If the Texas Eagle, as an example, misses it schedule slot on the UP, the UP dispatchers then move it down the line on a space available basis as traffic permits. Or so I have been told. Is this true?
If the Silver Star, let’s say, misses it schedule slot from Washington to NYC, does Amtrak, which owns most of the NEC, treat it the same way as the UP supposedly does?
All Class 1’s are scheduled railroads. How, at least in my experience, these schedules are established consists of layering services upon each other.
Amtrak Schedule(s) are laid across the network
The carriers Priority Intermodal schedules are laid across the network, consistant with the customers requirements.
The carriers secondary Intermodal schedules are laid across the network, consistant with customer requirements.
Automotive schedules (Parts, Autos, Empty Auto Racks) are laid across the network, consistant with customer and terminal requirements.
General Merchandise schedules are laid across the network, consistant with customer and terminal requirements.
Local Freight runs and Industrial Yard jobs are established into the windows that have been created from scheduled traffic from steps 1 - 5.
Unscheduled traffic will be entered by local supervision into the network when requested by the customer and as power and crews are available to handle it.
Under normal Class 1 operations - the windows for Amtrak will not be ‘minute specific’; however when an Amtrak train is a hour or more late, they will generally be ‘out of their slot’, and will be given the best possible handling considering ALL the other traffic that
have a friend who recently became an Amtrak dispatcher after having worked for a few years as NS conductor. It can be a complicated job at times, just like the air traffic controllers. I did tour TRRA yard in IL a few months ago and we watched their dispatching but way too intensive for me. Glad somebody does want to do it.
If only…
That’s how it should work, with actual, real-world running times. But, competing interestests, like not having trains “bunch up” at terminals, organizational inertia and lack if interest in scheduling tools usually mean schedules are a bit of a hodge-podge.
Worse yet, train time-keeping isn’t precise enought that hard “slots” are a real thing, except for Amtrak and perhaps some premium intermodal. You may get things more-or-less running in the right sequence on a really good day, but the meets of opposing traffic rarely occur in the scheduled spot or even the same spot day after day.
This is an area where railroads could and should apply a lot more discipline in the scheduling processes.
That is the way (at least in my experience) schedules - all of them are laid out and designed. And then the real world intrudes.
On my Division there were a small fleet of freight trains that if they were on their On Time window would get slaughered, losing time - if they were operating 2-3 hours in advance of their schedules they would fly over the division, doing the work required of them, and gaining even more time until they arrived at destination well in advance of their schedule. Real windows may not be where they have been scheduled.
At the time I retired, there were three primary measures that Operating Supervision were measured by - Originations (5 minutes late was a missed Origination), Right Car Right Train (all merchandise car
This may be where the practice of longer trains with fewer crews is hurting the overall picture. Longer trains take a lot more time to get to speed, slow down, etc. So it would seem that scheduling would be also harder.
I recall reading about one of the Japanese islands where the freight trains are restricted to passenger train length so that they blend into the scheduling and running easily, especially passing sidings. USA is too big for that, but I feel that shorter trains will benefit the increased traffic by allowing better scheduling. If the railroads moved more freight more efficiently, and were able to allow Amtrak to do their job (including keeping schedules), reason would suggest profits should also increase.
In Germany the freight trains are run, whenever possible, at the average speeds (including station stops) of passenger trains to avoid delays of the priority passenger trains. The limits freight train tonnage.
Regards, Volker
Over the years and among all the Class 1 carriers and their predecessor companies virtually every form of ‘operating plan’ has been tried. What the results of these plans have been is unknownd, however, it is known that the carriers moved on from them and we are where we are today.
Today’s railroads are not presently configured for ‘short, fast, frequent’ kind of operation - not from a manpower stand point nor from a motive power stand point. Today’s form of railroading rewards fewer crew starts hauling maximum tonnage on each train. Remember UPS is a customer of the railroad, not a competitor - as such they don’t run their operation like UPS and never will.
What works for the Japanese and their compacted society is not the answer for the USA and it’s expanded society. The USA answers would not work for Japan.
Longer trains are subject to a fixed point spreed retriction for a longer time due to being longer. Accelleration is a matter of power to weight ratio, usually expressed in HPPT, which is NOT a function of train length. Freight train slow down time is a function of how hard the brakes are applied, again largely independent of train length. You are conflating three things into one.
Scheduling more and shorter trains to handle a given volume of traffic is more complex becuase more trains means more meets. As the number of trains increases, the number of meets increases as the square of the number of trains.
Here you seem to suggest that there will be more traffic due to better scheduling. That may be true, but the cost increase will be instantaneous and the traffic increase, if any, will be years comming. If you were a railroad president, would you bet your job on that notion?
Using more trains to move a given volume of traffic is generally less efficient giving an increased operating ratio and less profit. ATK is just another welfare program and a pain in the a$$ to the railroads.
Mac
From: international passenger news
Dutch rail reaching capacity
“Prorail will also introduce scheduling in tenths of a minute, with six second increments, for internal timetables. Prorail believes this system will improve punctuality, and expects to introduce the change in 2020.”
Can you imagine this in the US (or Canada)
Volker would be a better source than I, but I recall Juniata (before she got bullied off the forum) once observed that German freight trains ran faster and on reliable schedules more than here because industries served subscribed to the just-in-time concept for inventories.
My observation was that Juniata was the bully and left in a huff when she was not bowed down to by the other forum members. Different observations, different people.
There is a DB Cargo online schedule: http://gueterfahrplan.hacon.de/bin/db/query.exe/en?OK
Insert e.g. Hamburg and Muenchen (Munich) and click “Find Connection” and watch what happens. Under NOTES you find the follow
Maybe. As I recall, it was just one male (AFAIK now former) forum member who she squabbled with. His responses to her were often imperious and even contemptuous in tone even though she was pretty well informed. This sort of thing does not go down well with anyone but especially with women in recent times