I just bought a slightly older (mid-90’s) Walthers 5-unit spine car kit. I know this type was capable of carrying both trailers and containers up to 48’. However, in the description it says that these cars could be found both in unit intermodal and “general” (I’m guessing mixed) freight trains. Do intermodal cars often show up in mixed freight consists? I haven’t been railfanning lately, but I haven’t seen or noticed intermodal cars in a mixed freight before.
I think what they’re getting at maybe that intermodal cars don’t always run in solid trains of just intermodal cars. It’s common on mainline trains I see on the CP and BNSF to have a mix of intermodal stacks and piggybacks, and sometimes general freight (boxcars, covered hoppers etc.) are in the mix also. Usually they tend to be blocked by type, so you might a couple of engines, then a string of stack cars, then some piggybacks, then some general freight at the back end for example.
I’m sure part of it is just what I think they call “filling out tonnage”, if there’s a stack train going to Chicago and they have enough engine power to pull 70 cars and there’s only 50 intermodal cars in the train that day, they will fill it out with other freight going to (or towards) Chicago to get closer to that 70 car train.
Intermodal cars, to my knowledge, are not restricted from transport in the consists of general merchandise freights. The restrictions may come regarding their placement within such a train, but I frequently see such cars in general freights.
If loads missed a cutoff for a certain intermodal train, and the delay waiting for another intermodal will be too great, or tonnage for such a train is already at maximum or the length is an issue, the carrier may advance the car or cars in a general mechandise train to connect to another intermodal at a point further down line. Or the loads are simply not “hot” i.e., the shipper is not paying a premium for premium service.
Example: if a trailers delivered at South Yard in Town 1 miss the cutoff for Intermodal Train A to Chicago, then the railroad may choose to place them on Intermodal Train B departing 4 hours later. However, if Intermodal B is already filled out or at maximum allowable length, then the carrier (with the customer’s permission, I would hope) can place the cars in a general merchandise freight going north for connection to Intermodal C running from say, West Coast to Chicago via a different route, but connecting with the general freight in Town 2, arriving in Chicago three or four hours behind the train that the cars were originally supposed to be on.
I know it sounds confusing, but that is about the best way to explain it. All these transactions occur in a railroad’s national sales center and the changes in routing are sent to the folks in the field who have to execute them.
Clear as mud?
It happens, but it is usually only done with very small movements, or very non-expedited business. Sometimes they are repaired bad order loads that the freight will pick up on line. In the modern world intermodal trains normally have longer (greater distance) schedules than general freight trains. Not only are the general freight trains operated at a slower speed, but they might not run as far which means the intermodal cars have to be switched or block swapped to other trains.
The risk of putting intermodal in general freight is as much what happens at the “other end” as the delay due to a slower schedule. Many times the destination of a general freight train is not the same as the destination of the intermodal car. For example some of the major roads use as many as 5 or 6 intermodal facilities in the Chicago area. So if a load of piggybacks comes into a city at yard A, but belongs at ramp B, then the railroad has to switch it out, transfer it from yard A to ramp B, then spot and unload it, or has to switch it out and spot it at ramp A and pay to have a driver haul/dray it to ramp B. Both of these options can be costly and time consuming.
By the time the slower schedule and terminal delays are taken into account, for a long run, it may actually be quicker to hold the intermodal car a day and put it on the next day’s proper train than to “expedite” it on a a slower train the same day.
Dave H.
Dave’s explanation is superb.
Exceptions exist, of course, but do nothing to invalidate Dave’s rules of thumb. At several railroads including some I have worked for, we ran an “intermodal” train that did not have sufficient intermodal volume to fill the train, so we would fill to tonnage with general freight and tack the intermodal on the rear. Some days this worked out to 80 carloads of general freight and 2 piggyback flats, but that was still an intermodal train. This is basically a small-railroad, medium-distance strategy, where the intermodal and manifest freight all begin and end at the same yards at each end, with no intermediate classifications or set-outs. We ran these trains on the intermodal schedule but it was not that much faster or more powered-up than the manifest schedule, so it wasn’t a big deal.
CN has schedules that are combined intermodal/manifest freight, but I think they are unusual in that regard. I don’t know how fast these trains are but my impression is that they are really manifest trains with intermodal substituting for boxcars. Corrections welcome.
Solid waste and dirty dirt often move in containers in manifest trains, but this business is not “intermodal” in terms of service, only in terms of equipment, and the intermodal cars move as if they were manifest cars.
RWM
We see it occassionally at LPCHI but usually yard jobs out of Corwith . When I lived in Southern Indiana I saw the NS run blocks of intermodal cars blocked into general freight trains .
Thanks for the replies. The spine car is currently the only intermodal car I have right now, so I was sort of looking for an excuse to run it along with the rest of my mixed trains. I saw a Pan Am freight roll through a crossing today and, sure enough, a couple of well cars with containers in them brought up the rear of the train.
On the Shasta Route, the SP ran Schneider Roadrailers on the back of a “box car” train. There was a single box car (probably dedicated to the service) with FRED on the tail.
From what I have seen, CN intermodals (118, 119, 198 on the Waukesha Sub) don’t run any faster, but tend to get moved along better than other trains. I remember one time I got put in the hole so 119 could run past ahead of me. Sometimes they are all intermodal, usually double stacks, but usually have other freight mixed in to fill out. They also seem to get the newer motors, and more of them. 198 is a newer one, I believe from Prince Rupert to Chicago, maybe further. Many new cars on this one, 40’ wells to save space on the dock.