Can anyone explain the principle behind the old DRG&W’s “Short, Fast and Frequent” Concept??
I know that there was ancient TRAINS mag article on the the operating concept over twenty years ago but I have trouble locating it.
What I remember about it is that the T&E crews loved it because they met their road requirements faster as well as the customers. and also that it enabled Rio Grande to effectively compete with the UP and to a certain extent the Santa Fe.
To all you opwerating types out there can this be used effectively today in the post Staggers Era??
Can this concept help increase the market viability of carload freight for hiher value merchandise in the intermodal age???
I’m new to the Forum, but I’d like to jump in here.
While it’s possible that DRGW’s SFF carload freight operations may have contrasted somewhat with the the pre-1969 UP, they certainly did NOT stand out from the Kenefick-era UP. By then any distinction of DRGW SFF service was pure hype.
In gigantic contrast to the UP of today, the UP of those days had a very strong traffic department in close and frequent contact with all significant shippers and exercising considerable influence over the schedules and service required of the operating department. With the posible exception of certain very captive traffic such as Green River soda ash, ALL of UP’s non-unit train freight traffic was run on fast, daily, relatively-light-tonnage symbol freights that adhered to schedule very consistently. All loads both ways between North Platte and the PNW and between North Platte and Southern California moved in 70mph trains limited to 4,000 tons. (Trains to and from the SP were somewhat higher-tonnage at SP’s insistence, 5,500 tons EB IIRC.) UP invested in locomotives with passenger gearing (e.g., the fleet of Centennials) and other features oriented to high-speed operation of light-tonnage trains. The opening of the EB hump at North Platte enabled excellent single-classification service from the West Coast to Chicago gateways not matched by DRGW routings (not really DRGW’s fault, just that they had to rely on connections without the volume, classification terminals, track quality and management attention to provide that kind of service). DRGW secured very little of the most time-sensitive traffic (e.g., perishables, intermodal merchandise). Their EB carload traffic was predominantly Oregon lumber and California canned goods, neither in a real big hurry (but requiring enough service that when the SP and WP connections showed up, you had to run a train, you couldn’t wait for more volume – hence SFF. Same for when the BN or Rock showed up in Denver or the MoP showed up in Pueblo. You had to go.)
“One place where the philosophy of Kenefick stands out is motive power: Rather than the peculiar infatuation with big, inflexible, high-tonnage machines of the 1960s, namely the double-diesels and turbines, the Kenefick era zeroed in on two standardized locomotives, the SD40-2 for all types of main-line service (and its GE equivalent, the C30-7), and the GP38-2 for branch line and secondary service. Standardization is the hallmark of a railroad manager who seeks efficiency of the total operation, not just pieces of it that catch his fancy or speak to his background.”
The standardization of UP motive power is really the doing of Frank Accord, who Kenefick brought over from NYC to succeed D S Neuhart as UP Chief Mechanical Officer. Accord had complete autonomy to decide what to do about motive power. I think his decisions had little or nothing to do with the total operation, they really had to do with cutting motive power maintenance costs.
The last straw was the U50C disaster (VPO Bill Fox called it “the biggest goof we ever made”), after that there was this gigantic swing in the opposite direction to make UP motive power as dull and as conservative as possible. And in this Accord succeeded very well. Accord did have to give in from pressures in the Traffic and Transportation Depts. for high-speed service, and so he was forced to re-gear a block of SD40-2s with passenger gearing (the so-called Fast Forties). But by and large he left his mark by making the UP motive power roster about as unimaginative and uninspired as anyone could conceive.
Although it’s possible, I doubt Kenefick provided significant direction about striving for motive power cost savings by turning the UP into an SD40-2 railroad. To the contrary, I think he was quite enamored with being able to run a lot faster than the competition using the Centennials, with the PR prestige from having bigger, faster power than anybody else and with running a better carload railroad service than anyb
“One place where the philosophy of Kenefick stands out is motive power: Rather than the peculiar infatuation with big, inflexible, high-tonnage machines of the 1960s, namely the double-diesels and turbines, the Kenefick era zeroed in on two standardized locomotives, the SD40-2 for all types of main-line service (and its GE equivalent, the C30-7), and the GP38-2 for branch line and secondary service. Standardization is the hallmark of a railroad manager who seeks efficiency of the total operation, not just pieces of it that catch his fancy or speak to his background.”
The standardization of UP motive power is really the doing of Frank Accord, who Kenefick brought over from NYC to succeed D S Neuhart as UP Chief Mechanical Officer. Accord had complete autonomy to decide what to do about motive power. I think his decisions had little or nothing to do with the total operation, they really had to do with cutting motive power maintenance costs.
The last straw was the U50C disaster (VPO Bill Fox called it “the biggest goof we ever made”), after that there was this gigantic swing in the opposite direction to make UP motive power as dull and as conservative as possible. And in this Accord succeeded very well. Accord did have to give in from pressures in the Traffic and Transportation Depts. for high-speed service, and so he was forced to re-gear a block of SD40-2s with passenger gearing (the so-called Fast Forties). But by and large he left his mark by making the UP motive power roster about as unimaginative and uninspired as anyone could conceive.
Although it’s possible, I doubt Kenefick provided significant direction about striving for motive power cost savings by turning the UP into an SD40-2 railroad. To the contrary, I think he was quite enamored with being able to run a lot faster than the competition using the Centennials, with the PR prestige from having bigger, faster power than anybody else
Keeping the DRGW in the transcon market was part of an overall problem with economic rate regulation.
On any lane there were the low cost, or “strong”, routes such as the Union Pacific. On the same lane there were the high cost, or “weak”, routes such as the Rio Grande. Since the rates had to be the same for all routes, should those rates be set a levels that allowed only the strong routes to make a good buck? If this was done, the weak routes would die.
This was not to be allowed under regulation, so the rail rates were kept high enough so that the weak routes could make money.
This had some very bad effects. 1) It kept rates high enough to divert freight to motor movement. 2) It prevented concentration of traffic on the low cost carriers. This would have allowed those carriers to further improve their efficiencies with normal traffic growth and prevented some diversions to truck.
Economic regulation of transporation may have produced some benifit here or there, although I can’t think of any. It sure did do a lot of damage to the US economy, that much is very evident.
I finally got to Winter Park in August and saw the west end of the Moffat Tunnel (and a lot of coal trains). How that crossing could ever compete with Sherman Hill is beyond me.
Thank you gentlemen for your insightful comments. I see more and more through the forum that railroading during the regulated era was a vastly creature than the post Staggers Era.
Please respond to my new thread regarding Rio Grande’s and Western Pacific’s motive power philosophy.
I do have questions: Isn’t there still some transcontinental traffic via the Moffat and Grand Junction? A BNSF trackage rights or haulage train each way? Do they run this just to protect their trackage rights with anything important going via the Transcon? Or is it a viable routing?
Greyhounds: Your analysis of the effects of regulation on the Rio Grande and Union Pacific is unlikely to inspire disagreement from any reasonable person I have met. However, depending on who I am, I can think of broad benefits of economic regulation of transportation. While arguments can be waged that it cost the U.S. economy this or that, that’s not relevant to the person who Does Not Care what happens to the U.S. economy. Specifically, regulation was hugely beneficial for small shippers and anyone interested in transportation to or from a small town or to a location off the main routes of commerce. It gave the one-car-a week coal mine the same rate as a thousand-car-a-day coal mine. If I am the small coal mine I like that a great deal, because it keeps me in business. If I want to live in a country that allows small businessmen to get into business, and hinders the large businessman’s power, I want regulation of the market. If I want to live in a country that gives the consumer the lowest possible price, I want deregulation of the market.
An assertion today that regulation would be good, or bad, as a summary judgement, based on today’s value system, can be made. If it’s a consistent and defensible argument, it will probably stick. Projected backward, it’s an ahistorical assertion unless it considers the value system of the past. Slavery, for instance, was a good deal for the slaveowner. Bad for the slaves and for later generations, but apparently that didn’t concern the slaveowners very much. Ahistorical assertions also diverts attention from the larger question: why it is that a majority of Americans in the past found economic regulation desirable, and why it is that a majority of Americans find it undesirable now. After all, we did it: railroad regulation was not imposed by aliens or evil overlords, but by Americans.
So why did America change? What it was that led Americans to believe railroad regu
Dave - I think when the federal government looked at railroad and motor carrier deregulation around 1980 they decided rate regulation of transportation by government had been a failure for the last 30 years. They thought dereg would help create many more winners than losers. I think the last 25 years has proved them correct.
Some of the losers were a very small number of captive shippers when you look at the entire universe of freight shippers.
Farmers on the Northern Plains may well be in that group of losers but why should the rest of the country be penalized? Especially for an industry that has wandered so far from a market forces with various forms of government aid over the last 70 years. Why should the railroads be expected to pick up the tab for another government program for farmers? If government aid is appropriate let the government pay it directly.
ALL captive shippers have been shafted by the RR. That is a fact, no two ways about it. I have a study done for one of our partners in the coal fired plant. We have screwed, blued, and tattooed by the UP. And the same goes for thoses only served by the BNSF. The wording of the STB enabling legislation puts the burden of proof on the shipper and it is a virtual mountain to get over. IIRC, the STB has only found in favor of the shippers twice. Many do not even file with the STB, because of the fee to do so. It is no little $100 filing fee, but can be in the 10 of thousands range.
If you have only a single RR, you can exect to pay, at a minimum, of 30% more.
I will respectfully disagree with regards to winners vs losers. First of all, why is it axiomatic in your opinion that the rest of the country would somehow be penalized if captive shippers are freed from their bonds? We need to make this very clear: No one on my side is suggesting a return to pre-Staggars rate regulation (I will again make this allegation, that the 4R’s act was only partial deregulation akin to the California partial energy deregulation, with a skewed market as a result), rather we only want the STB to follow the proper protocols and give all regions access to competitive rate setting. It isn’t just farmers who suffer, it is captive chemical plants, captive coal fired power plants, captive intermodal terminals, et al, who get screwed by predatory rate setting. The only winners are those areas which manage to avoid becoming captive via STB fiat. Lucky them, but the same could have easily happened to them as has happened to the Northern Tier states. If SP and SF had merged followed by a merger with UP, what would have happened to rail rate payers in LA? That would have left LA screwed, and with their political power you can bet their complaints would have been heard at the STB. Too bad Montana has no real political pull in DC.
Having the STB force agreements which gaurantee competitive access to all regions of the US will not hurt anyone except the bad players in the rail industry. Besides, don’t you agree that if one area of the US suffers unnecessarily due to government negligence, it can negatively affect the rest of the country? If Montana farmers can’t afford to ship their grain to export markets, doesn’t that have a negative effect on the U.S. trade deficit, not to mention income tax reciepts?
Rate regulation of competitive markets is bad, as is rate deregulation of monopolistic markets. Deregulating competitive markets is good, as is belatedly regulating monopolistic markets. That’s how a capitalistic society is supposed to fu
does the burlington northern’s train activity fit into this discussion?
running a train with short consist/tonnage to keep something moving? one unit
with 5 cars or less sometimes. will some address this concept pls?
crosstie
Some observations on the history of railroad rate regulation/deregulation will sharpen the analysis of several contributors to this thread:
The Transportation Act of 1958 ended the strangle-hold of ICC railroad rate regulation that had prevailed since the early 1900’s. The “umbrella” theory of rate regulation which held railroad rates arbitrarily above truck and barge rates was ended. (Litigation was required to finally give full effect to the law, perhaps most notably in the “Big John” case which allowed the Southern to undercut barge rates for grain into the Southeast using high-capacity covered hoppers.)
The railroads had complete antitrust immunity for setting freight rates until the mid-1970’s, and this ended entirely only with the Staggers Act of 1980. Every railroad had the unrestricted right to “independent action” under the antitrust agreement articles to set whatever rates it wished on its own line and for which it could obtain concurrence on interline traffic. In reality, this freedom was tempered because retaliation could, and did, occur. Rate “structures” were viewed as somewhat sacrosanct, and great deliberation went into their establishment and preservation, nearly always through rate-bureau deliberation. This tedious procedure often took months or years, and in some cases could still draw complaints at the ICC. Not the picture of competitive efficiency.
However, in light of the above realities it is inaccurate to believe that highly efficient routes were externally constrained in their rate-making to protect the inefficient. In most cases, the UP’s, the PRR’s, the SOU’s of the industry had a “world view” of their own economics and competitive realities that they expressed forcefully in rate bureau and regulatory proceedings.
The period from 1967 to 1980 was a crucial one for the rairoad industry in many ways, not the least of these had to do with rate making. The financial results of the railroad industry for the year 196
In re Point 2: All railroads were members of regional collective rate-making organizations (aka, rate bureaus). Each such organization had “articles of organization and procedure” whereby a railroad could propose to establish rates on any commodity from, to or via points it served. Normally, such proposals would be publicized for review by member lines (and shippers) and a vote. If approved by a majority, the rate would be published in a tariff. If disapproved, nothing happened unless the proposing line took “independent action” to establi***he rate via its line. This “right of independent action” was guaranteed in the articles and could not be stopped by any other line, short of a protest to the ICC, and that seldom succeeded. If the “announced” rate required a second line to complete the route, that line had to “announce” also.
This right was particularly important with regard to rate increases, especially the “general rate increases” (aka, Ex Partes). An entire region (say, the East (aka, Official Territory)) might approve an across-the-board 12% increase on all traffic from, to and within the territory. That approval would be sent to the South (aka, Southern Freight Association or SFA), and the West (aka, Western Railroad Traffic Assiciation, or WRTA) for concurrence. The Southern Railway, a member of SFA, having reviewed its competitive matrix, would conclude that several commodities such as steel between Official Territory and SFA were threated by truck competition, so it would “flag out” of the increase for its routes on those commodities (or perhaps agree to only a 3% increase). The Eastern Lines, then, had only limited concurrence in the change they had proposed and only the limited increase could be published to apply on traffic to and from the Southern. (Because of this type of “independent action,” general increase tariffs became very complex.)
In the case of pre-existing rates (and there were always pre-existing rates), “low man wins” was the