I have never compared the intermodal to airline hub/spoke but it does compare. The LTL trucking model and the carload railroad have always seemed very similar. Both have local terminals making pickups/deliveries (usually early morning/late afternoons to facilitate logistics patterns), movement to larger terminals (break bulk for LTL, hump yards for rails) for classification thru the system, and then local terminals again.
LTL terminals have dedicated doors where loads are built for local terminals, similar to yards which have dedicated tracks. LTL terminals and hump yards are fascinating places to watch activity if you are so inclined. The systems in place are science and art, technologies and experience.
Obviously UPS and FedEx have built very precise air freight models with Louisville and Memphis extremely hot places around midnight.
Logisitics is just fascinating.
RWM, I never realized those intermodal trains would have so many destinations. But, it makes sense. Eastbound from the west coast, the trains would be carrying Chicago and beyond…with “beyond” being the big bowl of spaghetti. It would be curious to know what percentage of a 200 container Long Beach - Chicago stack train has Chicago proper (drayage to destination) vs Detroits, Clevelands, Columbus, NYC, Boston, etc. Chicago eastbound on CSX or NS will obviously target major markets.
Do the eastbounds out of Chicago typically run point to point, or will blocks be kicked for intermediate points? In other words, is it cheaper (based on land constraints) to build several blocks daily for Cleveland, Buffalo, or Syracuse/Rochester rather than one daily to each location? There are so many Chicago - New Jersey stacks and intermodals, all with varying degrees of critical delivery times, based on UPS trailers, LTL’s, and TL’s. Are a
What fraction of the typical overall trip time does a car actually sit in yards waiting to be sorted? Also, how many times is a car sorted on a typical trip?
There is a third option. More blocks per train, provided you have multiple trains plying the same route. Example: Suppose Allentown makes a solid Conway train and a solid Elkhart train, one each per day and Conway makes a solid Elhart train, one per day. Instead of this scheme, you could run two Allentown to Elhart trains 12 hours apart on the clock, each carrying Conways and Elkharts, each setting out and picking up at Conway. Train productivity is unchanged, but yard work complexity is increased.
On a large RR I am familiar with, the typcial number of intermediate handlings per trip, not counting the originating and terminating yards, is about one and a half.
For one complete cycle, a freight car will spend about 10% of the time on a through freight train, 25% at an intermediate yard and the rest getting to, from and at the customer which would include time at the origin and destination yards, time on a local train, and time at the customer’s facility.
I have never compared the intermodal to airline hub/spoke but it does compare. The LTL trucking model and the carload railroad have always seemed very similar. Both have local terminals making pickups/deliveries (usually early morning/late afternoons to facilitate logistics patterns), movement to larger terminals (break bulk for LTL, hump yards for rails) for classification thru the system, and then local terminals again.
LTL terminals have dedicated doors where loads are built for local terminals, similar to yards which have dedicated tracks. LTL terminals and hump yards are fascinating places to watch activity if you are so inclined. The systems in place are science and art, technologies and experience.
Obviously UPS and FedEx have built very precise air freight models with Louisville and Memphis extremely hot places around midnight.
Logisitics is just fascinating.
RWM, I never realized those intermodal trains would have so many destinations. But, it makes sense. Eastbound from the west coast, the trains would be carrying Chicago and beyond…with “beyond” being the big bowl of spaghetti. It would be curious to know what percentage of a 200 container Long Beach - Chicago stack train has Chicago proper (drayage to destination) vs Detroits, Clevelands, Columbus, NYC, Boston, etc. Chicago eastbound on CSX or NS will obviously target major markets.
Do the eastbounds out of Chicago typically run point to point, or will blocks be kicked for intermediate points? In other words, is it cheaper (based on land constraints) to build several blocks daily for Cleveland, Buffalo, or Syracuse/Rochester rather than one daily to each location? There are so many Chicago - New Jersey stacks and intermodals, all with varying degrees of critical delivery times, based on UPS trailers, LTL’s, and TL’s. Are all of those Jersey trains exclusively for the region?
It’s like all those one track yards (Thornton, CO + Creede Branch + multiple others ) with all those stored cars that havve been in the news lately (WSJ et. al. - visual comment on the state of the economy) got together…never mind.
Kinda scary what they’re teaching in those high school economics classes these days if the original premise holds.
I’m not sure they teach economics in most high schools anymore. In my son’s high school, I don’t even think it is an elective. Like a lot of things, people’s learning and perceptions are formed by viewing TV and surfing the net. [:O]
The idea is, through new time and operating efficiencies, and with only half the rolling stock, to accomplish the same output.
It must be remembered that with present techniques in these hard economic times, nothing really benefits the railroads or their employees, only harms. On the other hand, having to maintain only half the rolling stock fleet because that half does twice the work, combined with resultant enhanced “time value of money” benefits to the railroad and its customers, more money would be available to retain employees, which happens to be the whole point of this topic in the first place.
So, the railroads would sacrifice their new ‘savings’ profits in the short term (that they wouldn’t get anyway with present methods), but reap much, much higher profits in the long term when economic prosperity returns!
( I’m not RWM, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night [:o)])
OK, fine and well- you suggest to use 1/2 the equipment to to 100% of the work. Who wouldn’t want to do that? But…how exactly do you plan to do that? Why haven’t the professional railroaders in our country figured this system out up until now? They’ve had 170 or so years to figure it out. I’m curious to hear the details of your plan.
Truth be told…that is exactly what the Class I’s have done in the years since Staggers. The railroad industry car fleet number is approximately 1/2 of what the car fleet was in the pre-Staggers years; the ton miles that the industry were handling (prior to the current downturn) exceeded those of the previous all time records that were generated during the days of WW II. While the number of cars has decreased, their ca
Thanks for the explanation of the intermodal operations. One NS train I have always wondered about is the 25A. It runs from Chicago daily to Ft Wayne and then south. The destination is not clear. I have heard it runs to Danville, Ky. Is that another block swap location?
The St. Louis/Louisville line joins in at Danville, so is it possible it is combined to another train? Another possibility is it drops Cincinnati and Lexington in route.
The train handles double stacks and also intermodals, including UPS trailers. It is usually a pretty good sized train, 150 - 200 intermodal units is standard.
At the risk of inviting all kinds of grief (“Fools rush in !”, as my 12th grade calculus instructor used to yell at us) - but as my start to following-up on the above post and RWM’s insights into velocity and car-cycle time:
"I have in my hand* . . . " a print-out from the BNSF website’s “Carload Transit Schedules” page from Aurora, Illinois to Fullerton, California - 2 points at the opposite ends of its Southern TransCon that I picked just at random. That page/ application / print-out provides “Estimated Transit” times for car “Releases” on each day of the week, which range from 9 Days 12 Hours (released by 5:00 PM on Sun. & Tues.) to 10 D-12 H (Mon., Fri., & Sat.) 11 D - 12 H (Thu.), and 12 D - 12 H (Weds.).
Good grief - that’s from 228 to 300 hours (also conveniently provided) for about 2,200 miles (my estimate), or an average speed of from around 10 MPH down to about 7.3 MPH. BNSF’s road trains are around 20 MPH average for 110 hours, and Terminal (yard) Dwell times are around 20 to 24 hours average, so that’s another 100 hours for say 4 yards, so I guess the rest 1 to 3 days - is for locals, system delays, etc.
This may not be the best example - BNSF might well be able to commit to a better transit time for a specific customer, known shipment and date, and a premium rate - but I thought it would be a useful example of what we’re discussing here.
Paul: Carload earns very good money. Conventional wisdom five years ago was “carload is dead,” but now the more progressive are thinking it’s a huge opportunity for growth in volume, revenue, and profit, and you will see several billions of dollars invested into improvements in the carload business in the next 10 years, including several new hump yards.
The Class 1 railroad business mix moves as follows, in round numbers:
Coal – 95% unit train, 5% carload
Intermodal – 99% unit train, 1% carload
Grain and grain products (animal feed): 50% true unit train, 50% carload (including 25 and 52-car blocks)
Lumber and building materials – 100% carload
Chemicals – 5% unit train, 95% carload
Ores, metals and metal products – 5% unit, 95% carload
Autos – is neither truly a unit-train product or a carload product
FAK, non-intermodal – 98% carload, 2% intermodal
Multiple handlings are not unusual, and range from a per-trip number of visits to yards of 4 to 8, depending upon which Class 1 you’re considering.
Here’s a sample trip for a centerbeam of lumber loading on a western short line and moving long east through Chicago to a destination on an eastern short line.
Day 1: Generally the car will be released by the consignor in late afternoon, and the short line will pick it up that night.
Day 2: The car will arrive at the interchange early the next morning, and get picked up by a local. That local will move the interchange block to a regional yard arriving midday. The regional yard will generally build an outbound train and dispatch it eastward toward the first regional hump yard that night.
Day 3: The inbound train will arrive the hump yard yard early the next morning, and the train will be humped. Our car will go into a bowl track with a Chicago block probably specific to the next carrier. Those bowl tracks will fi
The trip log by RWM seemed a bit ambitious to me. But, I have no reference. Is that a typical real scenario, or best case?
Trains had a map awhile back showing carload movements from Houston area to the Northeast. That was an eye opener. Also, there was a Trains article about 7 years ago regarding carload freight adn the $$$ generated. I will attempt to find it.
In the discussions of intermodal west and east of Chicago, it became very obvious the system is much more complex than originally thought. Considerable volume of intermodal moves to and thru Chicago. A couple of questions…
Is Chicago the major interchange point for W/E intermodal? What percentage moves thru Chicago vs St. Louis? Is Kansas City via NS much of a interchange? My initial impression that it is not, but that is only a guess. If it is not a major point, is that due to western carriers not wishing to short haul themselves, or is it more due to the nature of building the intermodals at Chicago and the system network that has developed there?
Is there much trailer (as opposed to stack) handled from west to east, or even Midwest to east that passes thru Chicago? Or is Chicago the line in the sand for trailers? For example, say Atlanta - Minneapolis or Omaha - Buffalo?
It’s a simple case, and yes, it’s a good case – there are no blown connections, overtonnage trains, weather events, etc. The idea is to get consistency more than speed. I know of almost no shipper who would not glady trade a 14-day cycle for a 16-day cycle if it was always a 16-day cycle and not sometimes a 12-day and others a 22-day. Inconsistent cycles just kill shipper costs and management time.
Chicago is by far the major gateway for intermodal. Second tier (and it’s a distant second) is St. Louis and Memphis; then Meridian, then at a distant fifth, New Orleans. Memphis is a growth story; St. Louis is stagnant. Kansas City is purely an auto and carload play for NS. The reason for Chicago is not so much short-haul as that the infrastructure was al
I used the phrase “trailer” and actually should have used the term “truckload carrier”. I am very much aware of the container movements by JBH and others…just my old trucking blood taking over.
Your explanation of “everything to Chicago” makes sense. Just get it out of here and let someone else sort it out later.
Now, getting back to KC and the Sunshine Band (sorry, I couldnt resist that), obviously it should be KC and NS…do you every see the time that route will be utilized for intermodal, as Chicago reaches a choke point and possible capacity eases as automotive manufacturing shifts from the Detroit model to who knows what?
Do you know if UP is using their Rochelle intermodal as a possible staging area for building eastbounds to CSX/NS or is that strickly for local drayage. Is the interchange across Chicago still nearly all rubber rather than steel? No wonder the roads are such a mess now…potholes you wouldnt believe.
It is really interesting looking back at old photos taken in the 70’s of intermodal trains. First of all, I didnt see too many of them back then and it was a treat to see one. Second, they were all piggyback…the novelty of double stacks wore off pretty quickly after a few years. Third, the marketing graphics were really pretty neat, as were the boxcar graphics. One my favorite current trains of recent years was the NS217/218 pair between Chicago and Greensboro, NC. Up until last fall, all trailers, no stacks; quite a bit of UPS, Schneiders, and US Express (also EMP and JBH’s).
217/218 always intrigued me. Even in the good economic times in the mid decade there would only be 50 - 60 trailers/containers. At $1000 per unit (maybe) it seemed like thin money.
I think the fundamental point of the original poster is correct - railroad cars spend much of their time standing still.
I recall that the average number of loads a railroad car hauls in a year is 12 to 15. Is this accurate and how does this compare to truck trailers and containers?
His observation was that rail cars spend much of their time not moving. His premise was that this was unnecessary and wasted money. His point was that railroads could make cars move faster and quit wasting money. We’re waiting for his proof of concept.
The average number of loads per year a boxcar makes is around 15. The average number of loads a rotary gondola in unit train service makes is 50-plus. But so what? The goal of railroading isn’t to turn cars fast, it’s to make money. Measuring the number of trips per year and worshiping of that metric may actually reduce the amount of money a railroad makes.
It’s grating to hear someone claim that we’re all sitting on our hands not doing anything about car cycle times, especially when the claim comes without a proof of concept and has no apparent experience or science in support. But since there’s doubt, let me assure you that for more than 150 years, somewhere around 2 million railroaders have been working long hours every day looking for ways to reduce the idle time on a boxcar, hopper, gon, or centerbeam in loose-car freight, and increase the number of cycles it makes. But not if it costs more money to do it then the money saved. Freight cars in the whole scheme of things are one of the cheaper inputs into moving freight. In raw, non-discounted numbers, if a centerbeam costs $50,000 and makes 500 trips in its lifetime, the cost of the car per trip is $100.&nbs