Could mini-trains help add revenue/protift to RRs?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I often wonder if a RR (with rail access to the right industries) could find new profitable opportunities by using mini-trains? The mini-trains would use some of that un-used capacity a RR has. Insitead of paying the fulll wages/salaries that a typical train crew would receive, the mini-train, wold be run by junior staff who are still working their way of the expereince ladder. The mini-trains would have engines/power that is much smaller…maybe like a swither power but still designed for longer runs. The mini-train would haul a dozen or two (or less??) cars or some other number that the RR finds to be a sweet spot.

I guess what I am asking here, could the costs of such a train be low enough to allow profit for the smaller opportunities? Infrastructure costs would already be covered by the larger freights.

At least its more revenu in the RR books, and out of the trucking books right?

2

It’s called a yard to yard transfer or a local industry switch job…and the crew gets full wages.

There is no “pay scale” based on experience…you are either qualified to do your job, or your not.

There is no in-between.

Although 12 cars and a dedicated crew is a rather expensive way to go about it…you might see a local with 20 to 30 cars for a group of industries, and if the customer is willing to pay extra for it, you might see a special switch move for one cistomer that involves just a few cars, but on a regular basis, it would be too expensive.

3

A mini-train running in the Chicago area and NW Indiana are the bottle trains which typically have about 5 or 6 revenue cars. These are cars of molten steel … impressive site. Others here can explain the from’s and to’s and operations.

ed

4

Sure the short trains COULD add revenue but they would fly in the face or railroad accountants and investors who more cars on fewer trains using less employees. These short trains can only mess up the accounting goals so there will always be some VP screaming to fill these trains to 100_ car monsters, move the business to other trains or dump the business all together.

Sad fact, that is just the way it is.

5

There is certainly an untapped niche market wherein compliance to a tight schedule would attract business otherwise foregone. And it’s certainly easier to keep a tight schedule when you’re dealing with smaller consist lots.

Time is money. Learn it, live it, love it.

6

I think you’re thinking traditionally…and I know certain things are the way they are…but look outside of the picture frame for a minute…think ‘transport truck’ with steel wheels on rails. Look at the flexability, the increased utilization, look at it from a customer’s point of view. His load of widgets are picked up every day, and arrive four hours (300 KM) later at his distributor’s address. No hours/days of waiting to be switched in a yard, only to travel with a million other cars only to then sit in yard for another dozen hours (or a day or two) waiting to be switched again.

7

Yeah, but if the railroads made a serious run at this business and returned to a 70% market share, what would all those unemployed truckers do for a living?

Someone has to take the fall so that trucking can thrive, and the railroads have been overly gratuitous in being the willing fallguy over the last half century![;)]

8

They can drive the forklifts that load the box cars. :wink:

9

Bows to Crazy, My friend you are on the money. The Rock tried it in the lates 70’s and came up HUGE! However the unions fought it, the ICC fought it,everyone fought it.

Check out the Rock Island Digest volume 9 for story of the mini trains,or look up John Baskin Harper. He was the Rock Official behind the Muscatine Mini train.

Simple scenerio was the aforementioned train. Ran from Muscatine Iowa to Keota Iowa. dropped a couple at Ainsworth and picked them up on the way back. Mr Harper stated ( and I think it is possible) had the Rock had a 40 mph speed limit on the Keota branch they could have done 2 round trips daily. 15 car mini equals 30 loads daily in your own cars 30 times 5 or 6 days depending on the buisness and wow.

Mini trains would work,but everyone is so stuck on cross country moves. Next buisness downturn and watch all the long haulers go " Oh POOP!!!" Wait a minute, they do that EVERY dwonturn lol.

10

I am looking at it from the realistic point of view of a switchman…not the “what if” point of view.

That and every idea I ever heard that started with “All you have to do is…” or "What if…"usually cost reams of money, never works, and are based on a single theory, excluding all other considerations…in this instance, all the other trains using the tracks…it isn’t like a freeway where your “short train” can just scoot over to the widget factory, drop off a few cars, grab the loads and hustle over to the local Wal Mart and drop them off…that’s exactly what LCL trucking companies are for, FedEx, UPS and such, who do have the option of city streets and picking their most efficient route.

There is an excellent reason for railroads doing away with single car service when ever they can, it doesn’t make money.

Where I work, we get the big 100 to 120 cars worth of general freight, which we switch out into blocks for our outlaying yards…where they are switched out into customer specific trains.

We combine those customer specific “small” trains into a single train, which works its assigned industries on a daily basis, in some instances, two or three times in a 24 hour period.

Several of theses train use our outlaying yards at the same time, which allows us to move 500,000 cars yearly.

The entire concept is based on the idea of forwarding every car you can in the next available train headed towards its final destination…dwell time in the yard cost the railroad money, and in spite of what you may imagine or heard, we do not let them sit for days if there is any way possible to move them.

Short trains would only gum up the works more; the physical plant has a finite capability in the number of trains it can accommodate, be they 12 cars or 120 cars long.

Now, if you playing in the “what if” world then sure, park the 120 car mixed trains and use your main line for dozens of 1

11

I see those along the line near me all the time! They’re called “locals.” They run as often as the customers need service.

12

Want to squander Main track capacity? Have a ‘mini-train’ work an industry while holding the track. While such a train occupies the track…no other trains can proceed through the track segment. Today’s railroads are already capacity constrained without having an intensive ‘mini-train’ service network. During the ‘Plant Rationalization’ Era of the 80’s and early 90’s the Carriers abandonded the routes that had minimal industry as no being economically viable. The routes that were kept, in view of today’s through traffic levels, already have more local industry than through operations would desire.

13

The CN runs mini-unit trains. Two quarries load 25-30 cars (what one SD engine can pull by itself) of aggregate a day. Run 50 miles or so down the line. Spot the loaded train, pick up the empty train that was spotted earlier. Hiball back to the quarry. Shove the whole train in, run around, tie down.

This operation started back in WC days. Not much disruption to mainline traffic. Train is short, fits places 150-car train won’t.

The cars keep turning. Railroads get paid for moving cars, not storing them.

14

As you can see the answer depends on whether or not the line has excess capacity. Most main lines and big city terminals do not so it makes no sense to add low revenue moves. If the route has excess capacity then such a service might make sense if you can get enough money and if you can turn the equipment quickly.

Mac

15

You also can use intermodal concepts to facilitate mini-train logistics. Containers and trailers can be easily transfered from one train to another (or to a waiting highway chassis) depending on your lift-on/lift-off equipment. You don’t have to break apart a train to do this, so it can be done relatively quickly.

16

An exellent queation, and so far no REAL answer. If the big railroad companies are so against these trains taking up track capacity, then why are there nonetheless some mini trains around((20 cars or less running 60 to 120 mile trips are the ones I seen)) . If there are some mini trains around why not more of them ???

17

Would that 55 car produce train from Washington to Albany, NY qualify as a mini-train?

18

My guess is that 55 car produce train from PNW to NY generates very good revenue and return on investment. Does anyone know what the carload charge is for it?

Route Rock…what specifically did the Rock handle from Musky to Keota? That does sound like an interesting concept.

I think this can be done in certain situations, particularly on the under utilized secondary mainlines, but the problem would be that when those start to fill up, then something has to give and the “local” would be it…and your consistant service is gone and so is the customer.

ed

19

You’re right, Ed–nothing “mini” about that perishable train!

I don’t know if there is such an animal as a “carload rate” for that train, though–the cars are run under a multi-car waybill, so I suspect that all 55 cars are billed together. The last four runs, though, one car (each) was bad-ordered en route. I’m sure the railroads bear the added cost of moving this in the first available slightly-less-hot manifest.

As for mini-trains, CNW used to run a “Commoditrain” to haul gravel from South Beloit to Elmhurst, Illinois. Commoditrain was the railroad’s official name for it, but we all knew it as the mini-train. In one sense it really was “mini” to us Chicagolanders–it used former DM&IR ore cars (they were so old that there were Duluth, Missabe & Northern logos on some of them!). This was basically a unit train–loaded at one point, traveled to one destination for unloading, empties directly back to Point A. What made it work, though, is that the unions agreed that one crew could handle a round trip, in spite of the fact that the train traveled through portions of two divisions and through the yard besides. It would have taken two or three crews under normal work rules, but using one crew (the responsibility was divided between the divisions, proportionately) made the shipping costs lower, and the railroad gained business that, pure and simple, it wouldn’t have had otherwise.

20

The railroads can, will, and do operate shorter trains when such trains: 1) fit the needs of the market, 2) the railroad can identify and exploit the need, and 3) they can make a buck doing so.

Examples are: 1) the UP intermodal between Denver and Salt Lake City, 2) the BNSF intermodal service to Billings, MT, and 3) the previously mentioned rock trains on the CN and CNW. Short trains all.

The problem is that railroad marketing departments can not (not will not) identify small market opportunities. It’s a “descrepancy of size” issue - a railroad marketing person is always going to have something more important to work on than developing freight out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

What makes the above mentioned UP and BNSF intermodals work is UPS, which does have the railroads’ ear. Same with the rock shippers.

So how do these opportunities get identified and developed?