I'm forced to wonder if the current international financial/economic crisis has managed to impact scrap prices yet.

This hits rail preservation both ways: the chance to make money from scrapping "junk" (e.g. that incomplete carbody that has been rotting for 50 years and it's time to face reality) lying around, versus trying to persuade someone that donating more "junk" (rail rolling stock, etc.) is a better reward than calling in the scrapper.

Gad, I wish fuel prices had been what they are now when I was out in Arizona last May.....

I actively participate on a forum for machine shop owners; there guys are really cryin' the blues over scrap prices... they've fallen through the floor. Several people have reported that the salvage yards they normally sell their chips to have refused to pick up... not worth their while, and with what they are being offered for what they haul in, they are storing their chips instead. Of course, everyone notes with contempt that material prices have yet to come down.

One good thing, when the word finally gets around to the meth addicts, maybe they'll stop stealing everything that isn't bolted down (and some things that were, too.)

I sell quite a bit of scrap.Our shop is in a steel mill and we service locomotives in several other ones.(U.S.Steel , Nucor and Mittal) so we are always up on prices. Here are some numbers as of Today. Grade 1 prep (cut ready for the charge bays) $50 a ton I was told they could probally do me a favor and bump it up to $55. We were getting $600 in May.They did even want to quote my rail. My guy told me it was an insult!
He told me copper is below $1 a pound! hopefully this will save motor leads on locomotives in the future!

Like Jack we were getting $500-$600 per ton in August and cleaned out a lot of "stuff". Today try $25. Long rail was quoted at $650 delivered about 100 miles away. Last week I was offered $125 for the long rail. Meanwhile relay rail remains close to $1,000 per ton delivered for 132#.

If new rail prices come down, for whatever reason, that will put downward pressure on relay prices. Likewise, if someone gets aggresive to preserve some level of business they might soften a little bit. I did hear recently of someone offered #10 turnouts for the same price as #8s six months ago. That's about 5-10% more switch for the same price.

Tim Andrews
Chattanooga, TN

Well, I've always believed that railway museum acquisition funds should not be kept in dollars, but in steel (or if they're trolley museums, copper.) Maybe now is a good time to be buying...

Tyburn Railroad had a fleet of rusty Hi-Rail trucks with cranes sitting in the weeds. I was trying to get some of them transfered to museums where they could do a little work, and save the backs of the volunteer track gangs. But in Aug., 2008, the price of scrap metal was so high that the accountants had an easy time convincing our management to sell them for real money.

WOW, I had no idea it dropped that much. I'm glad I sold all of my scrap when it was high.

I've noticed a rather odd phenomenon hitting in the last couple of weeks that really should be of great interest here.

1) scrap prices are way down. I'm seeing about 30-40% of the July-August peak. Not a whole lot of incentive to scour the weeds with metal detectors now.
2) 2008 was rather profitable, despite the 4th quarter for many organizations, so there is taxable income to shield, and worse, incomes now are producing less cash to pay 2008 taxes in 2009.
3) There are still a lot of 'comparable sales' out there in the last 12 months of equipment, and the downturn hasn't quite caught up with that...yet.

Combine all those and this is the perfect storm for equipment donations from for-profit sources to railroad museums for donated valuations. Market value scrap is up, donation value is still proveable base on a 12-month market, and there will be 2008 income that can get shielded. Do the math. This is the time. Don't say nobody noticed this one.