The Intermodal Boom is already happening. Watch a BNSF or NS intermodal go by and you’ll see it for yourself. I just got thru running two 7000 foot intermodals the last two days. NS 212 going north (with the UP 2002 Olympic engine by the way) and NS 221 south back to Atlanta.
212 (Atlanta to Croxton, NJ) is one of our hottest trains carrying FEDEX and UPS trailers. It also has many other trucking companies that have taken to the rails in a big way. I’ve been seeing quite a few US Express trailers, Roadway, Yellow Freight, ABF and even a good number of refrigerated trailers. Rounding out the mix are containers from JB Hunt and Swift, among others.
221 (Charlotte, NC to Atlanta) is a solid container train made up of almost entirely all domestic 53’ containers. The big player on this train is JB Hunt, but Swift and Sneider are adding more everyday.
Keep watching the tracks. They are talking about adding more intermodal trains in 2012. The rail renaissance has already begun.
Tim,you are the man,I fan in Kings Mountain and see the same trains,Fed Ex love the new trailers also see Lisa Motor Lines,Stevens Express,Transportation of Mississippi and KLM refrigerated and a lot of other OTR companies.18 wheeles dont impress us,Jeff a NS engineer has that written on his shirt.
I’ve seen that shirt and it’s true. A 7000 foot double stack train has the equivalent of 200 trucks on board. Compared to the number of trucks out on the interstate that may not be a drop in the bucket but trucking companies are starting to realize the benefits of intermodal. That 212 that I ran out of Atlanta on Sunday morning departed Inman Yard at 9 am. I was swapping out with the next crew in Greenville, SC 156 miles away by 12 noon.
The initial statement at the outset of this string is pretty mis-guided. Highway limits for 53’s and 40’s / 45’s are the same. It’s all 80,000 GVW (tractor, container, chassis and freight total.) Same for OTR trailers. CalDOT doesn’t allow overweight permits on most highways if the load is divisible (i.e. excludes single piece machines, etc.) They only allow overweight on some local routes near ports.
Calif creates their own problems via their so-called Bridge law that is more of an anti-bridge law. They require max distance of 40’ from king pin to center of rear axle. That requires tandems to be slid forward on 53’s thereby concentrating the weight vs. allowing the trailer/chassis tandems to be back, spreading out the weight further. Makes no sense. Some other states have variants on this at 42’.
I don’t get the Rah-rah about get the trucks off of the road. Guys, its about simple economics and service. If the product has a high inventory value, its not going to take the slower route. Its worth the extra cost to truck it because of the inventory value of the product. Also, if the service sensitivity is sufficiently high that the sporadic service provided by the class 1’s doesn’t meet the customer’s need (typically 70-80% on time this year), then again, its going to go on the truck which provides 95%+ pretty consistently.
There is a continuum of service levels and associated costs in transportation from barge to manifest train to intermodal train, to solo truck to team truck to air freight. The value of the product and the service sensitivity will determine which mode it gets, not typically politics, or cheerleading. The market is pretty effective in this space.
Its no different than when you ship a package to Grandma for Christmas. Do you ship it bulk mail? US
With regards to Intermodal. One criticism I would have is this. If a customer is willing to pay for a level of service why can not the rails compete?
It takes a really bad snow storm for railroads to have to shut down. Ditto the ice storms the south is good for in the winter. I remember one comment on Conrail’s intermodal was they had a lot of foul weather customers in the northeast. ie those who shipped by rail when the weather was going to get bad. It takes a lot more to shut down a railroad then a highway. Unfortunately it also takes the rails a lot longer to recover when they do go down.
If you have a customer who is willing to pay for good service you should be willing to provide. If you have a customer who only wants to pay “a dollar a mile” they should understand that is the service they will get…
The reality in transportation today is there are lots and lots of customers and even more freight. Rails should go after a lot more of the high end stuff.
I will cite as an example Boeing is shipping airframes by rail. It made a lot more sense to do that then to fly them. It could be done at a fraction of the cost providing the carrier(BNSF in this case) could provide the service. I would think that BNSF would be bending over backwards for what they should be getting paid for this. (oversize, special routing, & cargo of very high value)
In the latter where else would you see a railroad competing with air cargo?
As Doublestack correctly stated initially in his December 12, 2011 post, there is NO weight limit difference for 40-, 48-, and 53-foot containers, or for whatever length that one chooses.
But, LIMIT is NOT what this thread is about. 40-foot containers have a certain average weight shipped, with that average NOT close to the weight limit. Then, 48-foot containers arrived. The average weight increased, and the benefit was that more average weight could be had per driver. Then, 53-footers came into vogue. Again, the average weight increased, but did not exceed the limit.
Common sense says that shipping weight will increase as containers get longer. Most containers rarely get loaded as high as the total weight limit. But, in my opinion, as containers get longer and longer, and weigh more and more, ever deteriorating roadways will result.
Our roads are made in ways much like most of what we buy: “disposable! There was an article in Car & Driver magazine I think in the 80s or 90s about “how” they built the Autobahn highway there. Concrete 24” thick. Cement poured out in sections. Once done a big shed riding on rails is slid foreward over the fresh cement to protect it from sunlight and wet towels are laid over the cement. That is all done to help the cement dry as slow as possible. The Germans “invested” in their roads. We just throw another one down.
I doubt my dream will ever be realized: Tracks going to every town and to many businesses and farms. Trains assembled in order with the first car to leave the train to be on the rear. Car leaves the train on the fly and the train does not slow down. This is all controlled by computer, satellite etc. Car has its own 300hp engine to move down the tracks. It slows down to make a gap between it and the train. Switch for that car to take is thrown via remote control after the train passes and before the car gets there. Car goes down to its destination and stops when it reaches its point via GPS. At the end destination the buyer unloads the car.
You need to keep dreaming as you dream is incomplete - what happens when the unloaded car needs to be moved, either to another customer to reload ro back to it’s origin to reload?