This term is used in two ways in our industry. One way describes a railroad car or truck, or other piece of equipment used for conveying scrap, to describe the fact that it was not able to be used to transport the material as had been planned originally. Bad order railroad cars frequently cause us trouble because they are often shopped by the railroad in a repair station and delayed in transit for quite some period of time. Often, cars that are bad-ordered are thought to be lost, but later we learn that they had been set aside at a repair shop. The other meaning of the term for "bad-order" implies that we have made sale expecting to make a profit on it, but found out that our judgment of the market was in error and what we thought would be a "good" order turned out to be a "bad" one.

The term the real railroads use to describe a malfunctioning part.

A freight car loaded improperly, mechanically defective, or has safety violations.