Thanks for the authoritative info!!
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In this particular case, I was referring to the trucking industry compared to the railroads. Trucks (and air) are able to utilize the external benefits provided incidentally to them (and rightly so) by governments - maintained and operated roads and airways/airports for the general public. Similar benefits are not provided to the railroads. In addition, ROW’s are taxed by local/state governments. These benefits create a distortion of the market equation in terms of cost. *
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In this case, again, the external costs of pollution and the like, are not fully borne by any of the polluters. But trucks are so much less efficient in ton-miles per gallon and produce more pollution per ton-mile compared to the rails, but this very real cost is not (naturally not) reflected in the freight costs the truck lines would calculate and thus not in the true costs to the public.
* The truck companies and airfreight haulers do make a contribution to roads and airways in the form of various taxed and user fees. However, that amount pales when compared to the total cost of building and maintaining/operating the pertinent infrastructure. Some will argue that the appropriate comparison would be a pro ration of the total cost based on some percentage of usage (miles, ton-miles , etc.) which on one level is true. But many of the more complex constructions are there to meet the specialized needs of trucks and commercial airline. I would speculate that the total cost wo
Paul;
Great reading Paul and it sounds like we have been addressing these same issues for about the same time. I have been working on these issues since 1975 and at locations in , , , , , and many other small cities. At first the small locations were using Ramp Docks for loading and unloading, then we started using Piggy-Packers, and finally came the Straddle Cranes, all of these were slow and took a considerable amount of time to load a train.
I developed a design to pivot the rail car 24 degrees so the adjacent terrain could be constructed at rail car height and then you could drive on and drive off to load and unload all the trailers on a 60 car train at the same time. The idea was sent to Trailer Train and they thought it could be done but details would have to be worked out. The UP decided that it would have to be universal and would not be feasible for just one railroad so the idea was dropped. That is why I have been trying to get the FRA, FHWA, and other governmental agency’s to start the process of getting a plan to coordinate with all the major railroads and trucking companies to develop an efficient and operable intermodal plan.
Not long ago GIL CARMICHAEL was trying to get the government to develop Interstate II which was an Intermodal System developed under a similar
Plan that the
Great reading. The 10 benefits makes the case even better.
Excellent discussion. Thanks to all who’ve contributed their thoughts so far. Although it may go without saying for the “pros” in the group, some folks with less detailed knowledge of the business side of railroading may not be aware how much freight railroads have already taken off the highway in the last 20 years or so. If not for things like the Pacer Stacktrain national network and the Santa Fe/J.B. Hunt partnership, you’d have thousands more trucks per day on the highway. The Hunt/Santa Fe partnership, for example, drove some truckers who specialized in Midwest- California traffic out of business, while others survived only by finding new traffic lanes which didn’t have such strong intermodal competition. Hopefully the NS Crescent Corridor project will also be successful. Also note that many truck shippers switched to intermodal during the recent spike in fuel prices. They were willing to pay some premium for truck, but only up to a certain point.
That’s not to say that more highway freight still couldn’t be shifted to rail. There’s a lot left that could economically move rail today if the railroads wanted it. The reason they don’t want it is usually because they lack the capacity. By the mid-90’s at Santa Fe, so much freight was moving between California and the eastern end of the railroad that they began to back out of other markets, such as Midwest-Texas, because it was all they could do to keep up with the growth of the longer-haul traffic. The Texas traffic was profitable, but less so, and with limited capacity at Kansas City and Chicago, they had to pick and choose. Also note that the lion’s share of traffic to/from Mexico (even the not-insubstantial Canada-Mexico business) moves via highway because the U.S. rail system was primarily designed to go east-west rather than north-south.
If governments want railroads to
Merrill,
Have you done any prototyping or model making to illustrate and explain your concept? Do you have any drawings or illustrations that you could post here?
Andy-UP-
You seem to be saying, that this needs to be implemented across the whole North American rail system, accross all Class 1’s. Wouldn’t a better plan be to start with a major traffic lane, like LA> Chicago, get that up and rolling, and expand from there?
Market penetration intermodal for truckload-type freight in lanes such as Chicago-LA is already greater than 80%.
RWM
[quote user=“schlimm”]
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In this particular case, I was referring to the trucking industry compared to the railroads. Trucks (and air) are able to utilize the external benefits provided incidentally to them (and rightly so) by governments - maintained and operated roads and airways/airports for the general public. Similar benefits are not provided to the railroads. In addition, ROW’s are taxed by local/state governments. These benefits create a distortion of the market equation in terms of cost. *
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In this case, again, the external costs of pollution and the like, are not fully borne by any of the polluters. But trucks are so much less efficient in ton-miles per gallon and produce more pollution per ton-mile compared to the rails, but this very real cost is not (naturally not) reflected in the freight costs the truck lines would calculate and thus not in the true costs to the public.
* The truck companies and airfreight haulers do make a contribution to roads and airways in the form of various taxed and user fees. However, that amount pales when compared to the total cost of building and maintaining/operating the pertinent infrastructure. Some will argue that the appropriate comparison would be a pro ration of the total cost based on some percentage of usage (miles, ton-miles , etc.) which on one level is true. But many of the more complex constructions are there to meet the specialized needs of trucks an
Yes, Andy-UP is not going to beat double stack ecnomics. I ran the numbers on double stack vs TOFC and RoadRailer when I worked for RoadRailer. You really have to pick your spots to beat double stack economics.
I think there are some niche markets for carless technology. My beloved Washington apples are one such niche. But, in general, double stack efficiencies are overwhelming. A national TOFC based system using “Swivel Cars” won’t be competitive.
You say TOFC is not competitve with COFC…WELL DUH 2 trailers in one compartment to 1 trailer on the flat car. The cost of road-railers not using cars just the trailers has been profitable and is why it still moves and works and tofc while not competitive with cofc it is still profitable. and is why both will be used in the future.
Or, better yet, a toll based on weight and capacity consumed. Or even better, why not just privatize them and let them charge what the market will bear?
You are telescoping several separate points. Highways were not constructed primarily for commercial truckers, but they benefit from them as though they were without paying the full price. This is simply a coincidental but natural consequence of the sensible notion that dates from the 1800’s: that the nation needs good roads from which everyone benefits. There really isn’t anything to do about this. Placing tolls on Interstates would force a burden (time, convenience, economic) on everyone merely to “Make Even” for trucks vs. rails. That would be as silly as following the logic of going the full route of putting tolls on all roads. Privatizing various areas of economic activity as a “one size fits all” answer to every problem suggests a misapplication of free market economics . You are also confounding over-regulation of the rails (or more accurately, regulation after its original purpose no longer was a factor) with economic costs.
I agree that Traffic Studies to determine sequence of construction based on evaluation of where greatest returns can be expected should be how the system would start. First we need traffic studies to verify the numbers I took from an FHWA report. Also with these traffic studies the Rail system and Terminals should be evaluated to determine what changes need to be applied to accomodate the additional capacity.
http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov./freight/freight_analysis/nat_freight_stats/nhsavglhft2035.htm
greyhounds: I don’t know if you are a Chicago native, but living in the “boonies” (as John Coleman used to call them) I am surprised you would consider toll roads, given mutual experience with the Illinois Toll Road system.
Well, OK - then what we do is exempt from tolls all vehicles under - say, 10,000 lbs. Gross Vehicle Weight. That way all the cars and light trucks can zoom past the toll booths for free - and only the heavy trucks will have to stop and pay. In view of the road damage studies, that’s a fair method and result.
Privatization has it’s own issues, too, although I’m not necessarily or ideologically opposed to it. ‘‘What the market/ traffic will bear’’ sounds good if there are some workable alternatives. But if not - such as at a ‘chokepoint’ or ‘bottleneck’ bridge, as our Rt. 22 bridge over the Lehigh River - then it amounts to a monopolist’s ‘license to steal’, unless an upper bound or ‘cap’ is placed on the tolls. Also, the maintenance standards are hard to specify and enforce - particularly since in my experience here in Pennsylvania, those are more often ‘honored in the breach than in the observance’', to quote Billy Shakespeare - that would put the state in the position of ‘Do as we say - not as we do’. How would / should we strike a balance between higher maintenance costs and better quality roads ? What’s to stop a private operator from building a couple super-heavy-duty lanes and allowing trucks with way over the current legal limit of 80,000 lbs. GVW from using them ? That could be troublesome for some railroads - ‘Be careful what you wish for’.
Interesting idea, Paul, but doubtful it could survive a legal challenge. Privatization has obvious practical limits but conceptual ones as well. Lean and mean is true, but perhaps too lean now. I would guess there are many former or down-sized routes we might wish we had now…or double-tracked mainlines that were torn up.
Other than … ?
- Would be very hard to get this through the NEPA process
- Would be very hard to earn enough to pay for the capital costs
- Would probably face difficult legal challenges if it did not allocate to the private operator the value of the public contribution of land, overpasses, drainage structures, right-of-way fencing, etc.
- Would have to build costly freight transfer facilities at each end because the trucks would not be legal on the public street system.
RWM
I realy enjoy these discussions because nobody has figured out that trucks alread pay for the highways but why not take more is your theme, and then again you want to pay 5.00 for a gallon of milk or 10.00 for a loaf of bread, At the start of each year trucks haft to get the base plate then they haft to buy the permits to run thru each state then the fuel taxes they haft to pay each state quarterly for mile run in state with out buying fuel, States like Illinois where fuel is high because they add the fuel tax at the pump people wont buy it so at the end of a quarter they haft to pay the tax for the miles driven .
Then go to arkanses where they pull you around the back and yo bring in your paper work if you cant show a fuel reciept for fuel you pay the taxes at the way station. those stickers you see on sides of the tractors is not where i been stickers they are designed to show you paid to be there. So trucks are paying more than the fair share. the tolls are higher for trucks and on and on.
There are a few but not as many as some suppose. Perhaps the only big one is the North-East Corridor, which is still there but not very accessible to freight.
In the West there’s not anything of great size that was torn up that I wish we had back, from a freight perspective. A few subtle things inside and near terminal areas. But no long-distance main lines.
RWM