Has anyone had to lease a siding from a railroad for car storage? I have located a siding .5 miles from my home and NS has agreed to lease it to me for my project. The cost is really reasonable $8.00 per linear foot, per year and I would need about 120'. The siding is a total of 1208' long and needs to be rebuilt before anything can take a trip down it. I would use the last 120' of it as it is more secure. NS wants me to rebuild it for them so that I can get my equipment stored. I have asked them if they would be willing to supply the materials need to do so. (Just did this today so still waiting for a reply.) My question is has anyone else or group had the same situation? I am concered too about the MOW union boys getting upset that I am doing their job. Any comments or questions are most welcome.
Thanks!!
Rob

You might want to talk to people at one of the museums who's track is connected to a main line to get their input, Illinois Ry Museum, St. Louis Transp. Museum, etc. It sounds strange to me that NS wants you to maintain their siding, but maybe their maintenance stops at the derail.

I just got an email back form NS and here is what they have to say.

"If you plan to have the rail car delivered via rail, the entire track leading to where it would be placed would need to be in such a condition that will support the movement of a locomotive. The track rental rate today is $6.50/ track foot if you maintain and $8.00/ track foot if NS maintains. The cheapest way to progress would be at the $6.50 rate for the entire length of track starting where the track is out of service and ending where you want the car to stop. You would lease the track in “as is, where is” condition. You would need to have a private rail contractor upgrade the track to a serviceable condition at your cost with your material. Otherwise, you would pay NS maintenance forces to upgrade the track and then lease only the last 120’ at $8.00/track foot."

Getting quotes on rail contractors in Ohio now. This isn't cheap either.
Less now, more later.
Rob

Possibly you could pay to have the 1st 120 feet made suitable for a Norfolk Southern 6 axle locomotive, and find another way to tow the car the rest of the way with a cable. Do you trust the track to handle your car "as is, your risk"? If the car is never going to leave by rail, you might maintain the lease in the future on just the 120 feet you want, which could mean that NS will tear up the rest of the siding as fast as possible.
Last month, ConRail wanted $12 per track foot per year. About 1990, they had gone from $3 to $5.

Have you looked into leasing a private siding? By that I mean one owned by an industry and not the railroad. The only problem with this is if the industry does not use the railroad often enough the railroad may remove the turnout. But many industries have siding where the last few hundred feet are surplus. In the 1980's and 1990's I used to lease track to shippers for $1.00 per foot annually to store tank cars.

One of the RR contractors I spoke with wants $35,000.00 to rebuild this track. Another one has the best idea so far. Since this car will be on a flat car with the wheels on another, he suggested that they rebuild enough trackage for those cars to sit in the clear and use relay ties and gauge bars for the rest of the trackage. This way NS has a clear shot without going on the ground and I can cable the flats into position for the crane unloading process. Once the car in on its wheels I can cable it into position using a large wrecker. This sounds like a plan! The second fellow I spoke with will be down to look the track over in a few weeks to give me a better idea of costs.
No other industrial sidings in this area are close enough to home or are in the bad part of town that I would not want to store it in those areas. The Mainline I speak of is single track and NS keeps this siding in place as the equipment defect detector is 2 miles away. The use it for bad order setouts and sometimes track equipment storage. I don't see them pulling it out anytime soon even though its been over 40 years since a load was delievered.
Rob

Rob, if your car has roller bearings you can pull it with a pickup truck. I'm guessing that you can drive next to this siding if NS sets out bad order cars there to be repaired. Save you money by not calling a wrecker out.
I pulled many loaded and unloaded heavyduty flat cars with truck tracktors, fork trucks and 1 time a 8 axle flat with a 120 ton transformer with the foremans pickup truck - level ground.

Thanks for the tip! This is so cool as the place where this car is going is a feed mill and all kinds of tractors are in and out, and we have a lift truck sales place just down the road. I will be using this idea for sure!!
I remember trying to move the C&O 2700 in St. Albans WV years ago with my 1983 S10 Blazer and had no luck. Of course the engine had not moved in years so we called in the big tow truck and cabled it back.
Rob