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QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal
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QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl
From the Trains Newswire:
Electric utilities in good shape for summer, says coal experts
WASHINGTON - Electric utilities are in good shape for the upcoming summer months when the demand for electricity is at its highest, and have adequate coal stockpiles that continue to grow, according to the federal government, coal experts, and coal pub
Dave, 25 years ago, my father drove truck for a company that hauled coal from the Wyodak mine, at Gillette, Wyoming to power plants in Deadwood and Rapid City, S.D. BN pulled up rail lines to Deadwood in the 80’s. Unless DM&E hauls coal up to Rapid City (doubtfull), the trucks still haul the coal.
In 2006, the lumberyard I work at receives about 50% of it’s lumber via train, through wholesalers who ship by rail, then deliver by truck. The other 50% of the lumber, and 100% of shingles,siding, gypsum,cement, etc…, comes in directly on trucks from the source. It’s not uncommon to get a product, studs for example, from the same mill in both traincars/trucked and truck direct.
So yes, trucks do compete with trains.
Bascically, trucks were the competition for railroads when railroads were truly full-service transportation companies. But they don’t really do any LCL business these days. All independent surveys have shown that trucks do NOT pay their fair share of highway maintenance costs and that highway taxes from private cars do make up the difference. But again, I must bring up the whole question of land use, particularly with regard to expresways through cities and other buit-up areas.
But in general, today, trucks and railroads coexist and don’t compete. Railroads have locked up some markets and trucks others. On long distances piggyback and containers, they cooperate.
And the coal that doesn’t move by railroad largely moves by water, not trucks, or just by wire with mine-mouth power plants.
And maybe autos should subsidize trucks. Most truck trips are essential to the US economy. Much auto traffic is leasure. I am asking the question, not rendering an opinion. But I say again that all highway traffic is subsidized because of land use.
I don’t know what LCL has to do with it, but trains and trucks are in continuous, ongoing competition day in and day out.
Take as an example a load tendered to JB Hunt by a shipper. Hunt has basically three ways to move it:
The three options involve rail vs truck competition within JB Hunt. Hunt will select the option that best meets the needs of the shipment in terms of price and service. To get the load the railroad has to compete with the trucking options and make itself the best value to Hunt.
Another example is the 500,000 loads of produce leaving California by truck each yea
A short haul is considered anything under 300 miles, and today railroads won’t touch shorthauls unless there is a) sufficient volume to run a unit train operation, and b) there is sufficient capacity to handle a shorthaul train within the long haul network. Keep in mind these would be closed operations, aka all the rail traffic is via one company, so you’re not going to get a unit train short haul by rail if it involves UP, BNSF, and DM&E all having to cooperate.
Gillette to Deadwood is about 110 miles by highway. It was about 200 miles by rail - when the tracks were active all the way between Gillette and Deadwood. For a railroad to handle such a coal move right now, it would have to move by BNSF via Newcastle to the nearest active interchange with DM&E, then back up to Rapid City to Sturgis, then would still have to be transloaded to trucks for delivery to Deadwood. When and if DM&E’s PRB gets built, BNSF can tranfer to DM&E near Edgewood, if an interchange track is built. Of course, if DM&E comes to fruition, the Rapid City power plant can then (and most likely will) revert back to rail, with DM&E getting the entire haul (e.g. there would be no need
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QUOTE: Originally posted by greyhounds
I don’t know what LCL has to do with it, but trains and trucks are in continuous, ongoing competition day in and day out.
Take as an example a load tendered to JB Hunt by a shipper. Hunt has basically three ways to move it:
The three options involve rail vs truck competition within JB Hunt. Hunt will select the option that best meets the needs of the shipment in terms of price and service. To get the load the railroad has to compete with the trucking options and make itself the best value to Hunt.
Another example is
The fact that railroads gave up this business means they couldn’t compete for the business-the trucks won, in this case.[:)]
Well, they actually do haul all these materials by rail and truck out of the same facilities to the same customers[;)]
Qualifying your answer to say that trucks only get the business that railroads don’t want doesn’t mean they don’t compete.
FM
Are you trying to say that if an entity can produce a good or service of comparable quality at less cost than anybody else, there is no competition? I don’t think you understand the concept.
If you’re referring to the Kirkwood Power Plant (behind the Homestake Mine at Lead,) its been out of service for over 10 yrs and is largely dismantled.
I’d disagree strongly that trucks are a mode of last resort. Every bit of freight has a mode of choice which is based largely on the inventory value of that product. If the inventory value is high, you use a fast, but more costly service product (i.e. air freight) because the cost of stockpiling the product is greater than the cost of transportation via air.
Conversely, if you’re moving coal, which has a very low relative inventory cost, you move it the cheapest way possible and stockpile what you need to. Barges fit a similar low value, bulk commodity model.
Freight that moves via truck falls in between those two points in the spectrum. (i.e. Air, Truck, Rail, Barge). Its the same reason that UPS offers Next Day, 2nd Day, Ground, etc.
Different items that need to be shipped have different needs (hey, I should copyright that saying.)
Its a big continuum and the shipper makes trade-offs between speed, cost and reliability based on the nature of the product. There is no simple default answer for all products (i.e. your contention that trucks are the mode of last resort.) By the way - I make my living in providing the customer mode options to fit their need.
Oh, and we do move beer TO Milwaukee - and its for a company that also makes beer in Milwaukee. They fill one kind of container at a Southern brewery and a different kind
Bottle trains run from Northwest Indiana steel mills to South Chicago, a distance of about 30 miles…on mainlines no less.
ed
Yes, I’m sure the beer went northbound. It would have been far less attractive to us if it had been a southbound move. Strohs bought out a failing Schlitz, shuttered the Milwaukee brewery and began supplying the Chicago and Milwaukee markets from a Memphis brewery.
We had an imbalance southbound, we had more loads south than north. So the NB beer represented an opportunity for revenue on train/trailer miles that otherwise were performed with less/ no revenue.
Nailed it cold
It seems with respect to rail capacity that there is little long range planning at the corporate or government level. To me, it would seem reasonable for lines that already have existing CTC and are at or near capacity to start with building a segement of double track that fills in between sidings at the mid-point between division points. Having a 10-15 mile section would allow trains to meet without having to stop. Then as time, traffic and money permit work on a section between the mid-point and the division point. Obviously in some areas geographic constraints such as grades and river crossings have a detrimental cost impact. In the current era of 150 car long trains, this becomes crucial if railroads want to minimize delays from stationary meets as most sidings are not of sufficient length to handle rolling meets. The railroads need to focus on what will become their next mainline similar to BN’s transcon and direct more investment on these lines. Just think if 10 miles per year were double tracked in 10 years there would be 100 miles and if there was only 10 miles between each double track section there would then be 1,000 miles of trackage that would be operating almost as if it were continuous double track. If just UP, BN, NS and CSX did this in 10 years there would be a minimum of 4,000 miles of track giving a major boost to capacity while not overwhelming the financial capacity of the railroads. Start with something small but be consistent and before you know it you have a interstate rail system. One only has to look at CP where according to them an investment of 160 million Cdn$ increased track capacity by 12% by extending sidings and adding sections of double track. If this investment had been spread over time instead of concentrated in last year, they would have reaped the benefits of it earlier and gradually.
We have a gypsum train here in Nova Scotia, and as far as I know the train brings it from the mine to the buyer. No trucks involved.
Ken:
That was a really great post (about the beer run) and the transportation costs.
Were those Venice - Chicago intermodals run thru Clinton or down to Duquoin? Were those 2 man crew trains?
Back in the day (late 60’s, early 70’s) there were piggyback movements on the line thru my hometown, which was on the Evansville - Mattoon line. There actually was a piggyback ramp at Olney, if I recall correctly, it was made of railroad ties.
ed
Here is how not to increase capacity and how to waste money at the same time while satisfying the short term investors of the NYSE and TSE. Picture on railpictures.net Via Rail train at Henry House, Alberta taken recently showing an area that was double tracked in the 1980’s by CN and now courtesy of Mr. Harrison just the old rail is left behind. Henry House is on the main line near Jasper Alberta connecting Prince Rupert and Vancouver with Edmonton.Progress? This is the sort of thing that shareholders never find out about until after the fact. This is called taking out costs according to Mr. Harrison and others of his type also called short term gain for long term pain.
What you are missing is the fact that railroads under regulation had to offer a bid for such services. Just because they did haul oddities 300 miles doesn’t mean they wanted to. When trucks and decent highways came along, the railroads were more than happy to pawn this type of haul onto the mode of last resort.
And I will tell you this - If for some reason trucking companies no longer wanted this business, it would no longer get hauled. Do you really think the railroads would want this back? HEdoubletoothpicks No!
The mode of last resort. Learn it, memorize it, engrain it.
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QUOTE: Originally posted by greyhounds
Yes, I’m sure the beer went northbound. It would have been far less attractive to us if it had been a southbound move. Strohs bought out a failing Schlitz, shuttered the Milwaukee brewery and began supplying the Chicago and Milwaukee markets from a Memphis brewery.
We had an imbalance southbound, we had more loads south than north. So the NB beer represented an opportunity for revenue on train/trailer miles that otherwise
I don’t know as much about the RR business as some of you seem to, but I do know a few things about ‘network fundamentals’. So from that I conclude:
#1 There is a sweet spot for the length of a train. Trains shorter than this will reduce efficiency, and train longers create a set of issues that only money can fix.
#2 Computers and software applications can do what humans can’t. RRs that invest in the right applications will get more from there network. Better signaling/CTC, scheduling, Shortest Path First (SPF) selection, communications (voice and data), etc, etc will increase capacity and lower costs.
#3 Optimizing your traffic, CTC operations, and sidings to give the benefit of double track ‘all the way’ without actually having double track. (Ties into #2) (Kinda like driving on a single lane roadway with occasional passing lanes…a passing lane in the right location is just as good as a two lane roadway, but a passing lane in the wrong location is useless.)
#4 Partnering with the right trucking/intermodal companies to deliver the last mile will increase total geographic capacity without increasing the burden of under-utilized track.
NOTE: Shortest Path First does not mean literally the shortest path is best. It is a ‘nickname’ for Dijkstra’s algorithm which calculates the best path through a network.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra’s_algorithm
I still haven’t found FM truism #1, let alone #5.
Do you ever get tired of going off half cocked - without knowing the revlavent facts? Aparently not.
Those were what we then called Plan II loads. That meant no, none, zero, nada over the road trucking company was involved. I did the pricing work. I know how the beer move was structured. If you knew anything about rail transportation, you would have realized that if we were cooperating with a trucker to get the business they would have handled the presentation to the customer. If you understood the business you would have picked up on that one. You didn’t. Enough said.
We moved the beer in ICG insulated trailers, which we acquired for the business. It was picked up by an ICG driver with an
They went through Springfiled and Boomington on the old C&A. They carried the brand name “Slingshots”.
They actually came about as a result from a proposal by the UTU General Chirman. That line had very little frieght south of Joliet. So he just kept loosing jobs. He saw the writing on the wall and took a Bold Step. He proposed short, fast, frequent intermodal trains between Chicago and St. Louis with two person crews. (In the mid 1970’s, two person crews were herasy in union land.)
The railroad was sceptical about making any money with it, but when the union was willing to work with us to develop new business it was time to take a chance.
On the old C&A lines there was no BLE representation. Engineers belonged to the UTU. That meant there wasn’t the ususal inter uniion stand off as to who gave up the jobs when the crew size was reduced. It all worked. And it created jobs for engineers and conductors. The General Chairman did his job well.
The brand name “Slingshots” was created by George Stern, then Asst. VP, Intermodal for the ICG. He wanted a name that represented something simple, cheap and effective. i.e., a “Slingshot”. He had a “Slingshot” made from a branch of a tree and it hung on his office wall.
I had that “Slingshot” for years. It was in the attic in the house in Downers Grove. After “the wife” left, I had to move and I’ve lost it. Maybe it’s ar