - no private cars.

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Yep... all great info. I may have to modify how I had planned on doing things. Was just trying to simplify the heck out of it. I had tried ShipIt and Shenware but I'm a Network Engineer by trade and I just didn't want to deal with computers to run trains. Been reading the method Allen McClelland used in the 'The V&O Story' book and I misunderstood how he handled empties and was trying to just build upon it. I also have read 'Realistic Model Railroad Operations' (had forgotten I owned a copy) and the 4 cycle waybill example given makes more sense. 

Empty return

One advantage of putting the empty return on the waybill, is it then gives you the ability to vary the return route  based on the owner/lessee "instructions".  If you put the empty return on the car card, then the OWIX car ALWAYS goes via north staging.  On the waybill you can mix it up a bit.

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Thanks Dave... that's sort of my goal... I don't (with exceptions of course) want the same car always going to the same industries and the same route(s), even if it's a 4 cycle waybill. I think you've hit what I was looking for, by using the waybill to route the empty once it get to that destination just slip in a different waybill will get the desired result...

I got caught up on the Regional Car Utilization Map in the ORER and trying to use it to may that routing decisions... which by the way I cannot believe I never had bought an ORER before what an awesome book for research...!!!

I really appreciate everyone's input and patience....

Ben, some ideas for you

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/not-wanting-to-ruin-another-person-blog-i-will-post-my-photos-here-12214758

Devil in the Details

I would suggest looking at all the notes and info in the back of the ORER too.  One of the things I have learned is that the special instructions in a timetable (or any railroad  document) are almost more informative than the timetable itself.  Same with the ORER and ORG (Official Railway Guide).

A wrinkle on empty car returns,Chep pallets

This is a modern era(1980's to current) wrinkle,a load of Chep pallets being sent to the shipper,for use.

The Blue painted pallets are of a standard size to fit in most grocery warehouses racks,then returned

to a nearby dry warehouse for inspection,repairs,then sent to the next shipper that needs then

So sending a empty reefer to that warehouse to be loaded with pallets to be used by where that

reefer was return routed(packing house as an example)for. reloading.

These Blue pallets are rentals,fees are paid by the shipper,or grocery warehouse for use.

This could also be done with boxcars used for paper products,that empty out at a grocery warehouse.

and are return routed back to the shipper.

This is a one time use  after unloading,lets say fifth time at that grocery warehouse.

ZZRacks

One of the "hottest" commodities on the route between Illinois and Mexico on the MP were "ZZRacks".  They were generally empty metal bins that hold auto parts.  They were hot to get back to the parts production plants so they could be loaded with auto parts (specifically headlight and grill assemblies).  It was considered more important to keep the empty bins up against the parts manufacturer, and the loaded parts cars more naturally took care of themselves.  A similar thing happened with unit coal trains and chemical tank cars.  The loads were important but the critical part was maintaining the flow of empties back to the producers.

Auto parts tend to be "just in time" type loads

The big 3 are very good at "plugging" up box cars and trailers with empty racks to be returned to the parts vendors

when needed, all based on the Just in time needs at the factory

The Box car or trailer is considered as a "rolling warehouse" to store the racks/bins untill needed

It is common to see a bunch of Boxcars or trailers at the factory full of empty racks/bins waiting to be sent back

to the vendors.