I just skimmed the article at the newsstand, so I need to ask, what does the article conclude beyond the winner of the fuel efficiency contest? I am sure that all three forms of transport are as fuel-efficient as they can be in economic terms. Is there an onus to go beyond the economic limits of fuel efficiency?
In pure economic terms, including fuel cost, it seems to me that each of the three forms, where they are being applied, is better than the other two. So I am not sure I understand the point of comparing their fuel efficiency.
Helps to guide shipper investment decisions. When you build a factory, you have a transportation mode wrapped around it. You want to know what the trend lines are for your transportation mode so you know if you’ll still be able to make a profit if the cost of oil doubles.
Helps to know the trends so one can create good long-term business strategy and public policy decisions, no matter who you are.
Oil has political implications – some of it comes from unstable countries – which also helps guide public and private investment decisions because you want to do a “sensitivity analysis” before you invest a dollar, i.e., you want to gauge your risk that the future costs you estimate are going to turn out wrong. You also want to know it because you want to know how beholden we’re going to be to adversaries in the future, and the magnitude of effects on our economic health and national security.
Helps to project health costs. NOX, SOX, and PM (particulate matter) emissions have quanitifiable public health costs associated with
Lets not forget that barges pay a huge time penalty because of the number of dams they must lock through. The barge tows must be broken down, locked through and put back together again on the other side of the dam. This process can take two hours or more. Millions of dollars were spent on the Tenn-Tom waterway but it has never had near the traffic predicted for it.Most dams were built for flood control and Hydro power. Barge traffic was a sideline. CSX recently won a bid to transport coal to the TVA’s Gallatin steam plant away from a barge company. The mayor of Gallatin stopped it because he felt like the added train traffic would interfere with highway traffic in the area. I don’t know what the status of this is right now.
Helps to guide shipper investment decisions. When you build a factory, you have a transportation mode wrapped around it. You want to know what the trend lines are for your transportation mode so you know if you’ll still be able to make a profit if the cost of oil doubles.
Helps to know the trends so one can create good long-term business strategy and public policy decisions, no matter who you are.
Oil has political implications – some of it comes from unstable countries – which also helps guide public and private investment decisions because you want to do a “sensitivity analysis” before you invest a dollar, i.e., you want to gauge your risk that the future costs you estimate are going to turn out wrong. You also want to know it because you want to know how beholden we’re going to be to adversaries in the future, and the magnitude of effects on our economic health and national security.
Helps to project health costs. NOX, SOX, and PM (particulate matter) emissions have quanitifiable public health costs associated wit
An illustration helps. Suppose you are building a power plant that could receive coal by truck, train, or water. Power plants are long-term investments with operating lifetimes of 50 to 75 years. Whether you’re a deregulated merchant utility or a regulated utility, you have to show either your lenders or the state regulators a pro forma that projects operating costs into the future. Both are looking for the same thing, that the coal plant will be the lowest-cost power producer not just the year it is built but 30 years from now, the one to protect the interests of the stockholders of the bank, the other to protect the interests of the ratepayers of the state. If the coal plant 20 years from now is no longer the low-cost power producer, then someone will build another plant to sell at a lower cost and idle your plant (causing you to default on your note), or the ratepayers will be stuck with higher utility costs than they should. Either way, a fiduciary irresponsibility has occurred.
The overwhelming operating cost of a coal-fired utility is the coal delivered to the plant, and the coal transportation is often much more costly than the coal itself. So when you’re creating your future costs, one method is to phone up the truckers, railroads, and barge lines and ask them to project their costs 30 years into the future. You could take that to the bank or the regulators, and after they pick themselves up off the floor, they’ll send you home to try again. The better method is project your own costs. To know that, you have to know their fuel cost, and their fuel use trends, and the fuel price sensitivity. You also want to know all this to be able to project what sort of regulatory trends are going to affect you. For example, you know that Congress is talking about cap-and-trade restrictions on CO2, so you had better project what kind of affect such a thing might have on your transportation costs. Because your lender or regulator will ask yo
An illustration helps. Suppose you are building a power plant that could receive coal by truck, train, or water. Power plants are long-term investments with operating lifetimes of 50 to 75 years. Whether you’re a deregulated merchant utility or a regulated utility, you have to show either your lenders or the state regulators a pro forma that projects operating costs into the future. Both are looking for the same thing, that the coal plant will be the lowest-cost power producer not just the year it is built but 30 years from now, the one to protect the interests of the stockholders of the bank, the other to protect the interests of the ratepayers of the state. If the coal plant 20 years from now is no longer the low-cost power producer, then someone will build another plant to sell at a lower cost and idle your plant (causing you to default on your note), or the ratepayers will be stuck with higher utility costs than they should. Either way, a fiduciary irresponsibility has occurred.
The overwhelming operating cost of a coal-fired utility is the coal delivered to the plant, and the coal transportation is often much more costly than the coal itself. So when you’re creating your future costs, one method is to phone up the truckers, railroads, and barge lines and ask them to project their costs 30 years into the future. You could take that to the bank or the regulators, and after they pick themselves up off the floor, they’ll send you home to try again. The better method is project your own costs. To know that, you have to know their fuel cost, and their fuel use trends, and the fuel price sensitivity. You also want to know all this to be able to project what sort of regulatory trends are going to affect you. For example, you know that Congress is talking about cap-and-trade restrictions on CO2, so you had better project what kind of affect such a thing might have on your transportation costs.&
Just curious here on the above, 'cause I’m not terribly nuts ‘n’ bolts mechanically oriented:
What are the relative RPMs of each type of engine ? I’m pretty sure most railroad diesels idle in the 150 RPM range, and at Run 8 are somewhere between 900 and 1050 RPM (per Al Krug’s Railroad Facts and Figures, “Dash 9 - 44CW” at: http://www.alkrug.vcn.com/rrfacts/dash9.htm ). Aren’t truck diesels in the 3000 - 4000 RPM range ?
Would the RPM affect the lubrication by the sulphur ?
[tup] to RWM’s monograph just above. Now we’re getting the benefit of a business school approach as well. For those of us who have to look out for our own businesses or investments (IRAs and 401k’s, for example), that is a worthwhile read - and re-read, and source of questions. Too bad that lots of real-world people aren’t quite so sanguine or sophisticated as to take that long-term of a view - be wary of them, too. No guarantees that something unforseen won’t skew it greatly or turn it all upside down, but such an analysis sure beats the proverbial ostrich approach of sticking their head in the sand and pretending that nothing important will ever change.
To respond to some other comments: This is indeed an “apples vs. oranges” comparison. Do the barge move computations include the energy to unload the thing ? Most railcars can do that by gravity (both can easily be loaded by gravity). Depending on the load, the barge will have to be unloaded by suction (grain) which is fairly efficient, or by bucket (coal or ore), which is not.
Also, I think circuitry of the barge move itself has already been mentioned, which presumably includes getting the load to the barge - which might be by truck, a less fuel-efficient method ?
Many iron ore moves from the Mesabi range to Pittsburgh back in the day were rail - water -rail, which says to me that at least back then, energy considerations are not the “be-all and end-all” of transportation decisions. More generally and for today and the future, I think the decision and the importance of fuel efficiency depends on the context - what is being shipped, and how sensitive is it to time, rehandling, other costs, etc.
And now, a little story, somewhat still on-topic: Back in my high school days, now about 40 years ago (cripes !), I had to write a book report for history c
I enjoyed your “An Expensive Barge Job” story (above). Being as I just came back from the U.S.'s Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park areas earlier this week where bear warnings and precautions are justifiably all over the place (we saw 3 up close, and “scat” from another on the YNP’s Canyon South Rim hiking trail), the “punch line” ending was funny, too.
I’m wondering if you’re familiar with the following extensive article on that operation which appeared in Trains lo those many years ago:
I’ve re-read it several times, and I’m sure it was the “Best job in the world”. Steve described some of the passenger steamers as “being able to float on a heavy dew”, with captains whose idea of dining service came from their experiences in what we would today call the “ocean cruise” vacation trade. He also mentioned various equipment that had gone over the side one way or another into the very deep waters of Slocan Lake.
You turn a Cat Cummins or Detroit 3-4000 RPM and all you have under your hood is a 4,000 LB BOMB wanting to GO OFF with you as its FIRST TARGET. Max RPM on an OTR motor is 2100 and that is PUSHING IT and you better be coming down hill or have a runaway governor. I had one motor lose a Governor on me in the shop it made it to 2400 and let loose. We recovered one of the heads from a Big Cam 4 they have 3 one for every 2 cylinders thru the roof and 100 feet away in the cornfield. The crankshaft on that one thru a journal that went thru a double wall of concrete blocks that were each 12 inches thick with 4 inchs of poured concrete and rebar in it. That tell you how much damage that engine did when she let loose.
Kinda off-topic, but… A number of years ago I read an account of a natural gas leak and the fire department response thereto. At some point the fire apparatus and the plume of NG from the leak found each other, resulting in the Diesel engines in the apparatus running away, blowing, and consequently igniting the gas.
I’m not skilled at this, but will add my thoughts. You guy’s tell me what you think.
A barge is a very efficant way to ship freight. Cool. A freight train is also a very efficant way to ship freight.
Barge requirements:
A deep enough water way when fully loaded with a commodaty.
Massive barge loading centers.
Well, the obuis, a water way that goes where you need to go.
For local delivery, a road or rail system to get the commodaty to the local processing plant/store.
Rail requirements:
The obuious, railroad tracks.
A loading center(in most cases) that wont be as land consuming as a barge loading facility.
In most cases (industrally speaking) the railroad can drop the cargo off right there.
See if you ask me, in the areas that where barges ship goods, the rail industry will have another transport mode to compete with. On the other hand, if the local feed mill needs a delivery taken 70 mi. to the north, thay will probably choose rail or truck over barge if thay have a rail facility ner by or a truck facility. In some cases, rail just makes sence. I don’t think that rail will be much impacted in say, centrall Illinois by this much as rail trasport in Louisiana. As soon as somebody comes up with a cheap and efficant way to build water channels to the local steel mill in Attica IN, or a local grain facilty. I think rail will be the most efficant way to go for now in this aspect, and other’s like it.[;)] NOW, for mass shipments going to LONG distance over seas ports, well, trains don’t float well, so I think we will stick with shipping for that!
edbenton - OK, thanks for making that clear enough. So it seems that truck RPM might be 2 x loco RPM, but no more.
But, since the loco cylinders are much larger = longer stroke, even at half the RPM they have to cover a much longer distance - probably more than twice as much - per stroke or revolution, as the truck engine. In other words, the cylinder speed against the liner in ft./ sec. is probably the same or higher in the loco as in the truck. So as ed said, the lubrication and wear problems may well show up there too.
Unless, the various fuel additives - see the ads in every RR trade magazine - are effective to prevent that. Railroads would have an easier time with that, with only a few fueling facilities and small, well-managed fleets, as compared to tens of thousands of diesel truck stops.
How are you going to keep 40K gallons of PIG PEE from freezing in an outdoor storage tank. Pig pee is the SCR either Man Made or Natural that the engineers at Cat Cummins Detroit and the EPA have found that along with a diesel particulate Filter lowers the Emmisons out the stack of the Diesel engine by 98%. Trouble is it has a couple drawbacks. One is it STINKS about as bad as being sprayed by a skunk if you get any on you. Second it FREEZES at 55 degrees they have found and once it does will not work again. So how are the RR’s going to keep it liquid when they are going to be buying it by the tankcar lot and the normal load for a truck is 6 gallons per 300 so were are the Engineeres going to shove 100 gallons of this were it can not freeze were the fuel pad crews will have easy acess to it and also WERE IT WILL NOT GET SPILLED.
Just as information, Caterpillar has exited the business of making engines for over the road trucks. Their last such engines were built around the end of February 2009,
Some of the new engines are certainly still avaialbe for purchase and installation, but no new ones are being produced. The manufacturing plant, north of Peoria, IL, was shut down a few days early due to sabotage.
The photo of a barge in the Trains article shows a (gas?) pipeline crossing the canal. Any comments on the fuel efficiency of pipelines? It would seem that if a comparison of trains and barges is warranted (despite the geographical limitations of barges), why not also compare pipelines (which can transport a very limited variety of commodities)?
Pipeline energy efficiency varies wildly depending upon diameter, operating pressure, input energy source, terrain en route, and commodity(s) transported. The larger the diameter, the better the energy efficiency. 600-400 BTU/ton-mile is common for crude and refined petroleum products. Coal slurry pipelines are much worse, in excess of 1,200 BTU/ton-mile.