VIEW CART (Rail Closer Look: Box Cars
Published Annually
The Rail Closer Look Series combines rail equipment intelligence with our Freight•cast™ forecasting model and FTR expert analysis to produce the industry’s most thorough and comprehensive rail equipment forecast and report.
Learn how the Box Car fleet demographics are changing with limited new investment, and learn where new investment is expected to take place for the future.
NOTE: Save $300 off of each additional report you purchase in the Rail Closer Look Series. Please contact Derek Young at [email protected] or (888) 988.1699, ext. 66 to obtain a Promotion Code for ordering.
Box Cars are a versatile, enclosed car type used to ship a variety of general freight products. Because of the Box Car broad purposed design, a large portion of this equipment is included in “railroad pools” which allow efficient shipping by preventing empty haul movements, a luxury not realized by the more specialized railcar types. The freight traffic base for the Box Car fleet is closely tied to the general economy, as much of the commodity base is related to consumer spending and housing markets.
However, the significant cost of building new Box Car equipment, combined with modally competitive shipping options, has caused this fleet to struggle since the 1980s. Despite modal shift, some industries are still heavily reliant on the Box Car to serve their shipping needs, especially shippers of paper products.
Closer Look: Box Cars Report Contains
- Detailed fleet analysis
- Current fleet sizes for each sub-segment
- Pictures and illustrations of select car types, unique components, and important commodities
- Unique characteristics inherent to sub-segments
- Snapshot of each fleet segment’s age profile allocated by 5- year buckets over a car’s 50-year life
- Ownership mix profiles across railroads, shippers, and leasing companies
- Historic deliveries, retirements, and utilization
- Forecasts and projections by fleet segment: new car deliveries and retirements
- Current and historic traffic activity across car types
- Traffic shares, commodity drivers, and industry drivers
- Fleet ownership mix, age profile, retirement trends, and new equipment delivery forecast for the fleet as a whole
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