Someone fill me in here, and forgive me if this is a silly question. Why are boxcars still relatively common on the Class 1 railways? Do intermodal containers not carry exactly the same items and do so more efficiently? What am I missing?
Stu
Cubic ft and tonnage.
A modern boxcar is in the 50-100 ton capacity range and has a 5000-10000 cu ft capacity. They are 10 ft wide inside and up to 15 ft or so high inside.
Intermodal containers can’t carry that much and aren’t that big. If you want to ship a LOT of big stuff domestically then a boxcar can be cheaper.
Interesting. Thanks Dave!
Stu
Containers are only good for up to ABOUT 50,000 pounds of load, and even that’s overweight for many trucks that pull them. Many boxcars are good for 200,000 pounds or so, even if the internal dimensions aren’t that much more. Boxcars are well suited for large rolls of paper (generally rather heavy, a container would be overweight even if only loaded 1/3 full, not to mention dedicated shippers and receivers), and other dense, heavy loads. Containers are better suited for customers who don’t have rail service.
Brad
If both shipper and receiver have rail sidings, it may be more convenient to handle boxcar loads than container loads - especially if the sidings are located in narrow alleys in older industrial/commercial districts. Boxcars load from the side. Containers load from the end.
In North America, intermodal containers are sized to match highway trailers, and require space and facilities that will accommodate 18 wheelers. In Japan, the standard JNR container would fit on a short flatbed truck, adapted to Japanese roads and urban development but not economical for long hauls. A standard 20 meter container car will carry five, and is designed to be loaded/unloaded with a heavy duty fork lift. Tine clearance is built in.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Stu,In layman’s term you can get 2 trailer loads in each boxcar…
Boxcars still carry many items from beer to foodstuff,from scrap rubber to lumber,bagged fertilizer to bagged mulch.They even carry chemicals in 55 gallon drums.
You may find this interesting.
NS handled 15,407 boxcar vs. 8,561 intermodal cars for week ending 03/15/13.
You may also find this site a interesting study. You can also check the other railroads by using the list in the upper left hand corner.
Wow. So nowhere near as dead as I thought. Thanks for the link, Larry, I will check it out this afternoon. And thanks to all for educating someone still relatively ignorant on 1:1 railroading!
Stu
Stu, you have to understand the measure before you make too many assumptions.
One intermodal “car” on railroads other than the UP could be a 5 well or 5 platform articulated car. So one “intermodal car” could be 10 containers if they are double stacked or 5 boxes for a spine car or single stacked well cars.
On the UP each platform is considered one “car”, so a 5 well stack car is considered 5 cars on the UP. If you study those statistics you will note that the UP has a consistently higher inventory. Part of the reason is that it counts articulated intermodal cars differently. The UP counts things differently because it needs to know the exact loading configuration when the stack trains go across Wyoming to calculate the “blowover” wind speed of the car (how fast a wind gust will blow the railcar over). For two tall empty containers stacked on a car that can be as low as a 55 mph wind.
Dave,None the less those statistics is what the railroads used measuring their performance.I’m sure these are turned in to a governing body,shareholders,board members etc.
It means very little to us how the railroad counts their intermodal cars the point being the number of boxcars handled out numbers the intermodal…Take the information the railroad gives since its based on their performance and the number of car types handle during a given week.That is a fact that can not be disputed nor should it be…
Here in Alexandria VA, I’ve determined the existence of five rail served companies:
the Washington Post’s printing plant
an asphalt plant
some sort of brick dealer
a paper recycler
ethanol transload
Three of those use boxcars. Probably fairly easy to guess which three.
It is very important to the question Stu posed.
If I say that the NS handled 15,407 boxcars and 8,561 intermodal cars that gives one impression.
Lets assume that all of the NS’ intermodal equipment is 5 platform cars and half of them are double stacked then those 8561 cars equals 64,200 boxes.
If I say the NS handled 15,407 carloads in boxcars and 64,200 carloads of intermodal it gives a completely different picture.
“Handled” and “loaded” are two different things (handled can include empty moves), “cars” and “carloadings” are two different things (a single 5 pack is one car and up to 10 carloadings).
Not saying anybody is misreporting anything or any figures are wrong. Just have to understand what the measures are saying (or not saying).
Dave,Why complicate the simple facts?
We could care less if those platforms are empty or loaded since NS didn’t state if the cars was loaded or empty the fact remain they handle 8,561 intermodal cars period.Case closed as far as NS is concern.
We should take those figures as NS and the other railroads presented them as the number of car type handled during a given week…
Because Stu asked about the difference in using boxcars and intermodal containers.
I just restated the statistics in the same units of measure as his question.
1 intermodal car can equal up to 10 intermodal containers.
To put it in a different perspective, assuming a boxcar averages 55 ft long and an intermodal car averages 250 ft long, the 15407 boxcars would be 847,385 ft long or 160 miles long. The 8561 intermodal cars would be 2,140,250 ft long or 405 miles long.
And what that have to do with what NS reported? Nothing.
We don’t even know the type of intermodal cars NS reported are…They could be stack or TOFC and yet you are assuming they are double stack? How many are empty well cars being returned to a port? Single stack? Both?
Let’s just go with what NS reported in their weekly report since there is to many unknowns to assume anything…
The point I take out of all this is that boxcars, despite what I thought previously, are still very useful in many situations. Containers make intermodal transport more efficient, true, but they don’t work for everyone and probably never will completely replace the good ol’ boxie. Good news that!
Stu
There’s two truths as far as I’m concerned:
There’s the absolute truth. That’s X railroad handled Y of cartype Z.
Then there’s localized truth. Railroad X handles Y of cartype Z in an given location.
Back home in Pittsburgh, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a reefer. Ever. Here in VA, the only ones I see are in the Juice Train. But where my brother lives in Ohio, I see blocks of five or six of them in a general freight all the time. Here, boxcars are common and plentiful in the trains passing through town. I assume most of them are full of newsprint and lumber. Back home, they were infrequent and often the big autoparts cars.
No, the boxcar is not dead and buried once and for all, but…it may effectively appear to be in a given area. What’s most important is whether or not they’d appear in your locale (although if you’re one of those do anything guys, well then go nuts I guess).
There are those that believe the boxcar is a oddity intoday’s railroad business because like you say they live in a place full of IM trains.
Come to Bucyrus and watch the NS on the Sandusky line and you will see far more boxcars and open hoppers then intermodal.
If you want more detailed system level information, look for carloading statistics. It took about 3 minutes to find the information for the NS:
http://www.nscorp.com/mktgpublic/webservices/nscorp/carloading_links_mktg_graph.jsp
Click on the “Current report : Carloads” link on the top line
PS: My estimates of the NS handling 64,2000 intermodal boxes was pretty close, the real number was 67,490 (I missed it by 5%).
Dave,Go the next step and check this and get the real picture…Note the drop in trailers.Containers remain around the same level.
http://www.nscorp.com/mktgpublic/MKTGApp
Of course this still hasn’t anything to do with the the number of car types handled and less it twisted and bent out of shape.
Brakie, the same can be said of much of the CN traffic through Michigan. A lot of it is auto parts, and auto parts are shipped in box cars.
Many days you may only see two intermodel trains a day, one each direction. Very much different than other parts of the country where intermodel seems to dominate rail traffic.