Intermodal Trains: a few questions

Trains Magazine General Discussion
41

[quote user=“edblysard”]

Gabe,

From the moment the container seal is snapped in place to the moment the container is opened at the WalMart distribution center, a “clock” starts and the container is tracked.

The time it takes to load onto the ship, the ocean transit time, the time required to unload and drop on a boogie truck or straight to the railcar is a known, anticipated part of the shipping time.

You don’t have to “marshal” the containers…they are already sorted, stacked and inventoried in the ship, already assigned a train, down to the car they go in.

Container shipping and operations are the most efficient type of railroading, in that every single movement of the box is already planned, and its movement is refined down to within a few minutes.

The shipping lines who own and operate the ship can tell you where in the ship the container is, how much the container weights, when it will hit the railcar, down to the expected departure time of the train, from the moment the door closes on the box at its point of origin.

The lift operators have a computer generated “map” of the containers; they can drop one on average in 30 seconds or less from the ships hold to platform, truck or railcar it will travel on.

The shipping lines pay a stiff penalty if they delay these things even to a time frame as small as 30 minutes.

The stevedore company in charge of unloading them also works on a clock, and pays if they miss the trains scheduled departure time…zero tolerance there for the most part.

Both BNSF and UP have mobile repair crews that can swap out wheels, replace brake shoes, do pretty much anything to the railcars, while the other cars in the same train are being loaded.

The shipping lines have it down to the point they can tell you how much money they allocate in fuel cost to each container, depending on where it is picked up and delivered to and how much it weights, and the total transit time for

42

FM seems to have missed Ed’s point, that modern container shipping is planned so carefully as to build up its efficiencies. A lot of advance planning is obviously needed, and I’m sure that the other factors that FM mentions in his posting are considered as well. Nothing happens unless it’s planned.

43

Actually, how would such “careful planning” explain the constant port delays? If a dozen ships are sitting at anchor for a week waiting for an open berth, something’s amiss. If the delays are related to lack of expediant transfer capacity, doesn’t that fall onto the railroads’ shoulders?

I’m just wary of this obsession railroads have with maximizing their load factor (via longer and longer trains), while the inevitable delays due to these long slow trains end up being forced upon the other aspects of the supply chain, and the chain overall ends up less efficient. We’ve seen it in the grain hauling business…

44

No David,

Ships at anchor and awaiting a berth are not in the purview or under control of the railroads management…if your ship is delayed for its berth time, that is the problem of the local port authority…and unloading delays are the direct responsibility of the stevedore company, who, like the port authority, don’t work for the railroad.

Just like the City of Houston, the Cities of Long Beach and LA own, operate and manage their docks…not the railroad.

If you had read at least one or two newspapers, maybe even watched the national news once in a while, you would have read or heard about several cities attempting to sell/turn management and part ownership of their port operation and docks/ intermodal facilities over to a group of Saudi investors…

But that’s ok, everyone here already knows you dislike railroads, how they are run and managed, what they do, and what you wish they would do.

We understand you are going to cast railroads, BNSF in particular, in a disparaging light, even at the expense of facts and reality.

If they were to deliver the Flat Earth Weekly directly to your doorstep, you would still complain, it is who you are and what you do.

45

Again, saving this one for the moderator - once again it is Ed B who initiates the personal attacks.

What Ed is oblivious to is the fact that it takes more than twice as long to load a double stack train as it does a single stack train, and the longer the train the longer the wait to get it loaded and out of the yard. It is this dedication to the long slow concept that is causing all the delays at ports. Again, double stack is good for the railroads in a circumspect way, but is bad for the supply chain. The ships are having to wait precisely because of the way railroads operate in the port cities. For proof, look at the European port operations - their port congestion problems are much less becaue the o

46

[quote user=“futuremodal”]

Again, saving this one for the moderator - once again it is Ed B who initiates the personal attacks.

What Ed is oblivious to is the fact that it takes more than twice as long to load a double stack train as it does a single stack train, and the longer the train the longer the wait to get it loaded and out of the yard. It is this dedication to the long slow concept that is causing all the delays at ports. Again, double stack is good for the railroads in a circumspect way, but is bad for the supply chain. The ships are having to wait precisely because of the way railroads operate in the port cities. For proof, look at the European port operations - their port congestion problems

47

More than twice as long to load a double stack? Longer yes, but not by much. They usually make one sweep down, with somone following setting upper pins, then make another sweep back. Or even when they don’t, the time it takes to grab another, the man has the pins set. it only takes less than a minute to load a container. The fastest way is to use two cranes following each other, with a pin setter in between. I’ve personally seen them load/unload a train in under an hour that way.

48

No Dave. The supply chain would have snapped years ago without the stacks. Capacity is tight in places now, it would be overwhelmed without the stacks.

As to taking longer to load a longer train, it doesn’t have to. It all depends on the resources assigned to the task. The BNSF can load 400 containers just as fast as it can load 100 containers, if it assigns more lift equipment and personel to the task.

And, going back to your previous postings, the “cross subsidy” exists only in your mind. The BNSF isn’t selling any service below incremental costs - and unless something is being sold below incremental cost there is no “cross subsidy”. Whatever you think of railroad management, they are not collectively stupid. They would have to be collectively stupid to sell any ongoing service at a price below their incremental costs. It’s just something else you’ve made up and, unfortunately for you, you actually believe.

49

Lets see if I read you right…

Moving more stuff faster and cheaper is bad for the supply chain?

Wow, and all this time…

50

Another factor FM hasn’t grasped is that if his logic were true, the same could be said for an 8000 TEU containership vs. a 4000 TEU containership.

The Dutch have studied container port design very throughly, and they have decided that it is best not to load containers direct from ship to train but rather to buffer each process using robot shuttle vehicles. Also their next container quay will be designed to have a much higher dock surface, and the shuttle vehicles will be as close to the ship’s side as possible. The idea is to minimize both hoist distance and traverse distance for the container spreader on the container crane. They want the container crane to move the container no further than necessary, either horizontally or vertically.

51

I think containerships are going to be MONSTERS, and we better get ready for them. I dont know anything about them specifically enough to stand up to cross-examination but I expect Containerships to increase in tonnage capacity two to four times while lengths might double and speeds double.

If one of those shows up in Baltimore I dont think it will fit. They might have to actually build a new port somewhere else and have the boxes brought in to be sorted.

I worry that we will outsource all of our production and when other nations feel that they are taking the time to outsource THIER domestic needs the way we did, all the containers are going to dry up. I have seen about 20 years with this and I dont know how long we can keep this going.

52

I know there are ALOT of truckers online here, how many drove duoble axle sea bisquits, besides me, ya! Not MANY, yeah?! ya’ll don’t know! 6 years, I did! Thats a LONG TIME in intermodal. The average being 6-10 months. I drove for PTI.Pennsylvania Truck Lines. Polish Truck Lines, we called it. The same Pennsyalvania RR. trucks. The Cunninghams owned it. The stories there need there own web site, yea! 0k are a laugh!![(-D]Logs books are a luagh[(-D] Cowboy truckin’, yeehaa[C):-)]!!! I’m not belittleing Triple digiters, just the yahoo’s that think they got the cure!!!

It’s a different world. we were, and probebly still are, considered the “SCABS” of the bissuness!

We haul, regardeless of weight, anything they throw at us! Cowboy truckin’[C):-)] And ya’all wanna do what? Idiots!!! I love All truckers, GOD knows how many, despite our differences, helped me, kept me goin’, makin’ money, RIGHT? Pay forward, the motto!!! ya’ bastards think ya gotm the cue? [(-D][(-D][(-D]!!! Try livin’ in a 3x6 for a while, for 30cnt a mile!!

Chickens Hualers(you’ll all know), I’ll love ya all, wish I made it that big! 72 in a Keny was the best I got. You know we hauled YOU KNOW IT! I’ll drive a fork for now on!! Do I really got to take this [censored] from someone who THINKS they know something? Tell me?

Futuremodal, you need to change you’re handle, cause you no nothing about past, present, or even the future of intermodal!

53

If I remember, I’ll ask our intermodal guy about single vs double stack load time.

Nick

54

Even if the intermodal bellies sat there ready to go as soon as the last container is dropped onboard, it seems that double stacking them would save time overall…given the finite time it would take to pull out the full train and respot some more empties…or, an inbound load. If you have to hook up an engine, air up the lines, test the brakes, and THEN pull it out, it would take more time yet. So it would seem intuitive that the overall thoughput for doublestacking would be greater than two sets of single stacks…even given the same amount of people and equipment to do the job. Is this in fact the case?

55

A single stack train would take up twice the track capacity that a double stack train uses for the same amount of boxes. Capacity that is just not out there. But why let facts get in the way of your argument.

[banghead][banghead] The more I read your posts, the more I think that you are just a troll. Saying off the wall stuff looking for reaction.

Bert

56

[quote user=“Limitedclear”]

[quote user=“futuremodal”]

Again, saving this one for the moderator - once again it is Ed B who initiates the personal attacks.

What Ed is oblivious to is the fact that it takes more than twice as long to load a double stack train as it does a single stack train, and the longer the train the longer the wait to get it loaded and out of the yard. It is this dedication to the long slow concept that is causing all the delays at ports. Again, double stack is good for the railroads in a circumspect way, but is bad for the supply chain. The ships are having to wait precisely because of the way railroads operate in the port cities. For proof, look at the European port operations - thei

57

Another factor beaulieu hasn’t grasped is that the larger containerships have fewer port options than the smaller ships, which means more stuff has to be transloaded to truck, railcar, or short sea barge for those smaller capacity ports now bypassed by the larger containerships. Ultimately, it is the shipper who pays for those delays.

Besides, Freud would suggest the real reason for the mega containerships has more to do with the physical inadaquacies of the ship owners than with supply chain efficiencies!

This is where bi-modal chassis would work well. And don’t the Dutch trains still use single stack?

58

If you get the chance, ask him if they’ve even studied using RailRunner chassis to decrease load time.

59

Consider the prospect of direct ship to rail loading using a single stack system (spine cars or RailRunner chassis). If you can effectively do this, you eliminate most of the damage-causing handling, you eliminate at least two dock workers (e.g. $$), you eliminate the need for the inland repositioning terminal, and if using the RailRunner chassis as your single stack system, you actually end up with a better load factor than double stack, not to mention eliminating the need for a de facto intermodal terminal at the destination. Single stack trains would also have better center of gravity.

Yes, you would have to have a single stack train that is twice as long as a double stack train for the same amount of containers, but the point is to make the supply chain more fluid by making the trains more flexible for the customers. And if BNSF can put together a 10,000 foot double stack train as a one-time show off piece, surely they could be running 10,000 foot single stack trains without incident.

And because it takes less time to offload a single stack train, the cycle time for the single stack is less than that for the double stack.

60

I had a rather fascinating conversation with our intermodal guy today.

There is virtually no difference in loading time between single and double stack. The main difference is you need an extra person to apply and lock the IBCs.

The biggest consumer of time is the sorting of the boxes into destination blocks. The boxes must be sorted into destination blocks, and then sub-destinations within those blocks.

Nick