Why did cars stop off? To partially unload; to complete loading; or both. "Stop-off" cars were used widely, in many industries, because it was more economical to pay the carload rate for the entire weight for the entire trip, plus the stop-off charge, than to pay for two lighter cars to the individual destinations. Worse yet was the LCL charge to the separate destinations. Example: Plant 1 produces product A. Distribution warehouse X needs a half a carload of A and warehouse Y (located on a route to X) needs a half a carload of A. Plant 1 loads a carload and consigns it to X, with a stop-off at Y for partial unloading. The car goes to Y, who unloads half and releases the car to continue to X. Another: carloads of A from Plant 1 and B from Plant 2 could stop off somewhere and exchange parts of their loads, then continue to warehouse X and Y -- this was "transloading". These, and many other, arrangements were strictly regulated by tariffs published by the railroads. For every shipment, the shipper knew exactly what it would cost, to the penny. So did his competitors, the participating carriers, and their competitors. There were no secrets. Every phase and function could be budgetted, to the penny. Deregulation allowed the railroads and their customers to negotiate separately and secretly, with the carriers getting as much as they could and the shippers paying as little as possible. Nobody watched to confirm that the pricing was not predatory in either direction, so the railroads' cost often exceeded their revenues without them knowing it until well after the fact. Dereg also allowed the railroads to drop the service virtually at will. Small shippers were at the mercy of the railroads and prime picking for motor carriers, which could offer more consistent and faster service at the same rates. The railroads, in turn, were at the mercy of the large shippers who could threaten to (and often did) divert traffic to the highways. Ease of entry and exit meant that carriers, both motor and rail, could establish or abandon service with no notice or recourse. Predictability went by the wayside; budgetting became impossible; profitability, on either side, was a gamble. Both carriers and shippers merged or folded, leaving mega-industries shipping via mega-carriers from mega-facility to mega-facility while local business and service dried up. Randy Brown - -------------------------------------------------------------- Evidently, stopoff cars were commonly used for a variety of commodities. . . . Bob, I'm interested in hearing why dereg effectively abolished stopoff moves. Was it because RR's could use their ratemaking freedom to incentivize full carload lots? Paul B The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List http://EL-List.railfan.net/ To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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