Jeff Aley forwarded comments of Mark Amfahr; among them were:

On the economic side,
there would have been additional car delay resulting in more per-diem
expense for RI on those cars, unless there happened to be some sort of
reclaim mechanism involved. I'm curious if anyone can offer comments as to why
RI-SP handled their westbound empty PFE's that way vs. normal train
schedules, and was there indeed a per-diem reclaim arrangement between
the RR's to help RI with the extra cost of moving the cars that way?

Mark obviously is unaware that there was no per-diem on reefers; they were charged by mileage moved, so storing them was "free" in that sense.

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