I haven’t seen any discussion of this pending legislation or it’s opportunities yet. Some provisions of its Title V may be of particular interest to railroaders, including the ‘walkback’ of allowing single-man crews on trains over 7500’
Section 5306. Hyperloop transportation?
Elon Musk is such a smart man. He created the idea to create a whataboutism for high speed rail. If you look at recent events, you can see that claims about hyperloop have been walked back. First it was 10 times cheaper, now it is 2/3 the cost or the same cost as high speed rail. First it was 700mph, now it is 430-500mph largely due to spacing between stops and ROW geometry. These figures BTW, are from the Hyperloop Transport Technologies study from the Chicago-Pittsburgh proposed route. Then, of course, the hyperloop project that was furthest along, with Virgin Hyperloop One in Maharashtra, India was just cancelled. And the best part is that the SpaceX hyperloop competition (which wasn’t actually hyperloop, but actually just an electric RC car competition for university students) was also cancelled indefinitely last year. All of this ignores the fact that hyperloop as a workable concept has been debunked over and over and over and over and over again.
But that is the genius of Elon Musk. He creates this stupid idea that will never die so that whenever a high speed rail system is proposed, public support is eroded and he can sell more Teslas. His plan is essentially to badmouth transit so he can sell more cars. We lose, he wins. Of course, between that, accusing divers of being pedophiles, acting like a cross between Trump and a moody teen on Twitter and spreading false info about a pandemic and violating lock down orders simply for profit, you can’t help but love the guy!
Not to mention the still more wack plan of his concerning trucks…
The section on crew sizes is aimed at the larger railroads. Smaller railroads can still operate one person crews, except for trains with hazmat that makes them Key trains or longer than the 7500 ft mentioned.
Jeff
I see this as yet another misguided government/union action that will hamper, if not totally block, railroad market development.
Here is an example: Dodge City, KS is an important center for US beef production. Two major production facilities are in Dodge City. There is a 3rd major facility within drayage distance in Holcomb, KS. (Garden City, KS). A whole lot of trucks come out of those beef plants on long haul trips to coastal population centers. The BNSF gets virtually none of this business.
Here is an idea: Put a low-cost intermodal terminal in Dodge City and run “feeder” trains to the main line at Kansas City, Emporia, or wherever. These trains will be relatively short. On a mega train the average cost per mile per load isn’t affected much by a legally mandated second crew member. On the shorter trains required to serve the beef market, the added crew member will significantly affect the average cost per mile of movement. There are fewer loads to cover his/her added cost. And this is gonna’ hurt.
In cases such as this the railroads are price takers, not price setters. Truck competition will determine the allowable rail price.
Is there anyone out there who can realistically say that such a shorter intermodal train can’t be safely and efficiently operated with a one-person crew?
They (government/unions) intend through misguided legislation to drive rail cost up for no rational reason. I hate it when that happens.
Don’t know who the Congressman was but thankfully he (or she) attached the two-person bill to this Invest Act. An anti labor Congressman from PA tried to remove the wording but was defeated in doing so. Hopefully this will be on the floor for debate soon w/passage into becoming law.
If by some miracle UP or BNSF take interest in the Dodge City meat market, and then somehow manage to grow their share into a 7500’+ train, I think they will be able to afford the cost of a second crew member on it. Indeed, such an oper
The Tyson plant @ Holcks supplies the west coast. All the finished products ship to CA.
greyhounds
I see this as yet another misguided government/union action that will hamper, if not totally block, railroad market development.
Here is an example: Dodge City, KS is an important center for US beef production. Two major production facilities are in Dodge City. There is a 3rd major facility within drayage distance in Holcomb, KS. (Garden City, KS). A whole lot of trucks come out of those beef plants on long haul trips to coastal population centers. The BNSF gets virtually none of this business.
Here is an idea: Put a low-cost intermodal terminal in Dodge City and run “feeder” trains to the main line at Kansas City, Emporia, or wherever. These trains will be relatively short. On a mega train the average cost per mile per load isn’t affected much by a legally mandated second crew member. On the shorter trains required to serve the beef market, the added crew member will significantly affect the average cost per mile of movement. There are fewer loads to cover his/her added cost. And this is gonna’ hurt.
In cases such as this the railroads are price takers, not price setters. Truck competition will determine the allowable rail price.
Is there anyone out there who can realistically say that such a shorter intermodal train can’t be safely and efficiently operated with a one-person crew?
They (government/unions) intend through misguided legislation to drive rail cost up for no rational reason. I hate it when that happens.
Well, I worded it differently, but that’s certainly part of what I said.
On a 7,500 foot double stack train the cost of a 2nd crewmember will not significantly increase the average cost per mile per container. The 2nd crew person may or may not be necessary, but it’s not a deal breaker for such an operation and I wouldn’t get in a labor fight over it.
But we’re not talking about 7,500 foot trains. We’re talking about the much shorter trains needed to develop and serve the market. I’m convinced that such short trains can effeciently and safely be operated by a one person crew. Adding a 2nd crew person will significantly drive up the cost per mile per container. There will be only a small number of containers to cover his/her cost.
SFbrkmn says the beef production from Holcomb goes west. I’d imagine some of the production from Dodge City also goes west. So now the freight is moving in two directions. Is that two small trains each going in a different direction?
This needs to be developed with flexibility and an entrepreneurial mind set. Legally mandating unneeded extra cost on the short trains will hurt. And it will cost rail jobs because the trains will never run.
[quote user=“SFbrkmn”]
The Tyson plant @ Holcks supplies the west coast. All the finished products ship to CA.
greyhounds
I see this as yet another misguided government/union action that will hamper, if not totally block, railroad market development.
Here is an example: Dodge City, KS is an important center for US beef production. Two major production facilities are in Dodge City. There is a 3rd major facility within drayage distance in Holcomb, KS. (Garden City, KS). A whole lot of trucks come out of those beef plants on long haul trips to coastal population centers. The BNSF gets virtually none of this business.
Here is an idea: Put a low-cost intermodal terminal in Dodge City and run “feeder” trains to the main line at Kansas City, Emporia, or wherever. These trains will be relatively short. On a mega train the average cost per mile per load isn’t affected much by a legally mandated second crew member. On the shorter trains required to serve the beef market, the added crew member will significantly affect the average cost per mile of movement. There are fewer loads to cover his/her added cost. And this is gonna’ hurt.
In cases such as this the railroads are price takers, not price setters. Truck competition will determine the allowable rail price.
Is there anyone out there who can realistically say that such a shorter intermodal train can’t be safely and efficiently operated with a one-person crew?
They (government/unions) intend through misguided legislation to drive rail cost up for no rational reason. I hate it when that happens.
Helped place the industry tracks at IBP-Holcomb in-service in the 1980’s. Tossed cookies in the tallow and hide loading tracks more than once. Intermodal idea was tried by ATSF and it went away when mechanical f
I don’t like the language of the two person requirement as written.
I brought this up at our last union meeting where the proposed bill was discussed. It says a crew will consist of a certified engineer and conductor. It assumes them to be in the cab, but doesn’t specify that. I said a lawyer could argue that (using the “master conductor” from the failed UTU/BNSF proposal a few years ago) that one conductor assigned to supervise multiple trains would satisfy the requirement. Each train would have an engineer (on the train) and a conductor assigned to it.
Greyhounds, I think it might be possible to get an agreement for engineer only on small (think European size, especially since the carriers like to bring up said operations) intermodal trains except for one thing.
No one believes the carriers would live up to such an agreement. Their track (no pun intended) record on abiding by their agreements isn’t good. It would only be used to open the door to single person crews on the land barges they want to run.
Jeff
Greyhounds:
All traffic @ Garcks is p/u by LKAN 14 and taken to Dodcit. The Tyson freezers then begin the trip to CA on the DDCPUE. On days 14 does not run, the mainliner will stop to grab any wb cars that may be scheduled. I worked the Garcks switcher 2009-2016. When I was there, a proposal was put forth to open an intermodal mimi-hub @ Garcks. This involved BNSF, CoC, TPL, City/county/state govt’s and KDOT. I believe the proposal faded out around three yrs ago and lost traction. Have you contacted BNSF of your proposal posted here? Contacting them, instead of forum members, likely would be more use of your time. If you are serious of this and not just posting bulletin board material, with your background of marketing, it cannot hurt. The worst they will say is “no thanks”. Bryce Arnold is the La Junta Sub trainmaster who has trackage from Hutchinson-Las Animas Jct., including the yards @ Dodcit & Garcks. He is based in Dodcit. His office number is 620-227-5961 and email is bryce arnold@bnsf.com .Get in touch with him and let us know how the conversation went, but don’t reply back until you have done so.
Your post is so 2020. If you don’t like the views someone is expressing try to silence them. You don’t control this forum or me. I won’t let you silence me.
We were having a good discussion on some propossed legislation. Legislation that I see as harmful. That’s a right that every American and Canadian has. You seem to think you personally can take that right away by attaching conditions. You are very wrong.
Have you ever been to a bank that uses vacuum tubes to move objects back and forth between tellers and cars? That’s the basis for Hyperloop, if those work all you need to do is scale it up, which they’ve done, it just won’t work for people because of the vacuum, cargo however is a different story. The best place to build a test track would be Vegas for transporting between the casino’s.
Now, to discuss about the actual subject matter at hand. That 2 person crew rule has got to go, it’s un-American to legislate something that should be a bargainable position. Look, if Rio Tinto can run 15 - 20,000 ft ore trains without crews then the U.S. railroads should be able to run 10 - 12,000 ft trains with only one crew member on board without interference from the U.S. Government.
I think though that the funding allocations should be changed slightly to 20 - 20 - 30 - 30. 20% each for waterways and air travel and 30% each for rail and highway spending.
There are two aspects that need to be considered here. For the union concerns it is indeed a bargainable position.
The second, and in my mind more important, concern is how the trains interact with the communities through which they pass. That is not much of a problem for Rio Tinto, or the QNS&L in a remote part of Quebec. Nor is it a much of a problem as long as everything goes perfectly. The real world is imperfect, and a second person on hand will usually speed up solving (or at least abating) a problem, like every crossing in town blocked by a stopped monster train. The legislation is at least nominally aimed at public safety, even if it is the unions who are pushing hardest. They are the ones who best understand the potential safety concerns.
Have you ever run intermodal trains?
Duplicate
Zug: From my reading this thread, I doubt if Gerald or Ken or several others have ever run any freight train on a Class 1, anymore than I have. They are simply anti-regulation and apparently anti-union.