TTX Company

TTX Company
Private
Industry Freight car provider
Founded November 1955
Founders Pennsylvania Railroad, Norfolk and Western and Rail-Trailer Corp.
Headquarters Chicago, United States
Area served
North America
Key people
Thomas F. Wells, President and CEO
Website http://www.ttx.com

TTX Company (formerly Trailer Train) is a leading provider of railcars and related freight car management services to the North American rail industry. TTX’s pool of railcars – over 220,000 cars and intermodal wells – is ideal for supporting shippers in the intermodal, automotive, paper & forest, metals, machinery, wind energy and other markets where flatcars, boxcars and gondolas are required.[1]

Owned by North America’s leading railroads, TTX’s free-running pools provide fungible assets that minimize total empty miles, further lowering costs and minimizing risk for the industry, helping the railroads conserve their capital for other critical infrastructure needs. Customers easily recognize TTX’s bright yellow cars as a consistent, high quality, well-maintained fleet that serves many transportation needs.[1]

View "The Benefits of Pooling"

History

TTX was originally founded in 1955 by the Pennsylvania Railroad (predecessor to Conrail), the Norfolk and Western Railway (predecessor to Norfolk Southern), and Rail-Trailer Corporation. Pennsylvania Railroad employees - 6,000 in total - entered possible names in a drawing for the new company, and the name "Trailer Train" won.[2] Trailer Train's original goals were to standardize TOFC railcar practices, foster the growth of transportation, provide its members with the best available equipment at the lowest cost, and keep its members abreast of new developments. In 1991, the company changed its company name from Trailer Train to TTX.

TTX continues to operate under pooling authority granted by the Surface Transportation Board (STB). The STB, and its predecessor the ICC, repeatedly recognized TTX’s important public benefits, and over 60 years later still finds that TTX lowers costs for the rail industry and supports the growth of the North American Railroad network. The flatcar pool was first approved in 1974 and then reauthorized in 1989, 1994, 2004 and most recently on October 1, 2014 for a 15-year term.[3]

Fleet

TTX's railcar fleet consists of three key car types: flatcars, boxcars and gondolas. Half of the fleet is dedicated to flatcars and intermodal wells, with a quarter dedicated to auto racks for hauling finished vehicles. The remaining quarter of the pool includes boxcars, gondolas and specialized flatcars to carry a wide variety of general merchandise commodities.[4] TTX provides standardized car types and re-purposes idle assets to serve a dynamic marketplace.

The fleet is maintained through a network of independent repair facilities, TTX owned Field Maintenance Operations (FMOs) located at intermodal terminals throughout North America and TTX owned heavy repair shops located in Jacksonville, FL, North Augusta, SC, Waterford, MI and Mira Loma, CA.[5]

Ownership

TTX is privately owned by North America's railroads and functions as the industry’s railcar cooperative. The nine major railroads listed below all own shares of the company with a voting member from each railroad making up the TTX Board of Directors.

Logo

The former logo of the company, replaced in 2008.

Between 1991 and 2008, the company used a yellow and black logo.

In March 2008, the company released a new logo, colored Tuscan red in honor of one of the founding railroads, the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The TTX tagline "Next Load, Any Road" is a written reminder of TTX's core mission; providing railcars that can be reloaded at destination reducing empty miles and saving the industry millions in operational costs each year. TTX railcars move freely amongst Class I railroads and hundreds of short-line and regional railroads to deliver freight to a wide variety of industries serving all of North America.[6]

News

In 2015 TTX was named to the Chicago Tribune's "Top 100 Workplaces" for the sixth consecutive year.[7]

See also

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 "TTX Company". TTX - Railcar Pooling Experts. Retrieved March 30, 2016.
  2. Curtis D. Buford (1982). Trailer Train Company: A Unique Force in the Railroad Industry. Newcomen Society in North America. p. 13.
  3. "TTX Company STB Authority". Retrieved March 30, 2016.
  4. "TTX Equipment". Retrieved March 30, 2016.
  5. "TTX Maintenance Services". Retrieved March 31, 2016.
  6. "TTX Pooling Benefits".
  7. "Chicago Tribune". Top Workplaces. Retrieved March 30, 2016.
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