That's pretty straightforward as PFE was owned by U.P. And S.P. On a percentage basis. The per diem would simply get rolled into all other revenue and then paid out as dividends to the owners.
Your comment about slow return of empties is interesting in that if you read books such as "The Great Yellow Fleet" and the absolute bible on PFE "PFE, Pacific Fruit Express" there are discussions of the emphasis on getting those empties back for another load. How the cars didn't lend themselves to general freight(ice bunkers, raised floors,etc,etc) so they generally went west empty. Rather than with a load. One exception was the reefers were sometimes used in LCL service as a bunch of boxes,crates,etc destined to a location could work in a reefer. But then that 34 foot car screwed up the entire alignment with the next track over at the freight house of 40 foot box cars. Want to learn more? Watch for a future article in the BRHS Bulletin on "The Qs Chicago LCL Operations".
In order to give this conversation a Q content I will add; as the trucks captured ever-increasing shares of the produce movements the need to "oil" the rails ceased. I recall clearly riding along one day and my veteran Condr. Looked over at me and said "they don't Oil the rails anymore". We then had a discussion of how in the days of loaded ice bunkers moving eastward railroads oiled their rails to protect them from the dripping ice bunkers whose drops were a mixture of water and salt that was added to control the rate of melting. If you look at any photo of the "Q's East End" prior to the 70s the rails on main two and three are black compared to track one that was primarily westbound and wasn't oiled as it carried only mty. Reefers going back.
By my time in the 70s we still handled massive numbers of ice reefers and some were indeed in produce but the vast majority were used for potatoes,apples,carrots. The hard produce that didn't need as much protection. In fact we handled large volumes of potatoes and apples in winter when heaters were required vs ice.
A future BRHS article I'm working on will feature the unbelievable volume of interchange traffic that was handled between the "Q" and the IHB at Congress Park,IL.. Most of it was produce. I'll even get into "digging potatoes". But again you're going to have to read the article.
Leo Phillipp
Thank you for the discussion of per diem rates and whether they were too low or too high. I wonder what the home railroad was for refrigerator cars when the refrigerator car company was owned by more than one railroad, such as the PFE. My dad was a traveling agent for PFE (out of Chicago) form 1945 to 1960 or so. It seemed to me his main job was not checking on icings but rather visiting yard offices (making a circuit in an area over the ear) to find the PFE cars that were being held. It did not seem a priority of the railroads anywhere, so far as I could tell, to return the cars.
Doug Hosler On August 3, 2016 at 10:27:11 AM, Leo Phillipp via Groups.Io (qutlx1=aol.com@groups.io) wrote:
Per Diem rates were/are set by a formula that factors in the
building cost of the car ,its age and of course market demand for
the car type. This is done through an AAR
committee/bureau.
When I worked in the BN Chicago Regional Office there was
still a pamphlet from the 1950s explaining per diem and stressing
how important it was to get that foreign car off Q rails prior to
midnight in order to save a days per diem charge.
What Ted mentions is overall true. Car owners generally felt
that per diems were too low and those holding and using the cars
felt they were too high(or at least said that publicly). Keep in
mind that per diem only applies to Railroad marked cars,not private
cars that have an 'X' as the last reporting mark. Those cars are
handled by a totally separate system of mileage compensation and
tank cars by an even more complicated system called
"equalization".
Even today there are hundreds, no thousands, of box cars
wearing a RR reporting mark that are actually owned by a leasing
company,bank,financial institution, etc. that are running on what's
called a per diem lease. The true car owner gets compensated
when the car is off the line of the RR who's mark it is wearing.
Today these tend to be older cars running out their final
years.
Just think of the effect Precision Railroading should have on
per diem, at least in theory !
Leo Phillipp
Hello everyone,
I am going to question John's
statement about per diem. Someone more knowledgeable should
comment and correct
During the '60's and '70's, when
working for the railroad, I always understood per diem rates were
very low and not worth the cost of the equipment. East coast
RR's were notorious for hording western roads equipment, because
per diem was cheaper than building cars for themselves.
Possibly special duty flat cars had more worthwhile per diem
rates?
I would assume the Q had the
special duty flats so they could participate in the pool and in
long hauls the pool created of over size loads. The loads
were probably on a foreign flat car, but were good
profitable revenue moves.
Hoping someone with knowledge of
per diem and rates will comment.
Agree with John, the CBQ flat
was seldom on Q rails.
Ted Schnepf
126 Will Scarlet,
Elgin, Ill. 60120
847=697-5353
The heavy duty flat cars of the various railroads were in a
sort of nationwide pool ran by the AAR Car Service Bureau. Since
they spent most of the time, off home rails and the owning road
collected per diem, they were money makers for their owners!
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