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Per Diem
Mike Calvert
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
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Jack Burgess <jack@...>
Mike wrote:
If the freight cars are distributed around the railroadsWell, 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
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Ed Schleyer
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.
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Ed Schleyer Mike Calvert wrote:
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On Thu, August 21, 2008 5:14 am, Ed Schleyer wrote:
One of the smallest railroads paid the MOST per diem, The Long IslandEd, 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
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Greg Martin
_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)
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al_brown03
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: Island Rail Road was a dead end railroad that owned NO interchangeablecars. (300 in series 5000 to 5299) in class GLD. Certanly not many in numbersand they did get transferred to the PRR, but nonetheless they did have revenuecars. Greg Martinyour travel deal here.
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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. --- In STMFC@..., tgregmrtn@... wrote: Island Rail Road was a dead end railroad that owned NO interchangeablecars. (300 in series 5000 to 5299) in class GLD. Certanly not many in numbersand they did get transferred to the PRR, but nonetheless they did have revenuecars. Greg Martinyour travel deal here.
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Steve
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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
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From: "Steve Lucas" <stevelucas3@...> The Jan., 1953 ORER shows the NYO&W as having 146 cars suitable for
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Richard Brennan <brennan8@...>
At 11:24 AM 8/22/2008, timboconnor@... wrote:
Per diem in the 1950's was the same for all box cars, and was quiteIn 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 --------------------
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mcindoefalls
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: all, if they could move a car across the system in 24 hours, they might avoid
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Malcolm Laughlin <mlaughlinnyc@...>
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
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George Simmons
--- In STMFC@..., "mcindoefalls" <mcindoefalls@...> wrote:
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
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Steve Lucas <stevelucas3@...>
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: more 13in per diem payments than it could ever hope to receive from itsI checked the 1953 ORER reprint and the Old Woman owned a total of boxcars each with interior length of 36 feet. Also, I wonder aboutthe speed of trains accross the Old and Weary, would they be able tomove cars at a speed that would preclude per diem payments.
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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 quiteIn 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 --------------------
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Walt
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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
I think Steve's point was that the (bankrupt) O&W owed much, much more
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Think about it -- lots of railroads had per diem deficits.
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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
One of the smallest railroads paid the MOST per diem, The Long Island
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Gene Green <bierglaeser@...>
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: 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 Lucasrailroad. 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.
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John Hile <john66h@...>
--- In STMFC@..., Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:
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
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John
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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
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From: "John Hile" <john66h@...> --- In STMFC@..., Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:
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John Hile <john66h@...>
--- In STMFC@..., timboconnor@... wrote:
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
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