Who Owns Train Cars? Often Not the Railroad: Brooke Sutherland

The railroads themselves don’t own many cars outright. There were 149 cars on the Norfolk Southern train that veered off the tracks in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, but only nine were owned by railroads; 30 others were owned by TTX, a company that is jointly controlled by the main North American railroads and pools car assets among the operators, according to John Gray, senior vice president of policy and economics at the Association of American Railroads. The remainder were privately owned; this includes the 23rd car — a hopper car carrying plastic pellets — whose overheated wheel bearing was singled ...