Per diem was a daily payment, at a fixed rate, paid by each railroad to the owner of any railroad-owned car on its railroad at midnight.


Malcolm Laughlin, Editor
New England Rail Shipper Directories

Malcolm

A couple of questions relating to rates and ORER's.

Were the per diem rates fixed solely by the individual railroad, by agreement or by regulatory imposition? I suspect the latter, thereby avoiding price wars (noting recent comments about competing on service or whisky bottles!).

However they were fixed, did these rates take into account the size of the car, cubic capacity, etc? The picture I have gained over the last three years of posts (especially from those who actually worked in the yards) was that little consideration was given to the dimensions of the car being assigned, as long as it was long/wide/high enough,, etc. This then begs the question as to why car owners showed the dimensions in the ORER's down to the nearest sixteenth of an inch, or the cubic capacity to the nearest cubic foot.

Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ