Which railroad pays for repairs when a piece of rolling stock needs immediate repair?

Question

With all these different railcars roaming around, who pays when one gets damaged? (i.e. someone drags one with the brakes on and ruins a wheel) What about when a car fails for no apparent reason? Does the railroad bill the car's owner? How does this system work and is it prone to abuse????

Answer 1

If needing repairs while on a foreign line, the owner pays the carrier who made the repairs via AAR billing.  If on home lines, the home line pays for the repairs.

There may or may not be billings for delays incurred and resultant costs arising from those delays, including derailments.

There is a very low potential for abuse.

Answer 2

The AAR (Association of American Railroads) has a set of rules that govern foreign line repair, billing and delays.

Generally speaking, wherever the car is bad ordered, that road will repair it.  Most of the repairs are small and can be accomplished quickly: changing brake shoes, wheel changes, repairing minor damage.  The billing for those repairs goes to the owner of the car.

These days, many railroads don't even own a sizeable portion of their fleet - they lease the cars.  Even though they carry the logos and reporting marks, they're often owned by a third party.  The railways will repair and maintain them, but often, as a cost-saving move, if the repair requires more than 20 man-hours, the railway sends them back to the owner to fix.

When this happens, the car will be affixed with a bright, neon sticker, usually yellow, that reads, "Home Shop For Repair - Do Not Load".  It's something to watch for when you're out and about.

Answer 3

There's a book called the AAR Interchange Rules that says who repairs, who pays and how much.  

It's been pretty well worked out over the years, because everyone wants to keep the trains moving.  Remember that damaged car may is likely to have a load on it that somebody wants delivered on time.

Answer 4

under AAR  RULE 90 the handling line will have to pay the cost  for slid flat wheels  any damage done while on the handling line the handling line will fix it or at worst pay for the car / The AAR billing is kept by the general car foreman for 5 years in most cases and triplets are sent to the AAR / and car owner stating the billing the car owner can reject the billing  and file a  case with the AAR for excess billing