If the freight cars are distributed around the railroads according the The Theory, and used according to The Regulations, the amount of Per Diem inter-railroad transfers should be small, as most of the Per Diem charges (debits) incurred should be balanced by Per Diem credits.
I assume that this was the objective of the Regulations.

How much net Per Diem was actually paid in transfers between railroads? Was it a lot, or a little? Did some railroads pay much more than others?

Mike Calvert

Mike wrote:

If the freight cars are distributed around the railroads
according the The
Theory, and used according to The Regulations, the amount of Per Diem
inter-railroad transfers should be small, as most of the Per Diem charges
(debits) incurred should be balanced by Per Diem credits.
I assume that this was the objective of the Regulations.

How much net Per Diem was actually paid in transfers between
railroads? Was
it a lot, or a little? Did some railroads pay much more than others?

Well, very large railroads probably never paid per diem charges while the
small ones did. Obviously a railroad like my prototype, the Yosemite Valley
Railroad with no cars in interchange service, incurred per diem charges
every midnight. According to my 1943 ORER, the rate was $1.00 per day if I
am reading it correctly...that would be equivalent to nearly $15.00 per day
in 2007. So, per diem charges could be relatively significant....the YV in
1939 had total gross revenues of $401,500. If they had to pay per diem
charges on a dozen cars every midnight, that would add up to $5,340 per year
or 1.3% of their gross revenues...

Jack Burgess
www.yosemitevalleyrr.com

One of the smallest railroads paid the MOST per diem, The Long Island Rail Road was a dead end railroad that owned NO interchangable cars.

Ed Schleyer

Mike Calvert wrote:

On Thu, August 21, 2008 5:14 am, Ed Schleyer wrote:

One of the smallest railroads paid the MOST per diem, The Long Island
Rail Road was a dead end railroad that owned NO interchangable cars.

Ed Schleyer

Ed,

That's a pretty definitive statement. I think you probably meant that the
LI did not own any interchangable FREIGHT cars (since of course, their
passenger cars did interchange). However, my 1943 ORER shows 80 class GR
composite gondolas. So, while the interchange fleet was not big, it did
exist.

Regards
Bruce
Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

_ch00ch00@... (mailto:ch00ch00@...) writes:




One of the smallest railroads paid the MOST per diem, The Long Island
Rail Road was a dead end railroad that owned NO interchangeable cars.

Ed Schleyer

That's not entirely true the Long Island did own a group of hoppers (300 in
series 5000 to 5299) in class GLD. Certanly not many in numbers and they did
get transferred to the PRR, but nonetheless they did have revenue cars.
Greg Martin


.









**************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel
deal here.
(http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)

Cleaner example, a short distance away: the Morristown & Erie didn't
have interchangeable freight cars after the mid-20s. It had
connections at both ends but no bridge traffic that I know of,
because Erie and Lackawanna had numerous direct interchanges nearby.

Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.


--- In STMFC@..., tgregmrtn@... wrote:

_ch00ch00@..._ (mailto:ch00ch00@...) writes:




One of the smallest railroads paid the MOST per diem, The Long

Island

Rail Road was a dead end railroad that owned NO interchangeable

cars.

Ed Schleyer

That's not entirely true the Long Island did own a group of hoppers

(300 in

series 5000 to 5299) in class GLD. Certanly not many in numbers

and they did

get transferred to the PRR, but nonetheless they did have revenue

cars.

Greg Martin


.









**************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find

your travel

deal here.
(http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)

The Jan., 1953 ORER shows the NYO&W as having 146 cars suitable for
interchange. For an over 400-mile Class One pike, this road must
have had substantial per diem costs. No wonder that they went under
in 1957.

Steve Lucas.

--- In STMFC@..., tgregmrtn@... wrote:

_ch00ch00@..._ (mailto:ch00ch00@...) writes:




One of the smallest railroads paid the MOST per diem, The Long

Island

Rail Road was a dead end railroad that owned NO interchangeable

cars.

Ed Schleyer

That's not entirely true the Long Island did own a group of hoppers

(300 in

series 5000 to 5299) in class GLD. Certanly not many in numbers

and they did

get transferred to the PRR, but nonetheless they did have revenue

cars.

Greg Martin


.









**************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find

your travel

deal here.
(http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Steve

Per diem in the 1950's was the same for all box cars, and was quite
low -- IIRC less than $3 a day. Unless the NYSW was a parking lot for
offline cars, I doubt they suffered from per diem overhead. After all, if
they could move a car across the system in 24 hours, they might avoid
having to pay any per diem at all.

Tim

At 11:24 AM 8/22/2008, @timboconnor wrote:

Per diem in the 1950's was the same for all box cars, and was quite
low -- IIRC less than $3 a day.

In the Simmons-Boardman book "Freight Cars
Rolling" by Lawrence Sagle ©1960, an entire
chapter is devoted to the per diem issue... (Chapter 3, p61-70)

The per diem rate is described as having
started-out at $0.20 per day... and was at $2.88 per day by 1960.
Failure to report added another 15¢ to 60¢ per day depending on delay.

For non- per diem cars, mileage rates of from
0.6¢ to 4¢ per mile were paid, based on car type,
with tanks and reefers at the high end of the scale.

As far as reporting, Sagle describes four report
types, all based on the car waybills:
- Wheel Report - per train
- Interchange Report - cars exchanged between RRs
- Junction Report - foreign cars delivered to
another RR (i.e. passing the per diem buck...)
- Passing Report - ad hoc tracking of car movements

Return loading rules are described as: (in order)
- Return to home road (loaded or empty)
- Loaded in the direction of the home road
- loaded via any route to a destination within,
or in the direction of, the "home district"

An AAR map of the 23 districts from District 1
(WA-OR-ID) to District 23 (Eastern Canada) is
provided, along with several typical forms.

...and I always wondered why railroads had those huge buildings full of clerks!


--------------------
Richard Brennan - San Leandro CA
--------------------

I think Steve's point was that the (bankrupt) O&W owed much, much more
in per diem payments than it could ever hope to receive from its
connections, given the paltry number of O&W cars that could go
off-line. I would venture to say that most of those O&W cars were
hoppers, which would likely stay on line or close to home. And so, the
O&W would have been shoveling per diem money out, while receiving next
to nothing in per diem receipts.

Walt Lankenau

--- In STMFC@..., timboconnor@... wrote:

Steve

Per diem in the 1950's was the same for all box cars, and was quite
low -- IIRC less than $3 a day. Unless the NYSW was a parking lot for
offline cars, I doubt they suffered from per diem overhead. After

all, if

they could move a car across the system in 24 hours, they might avoid
having to pay any per diem at all.

Tim

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Steve Lucas" <stevelucas3@...>

The Jan., 1953 ORER shows the NYO&W as having 146 cars suitable for
interchange. For an over 400-mile Class One pike, this road must
have had substantial per diem costs. No wonder that they went under
in 1957.

Steve Lucas.

The Jan., 1953 ORER shows the NYO&W as having 146 cars suitable for interchange. For an over 400-mile Class One pike, this road must have had substantial per diem costs. No wonder that they went under in 1957.
Steve Lucas
----------------

The per diem deficit is not necessarily a sign of a weak railroad. Mopst railroads bought cars to protect their on-line loading. A well managed primarily terminating road should have a per diem deficit. If you are a small railroad without ready access to the capital markets, it might be much cheaper to rent cars than to own them. Especialy if except for coal you are a terminating railroad. W eshould remember that in the 50's the railroads that were buying a lot of cars also were screaming about the per diem rate being too low to pay for their cost of car ownership. The terminating roads in the east were probably much better off renting cars thanif they had had to pay the costs of buying and maintaining those cars.


Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478

--- In STMFC@..., "mcindoefalls" <mcindoefalls@...> wrote:

I think Steve's point was that the (bankrupt) O&W owed much, much more
in per diem payments than it could ever hope to receive from its
connections, given the paltry number of O&W cars that could go
off-line. I would venture to say that most of those O&W cars were
hoppers, which would likely stay on line or close to home.

I checked the 1953 ORER reprint and the Old Woman owned a total of 13
boxcars each with interior length of 36 feet. Also, I wonder about the
speed of trains accross the Old and Weary, would they be able to move
cars at a speed that would preclude per diem payments.

George Simmons
Dry Prong, LA

The O&W did have some longhaul freights that ran between
Scranton, PA and Maybrook, NY in less than 16 hours. But any car
terminating on the O&W would have been on the property more than
24'. And I don't recall the O&W originating a lot of tonnage in its
20 years of bankruptcy from 1937-57. They did move some pig iron
south out of Oswego, NY, but it's been suggested that this traffic
did not produce much revenue after per-diem (foreign roads' cars
being used) and terminal expenses.

Other roads might have been able to balance the per diem payments on
foreign cars agianst money owed for their cars, but not the Old
Woman. The O&W did have many strikes aginst it in the later years,
and the per-diem expenses can't have helped its financial position.

Steve Lucas.

(always looking to learn more about the O&W)

In STMFC@..., "George W Simmons" <GEORGESIMMONS@...>
wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., "mcindoefalls" <mcindoefalls@> wrote:

I think Steve's point was that the (bankrupt) O&W owed much, much

more

in per diem payments than it could ever hope to receive from its
connections, given the paltry number of O&W cars that could go
off-line. I would venture to say that most of those O&W cars were
hoppers, which would likely stay on line or close to home.

I checked the 1953 ORER reprint and the Old Woman owned a total of

13

boxcars each with interior length of 36 feet. Also, I wonder about

the

speed of trains accross the Old and Weary, would they be able to

move

cars at a speed that would preclude per diem payments.

George Simmons
Dry Prong, LA

Hi Richard - I'm curious - was there an AAR district shown for the Pacific coast of Canada (around Vancouver B.C. - just north of the border; just north of Bellingham Washington?) If yes, which district was it? If not, does anyone know why not?

Rob Kirkham


From: Richard Brennan
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 12:25 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Per Diem


At 11:24 AM 8/22/2008, @timboconnor wrote:

Per diem in the 1950's was the same for all box cars, and was quite
low -- IIRC less than $3 a day.

In the Simmons-Boardman book "Freight Cars
Rolling" by Lawrence Sagle ©1960, an entire
chapter is devoted to the per diem issue... (Chapter 3, p61-70)

The per diem rate is described as having
started-out at $0.20 per day... and was at $2.88 per day by 1960.
Failure to report added another 15¢ to 60¢ per day depending on delay.

For non- per diem cars, mileage rates of from
0.6¢ to 4¢ per mile were paid, based on car type,
with tanks and reefers at the high end of the scale.

As far as reporting, Sagle describes four report
types, all based on the car waybills:
- Wheel Report - per train
- Interchange Report - cars exchanged between RRs
- Junction Report - foreign cars delivered to
another RR (i.e. passing the per diem buck...)
- Passing Report - ad hoc tracking of car movements

Return loading rules are described as: (in order)
- Return to home road (loaded or empty)
- Loaded in the direction of the home road
- loaded via any route to a destination within,
or in the direction of, the "home district"

An AAR map of the 23 districts from District 1
(WA-OR-ID) to District 23 (Eastern Canada) is
provided, along with several typical forms.

...and I always wondered why railroads had those huge buildings full of clerks!

--------------------
Richard Brennan - San Leandro CA
--------------------

Walt

And my point was that per diem was not even money to pay
down the interest on the bonds needed to buy new freight
cars in the 1950's, much less total ownership costs. So
while NYSW (not the O&W, how did that come up?), generally
any railroad that was a net "borrower" of freight cars of
other railroads was not much admired by companies who felt
they contributed more than their share to the national pool.
This is well documented in railroad annual reports in the
1950's. If the O&W did not buy new cars, then I very much
doubt that 'per diem' deficits was the real problem -- many
railroads had per diem deficits for one reason or another
and had no difficulty with it.

Tim O'Connor

Think about it -- lots of railroads had per diem deficits.
Imagine the size of the Belt Railway of Chicago's deficit --
they usually had 10,000 or more cars of other railroads on
their property!

Tim O'Connor

Wouldn't the per diem be offset by the NYO&W's share of the revenue
for whatever was being shipped?
Gene Green

--- In STMFC@..., Malcolm Laughlin <mlaughlinnyc@...>
wrote:

The Jan., 1953 ORER shows the NYO&W as having 146 cars suitable for

interchange. For an over 400-mile Class One pike, this road must have
had substantial per diem costs. No wonder that they went under in
1957.

Steve Lucas
----------------

The per diem deficit is not necessarily a sign of a weak

railroad. Mopst railroads bought cars to protect their on-line
loading. A well managed primarily terminating road should have a per
diem deficit. If you are a small railroad without ready access to
the capital markets, it might be much cheaper to rent cars than to
own them. Especialy if except for coal you are a terminating
railroad. W eshould remember that in the 50's the railroads that
were buying a lot of cars also were screaming about the per diem rate
being too low to pay for their cost of car ownership. The
terminating roads in the east were probably much better off renting
cars thanif they had had to pay the costs of buying and maintaining
those cars.

Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In STMFC@..., Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:

Imagine the size of the Belt Railway of Chicago's deficit --
they usually had 10,000 or more cars of other railroads on
their property!

Actually, as a Terminal Switching Road and/or Intermediate Switching
Road, performing those services for fixed fees, and not receiving part
of the freight rate, the Belt Railway of Chicago would have been able
to reclaim a certain amount of per diem charges based on the "Code of
Switching Reclaim Rules." IIRC, this is how the Belt Railway of
Chicago operated…and others on the list may be able to confirm this.

In general, the rules say that the switching road will use the
"average time required for the switching road to switch cars for all
roads" as a basis for reclaim of per diem. The Code of Per Diem
Rules, however, limits the total number of reclaim days to a maximum
of five for switching roads. Intermediate switching roads (handling a
car from one railroad to another) are limited to reclaim one day's per
diem only.



John Hile
Blacksburg, VA

John

I believe the average "dwell time" for freight cars on the BRC in
the 1950's was over 24 hours. So does this mean they would owe
one day of per diem for each car, because that was their average
delay?

Tim

--- In STMFC@..., timboconnor@... wrote:

I believe the average "dwell time" for freight cars on the BRC in
the 1950's was over 24 hours. So does this mean they would owe
one day of per diem for each car, because that was their average
delay?

Tim,

As I understand the rules, the BRC would only pay per diem for the
number of days in excess of the average number it took them to handle
cars. When the average method was used, there was a specific way it
was derived. Data from the same 10-day period of each month, over a
12-month period.

Also, in reviewing the Per Diem code of rules (Rule 5) it looks as
though the number of days of per diem a switching road could reclaim
was also negotiable. In other words, the average method above was one
way to do it...

Another way was for the roads involved to agree to settle based on the
actual amount of time required to switch cars for the period of the
month the reclaim is made, but not to exceed an agreed-upon maximum
number of days on any one car, and also (I believe - lots of commas in
those sentences) not to exceed the maximum of 5 days per car.

There are some exceptions for stock cars, certain empty moves, etc.,
so for more info, if you have an ORER, the Per Diem Rules, Switching
Reclaim Rules, and Short Line (less than 100 mile) Rules are in the
back. In the Jan. 1943 version they are pp 1028-1039, and the Jan.
1953 they are pp 755-770.

BTW, short lines could appeal for relief from paying all per diem
owed. They could get partial relief if the per diem amount was found
to be "excessive compared to remuneration received for services rendered."


John Hile
Blacksburg, VA