In researching prototypical practices I have read that industries shipping to customers nearby would more likely choose truck over train to move their goods. That seems to make sense but would that hold true if both businesses were located along the same industrial belt line. Would it make more sense to ship a single box car the short distance or load up several truck loads? The specific situation on my layout is a paper mill which needs to supply paper for a newspaper publisher a short distance away. Both have industrial spurs on the same belt line that parallels the mainline. My railroad is set in the mid 1950s if that makes a difference? I know I could fall back on the “it’s your railroad” premise, but I like to be as prototypical as possible.
Here is what I was told in Productions Management course. If the shipment is less than 500 miles away from destination, then ship by truck. In your case, it would depend greatly. It would depend on how often the publisher needed the shipment.
The answer to this question is certainly era and circumstance related. For times and places when/where motor transport was good, tranport would be by truck unless shipments were railroad-car sized, the shipper and customer were both rail-served, and rail service was adequate (timely service, adequate protection from damage and theft, etc.) and cost effective.
The following early 1950s photo of Walnut Creek illustrates this. On the right side is a partial view of an aggregates plant, with a couple of hoppers on the main track, apparently having been switched out from the plant. Undoubtedly, the source of the aggregate material was the Kaiser quarry in Pleasanton only 20 miles away. Shipments from the Walnut Creek plant would be made by truck to local projects.
Mark
As a rule railroads was never after the short haul and it remains so today.There is no profit in it and may cost the railroad more to handle that car then it worth.
Today it would be faster and cheaper to hire a truck line line that specializes in local delivery since most charge by the trailer or a flat rate for drop and hook service…
I know of a special case-- actually two of them- where rail shipment was used for crosstown move. But it both cases, it involved multi-car, probably TRAINLOAD movements of BULK MATERIALS in open top hopper cars. In Corpus Christi, Texas, I remember case of a shipload of bulk material unloaded into railcars at Bulk Material dock and moved to somewhere in town, don’t remember exactly where. May have been clinkers (lime-bearing rocks) or coal going to cement plant.
This map shows the bulk materials dock at the left end of the red-colored line on the north side of the channel.
The other in-town movement I heard of from famous HO model railroader Gil Freitag of Houston, who worked for Sheffield Steel. The plant sometimes got iron ore by ship but didn’t have an unloading facility. Ships would be offloaded nearby at a Port of Houston facility, then moved by rail to Sheriff mill. Not a lot of ore cars on hand in Houston. Ore was carried in regular hoppers as usually used for coal, but only filled partway by volume. However, that would be a full load by weight. Iron ore is heavy.
I am planning cross-town movements on my barely-started layout but again, somewhat of a special case. Company service ice. Santa Fe did not have its own ice plant in Galveston. Bought from a commercial ice plant and cold storage facility at port which had loading dock doors for refrigerator cars-- but no elevated icing platform. Santa Fe had an icing platform and a small ice storage house at its yard a mile or so away. It is feasible Santa Fe may have switched comparny-service ice cars to the ice plant and transported a carload or two crosstown to its icing platform.
It certainly is feasible. A paper mill on a joint SP/MP industrial branch in Pine Bluff shipped to a bag plant on that same branch.
On the Chessie there was a coke plant in Catlettsburg Ky that ship 30-40(avg) loads of coke daily to Armco Steel at flatwoods,Ky…About 10 miles which included a run around move that tied up 2 main lines.On heavy traffic days it could take 6 hours to go those 10 miles.
There was a scrap yard that sent scrap to Armco till the owner decided trucks was faster after a load of scrap took 4 days to go 6 miles.The car was misrouted to another Armco steel plant.
hi
You are putting up an academical question. If you are really following prototype you have to research as well if papermills and large newspaper publishers were that close. The big publishers in the 50’s were found down town, in city centers, away from direct access to tracks; while papermills were usualy way out of town. Being on the same belt? There is a prototype for everything. but in your area?
It is making a lot of difference, to day printing is separated from the editorial chores and done in industrial zones in suburban area’s. Several newspapers often share the same (printing)-presses, so rail access may be used to day.
Research your area in the 50’s and let your prototype decide.
Paul
Mine is a freelanced railroad set in a fictional city so there is no prototype to research. The fact that my railroad is freelanced doesn’t mean I want to adopt an anything goes approach. I want to do things the way railroads of that era would actually do things.
In this particular case, the paper mill is located across the tracks from the main freight yard which is on the outskirts of the city while the newspaper publisher is located in the downtown area. While these are seperated by less than a half a scale mile, conceptually, the distance is greater. Most of the local industries are toward the back edge of the layout and are connected to the belt line. A transfer run serves these industries, picking up cars from the freight yard to be spotted at various points along the belt line while picking up those that are headed back to the yard. Since both of the industries in question are located along the same belt line, my thinking is that moving from one to the other would amount to nothing more than a long switching move with the loaded paper never going to the yard or getting routed on a mai
Short hauls can be a good thing, and match some prototypes.
Here in Vermont, they are in the final design and approval process to build a 3 to 5-mile spur to reach a granite quarry near Middlebury. From there the granite will be taken to a town called Florence, a distance of 23 miles. This traffic will be for one company, Omya. The design calls for a rail-truck transfer near Middlebury that could serve other customers… The processing plant in Florence is already served by rail.
This is being done to get truck traffic off of US 7. Quoting the FEIS -
At one time, most granite in VT was moved by train to granite processing plants. It’s all now moved by truck. However, in this case, the amount of traffic is pushing to get the traffic on rail. The company Omya supports this move.
Gil
Economic sense only applies to the shipper and consignee, not the railroad. The railroad has no choice, it’s a common carrier and if you tender a shipment, it has to move it. For a short run the railroad probably charges a switch charge instead of a road haul. So that’s a flat rate per car. If the switch charge is less than the trucking charges to haul the same amount, then yes. If the railroad is providing 40 ton boxcars, then it might not be economical, if the railroad is providing 70 ton boxcar it might be economical. If the railroad is providing 9 ft IH boxcars it might not be economical, it the railroad is providing 11 ft IH boxcars it might be economical.
I wouldn’t get too hung up on economics. If you really dig in the details, no model railroad would ever make a profit. They use too many crews to haul too little freight too short a distance. On the other hand they tend to spot industries about 200-500 % more than real industries get spotted.
Back in 2006 there was a discussion about small unit trains that may be of interest. On the second page of the thread mention is made of the Reading’s Bee Line Service, which was offered in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Hope this link works.
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/67440.aspx?PageIndex=1
It was an attempt to offer fast freight service over short distances.
hi,
Who missed the point?
If you ask if those big rolls of paper can be transported by rail over short distances between a papermill and a newspaper publisher and you don’t want to apply an anything goes attitude you have to apply the same principle also, when picking industries for your pike.
A short research in my larger area made clear that non of the larger publishers had plants with direct rail access and all were down town. All the papermills were way outside town, due to environmental reasons, so being on the same belt is far from reality.
But, it was a quick research in my area only; the USA is large and you have to find out at least, if in your state you can find different exemples. If not you were putting up a academic question indeed.
Paul
DaveH wrote:The railroad has no choice, it’s a common carrier and if you tender a shipment, it has to move it.
Only if they have available cars,available crews and if the railroad local runs tri weekly you may be in luck 1 day a week-twice if it runs daily…If that don’t send you packing then they will find fault with your siding-to light for today’s heavier locomotives and freight cars.They may embargo your track for implied safety reasons.They may go as far as suggesting a truck line-usually a subsidiary.
Of course a short line will welcome your car loads…
Got the picture?
In the US it is fairly common for larger urban newspaper publishers to recieve paper by rail. So that portion is certainly feasible.
I have seen paper mills close to larger cities. There are several around Pine Bluff, AR, there was one near Houston, TX.
I have seen short moves, less than 5 miles, between a paper mill and plants that use paper.
So while the exact combination of circumstances may not be there (short hauls of newsprint to a publisher), there certainly are enough components (short hauls of paper, rail served publishers, and paper mills near sizeable cities) that it is possible, although it would not be common. It certainly could be within the realm of a model railroad (where it takes 3 SD40-2’s to haul 25 cars).
hi
hi,
thank you Dave, perhaps this is the answer J. was waiting for. This is what I also meant when I was asking J. to research his area.
J. has a difficult call however. TMHO J. wants to do something “typical” for his era and locale. So I would reverse the order, first make sure there was some short hauling of a certain commodity and then picking the appropriate plants.Though freelancing, you still have roots in the real world.
Paul
Paul,Some times you just gotta put railroad logic in such short moves and this won’t be found in most books…
They’re not making that much money(if any) after they pay a 5 man crew(1950 era) and fuel to move that car few miles.There’s no real mileage to collect so,your profit comes from the shipping cost.
So,in railroad logic they would discourage short haul shipments by any means…
On the other hand if there was several car loads a week and it was profitable then yes they would be happy for the short haul and would assign cars to that shipper.
hi Larry,
Because I could not find it in the books I adviced J. to do some research in his area or on Google. I did in my area and found no papermills inside cities, and after some phone calls I understood why.
It was not my call to find something typical for that era, but J.specificaly asked it. Dave’s answer wouldn’t make me completely happy however, finding a nice exemple is great, but is it typical? And J’s answer: I am freelancing, so i can’t do research was a bit to easy to my taste.
A point not mentioned at all is the (lack of) importance of short hauls for a modelrailroad; by adding staging and interchanges you don’t have to rely on it.
I second you, when you have a papermill on your pike and a nice customer, why not run a couple of cars between them? Or research the real world first?
Paul
Paul,I only know of 1 small city in Ohio that has a paper mill inside city limits and that will be Chillicothe and needless to say the last time I drove by Chillicothe the smell was terrible…
There are shippers that may ship a few miles between plants or to a nearby customer.The Union railroad in Pittsburgh makes its living serving the steel industries of the industrial Monongahela Valley.I am sure Union operates hot slab trains between mills.They also operate a barge to rail trans loading facility so,some of that traffic may go to the 2 steel mills served by the URR…
I never was one to tie model industries together other then a loads in/empties out operation.Of course this doesn’t include loggers or narrow gauge operation.
Here’s why.I will use my C&HV…
J.W.Thompson industries in Jackson(Oh) loads a boxcar with rolls of rubber &