Tony Yes, it is about the same -- However, it begs the question of whether various conductors' reports distinguish between XM's and XA's for the purpose of the various ownership tallies. Especially

On some brass cabooses, I stippled on artists acrylics to get a textured surface. Works well for tarred roofs on buildings too, in fact, that's how I started using the technique. Jerry Glow

Chuck and Viv, The statistical "variability" of "traffic" you are hinting at was discussed on this group back in February 2009. I crafted a post based on a simple statistical analysis, not to prove

Clark I don't understand -- what does ALBERT LEA BACK HAUL mean? Lumber definitely could be diverted before it reached its final destination. And diversions could go in any direction, as long

Jeff First of all, you have a small sample. It's 2400 cars, but it's also only from a small number of trains on any given day, over 90 days. Second, it's possible that in late fall-winter months

I like someone's suggestion of reserving a small proportion of the fleet for rarities, which are rotated. Saves me the need for 974 X29s: I don't mind building a few, but hundreds of the same thing

\Ross McLeod wrote: Yep. That's why truckers have been eating their lunch on the profitable traffic for decades. Sorry for implying that a railroader might want to serve the customer. Tony

"Stop off cars also handled thing like appliances, farm machinery, etc".   Correct, I believe with ag imps you could have up to three stop offs, baler twine as many as you wished.    There was also

Assuming that some wood freight cars and cabooses had roofs not unlike that on passenger cars, what techniques and materials are you all using to model that? Victor Baird Fort Wayne, Indiana

Larry, does 2,267 box cars on the UP mainline even represent the traffic of a single typical day? So here we are looking at freight trains spread over four months... or on any given day, less than 1%

"Sure, Ross, but the FIRST RULE is to "Protect the shipment." You could not care less about car hire if a shipper needs that empty car. Now of course you don't keep empties sitting around idle, and

Chuck Peck says: Well...maybe in years past. Now days one doesn't usually have as much choice. Hoever, the point is well taken. Just be sure you don't go too strongly in favor of a particular RR with

Allen Rueter writes: ", and national pool rare cars(<1%)." And Tony Thompson follows with: "But I take your point, that we DO need rarities so that our trains will exhibit those

Allen Rueter wrote: Not a bad idea, Allen, but given the sort of data we have I would be entertained to see a calculation of the Standard deviation . . . But I take your point, that

Stop off cars also handled thing like appliances, farm machinery, etc. ______________ J. Stephen (Steve) Sandifer mailto:steve.sandifer@... Home: 12027 Mulholland Drive, Meadows Place, TX

It seems to me you might want four pools of cars. home road pool, favored/connecting interchange pool, National pool common cars , and national pool rare cars(<1%). you would want at least one

In the past five year I have heard this kind of thinking only once when cars were so short you prayed for an empty and it went like this, " sure the government says we have to give you a car, but

Folks, Like Viv, I'm out of my league in all this. My only real acquaintance with statistics is of the Mark Twain variety (i.e. lies). From what I read, my view is that if I don't have and can't get

Ross McLeod wrote: Sure, Ross, but the FIRST RULE is to "Protect the shipment." You could not care less about car hire if a shipper needs that empty car. Now of course you don't keep empties

"Exactly right, VIv, and that's in fact the entire basis of why the G-N idea can be true: you used what you had if you were short of cars, REGARDLESS of the AAR rules, and that available empty could