IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ndjtrf/207306.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Preliminary Investigation of Private Railcars in North America

Author

Listed:
  • Corsi, Thomas M.
  • Casavant, Ken
  • Graciano, Tim A.

Abstract

This paper analyzes the economic conditions of a dramatic change in railcar ownership over the last 10 years. Private railcar ownership has increased to the point where they now carry 54% of ton-miles and 56% of tonnage for all railroads. Despite the increasing reliance on private railcars, returns to railcar ownership are decreasing, with current rates of return falling below those necessary to fund future investment. The problem is further exacerbated by shifting costs from railroad to shipper. A large drop in private investment could pose a serious threat to the railroad industry, shippers, and the economy as a whole.

Suggested Citation

  • Corsi, Thomas M. & Casavant, Ken & Graciano, Tim A., 2012. "A Preliminary Investigation of Private Railcars in North America," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 51(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ndjtrf:207306
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.207306
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/207306/files/2811-5551-1-PB.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.207306?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bitzan, John & Tolliver, Denver, 2003. "The Impacts of an Industry Switch to Large Rail Grain Hopper Cars on Local Infrastructure: A Case Study of North Dakota," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 42(2).
    2. Bortko, Daniel C. & Babcock, Michael W. & Barkley, Andrew P., 1995. "Where Have All The Jumbo Covered Hopper Cars Gone? An Investment Analysis of the U.S. Rail Grain Car Fleet," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 35(1).
    3. Prato, Anthony A. & Osborn, James E. & Shane, Ronald L. & Meyers, Gordon & Clevenger, Tom & Casavant, Kenneth L. & Vaux, Henry J., Jr., 1987. "In The West," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 2(2), pages 1-2.
    4. Babcock, Michael W. & Sanderson, James, 2006. "Should shortline railroads upgrade their systems to handle heavy axle load cars?," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 149-166, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Florian Jaehn & Alena Otto & Kilian Seifried, 2018. "Shunting operations at flat yards: retrieving freight railcars from storage tracks," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 40(2), pages 367-393, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ozbay, Kaan & Bartin, Bekir & Allen, W. Bruce & Iyer, Shrisan & Robins, Martin & Weiner, Marc & Nassif, Hani, 2019. "Review and assessment of the New Jersey freight assistance program," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Babcock, Michael & Sanderson, James, 2005. "Should Shorltine Railroads Upgrade Their Systems To Handle Heavy Axle Load Cars? A Kansas Case Study," 46th Annual Transportation Research Forum, Washington, D.C., March 6-8, 2005 208203, Transportation Research Forum.
    3. Chad R. Miller & Bethany Stich, 2014. "Realizing the economic development benefits of short-line railroads: the case of Mississippi," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 1-11, March.
    4. Menelik Geremew & François Gourio, 2018. "Seasonal and Business Cycles of U.S. Employment," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue 3, pages 1-28.
    5. Moreno-Quintero, Eric & Fowkes, Tony & Watling, David, 2013. "Modelling planner–carrier interactions in road freight transport: Optimisation of road maintenance costs via overloading control," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 68-83.
    6. Martland, Carl D., 2013. "Introduction of Heavy Axle Loads by the North American Rail Industry," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 52(2).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public Economics;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ndjtrf:207306. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.trforum.org/journal/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.