Q&A
John Barry, What you are describing is a “stop off car”*. This was used for a myriad of different commodities. What we were discussing was how a shipper could avoid LCL rates by creating regional distribution centers. John Deere would ship a car load of tractors the first 1000 miles to one of their distribution centers, then at that center the LCL lots were loaded and shipped, only costing the RR the LCL rate for the last 150 miles, instead of the LCL rate for 1150 miles. What does this mean for modelers? The modeler needs to build a John Deere distribution center on his layout. This center receives car loads from staging (Representing loads from the John Deere Factory). These might include loads in end door 50’ Automobile boxcars that need to be spotted for end unloading, as well as flat cars of equipment, and car loads of spare parts (The distribution center is also a parts warehouse). Then MTY cars need to be spotted for loading of the LCL shipments going to individual cu...