It seems that with Amtrak and CN getting out of the roadrailer business, Triple Crown seems to be the sole roadrailer service; is this true?
What happened to the others like Schneider, Clipper and ICE COLD (Icez) of BNSF?
The Swift train isn’t running anymore,either[:(].
No, railroaders are an intermodal train. All class 1 railroads have intermodal.
Yes, at my house, Triple Crown Services rules! Every van(car), means dad will be home tonight. The crew will receive top pay, and hammer-down. Where there is a backhaul, there should be a pair of V16’s pinging. If I were trucking, I’d be delivering the empties to the loadout, for cardboard, or whatever, and returning them to the TC terminal…but if I had brains, I’d own a couple of hundred vans, and be finding freight( it’s out there).
Sounds like a weiner to me!
Tripple Crown is not and never will be a monopoly. NS is competing with thousands of hungry truckers every day.
Mac
My question was if Triple Crown had a monopoly on the roadrailer now.
It isn’t a ‘monopoly’ if nobody else wants to do it. There are few effective barriers to entry, there is plenty of equipment availability (and more coming when Amtrak has the inevitable fire sale), the necessary know-how and wisdom is available – sometimes for the asking.
What isn’t there is the business case… yet. When that is made, for example when critical mass of available vans builds up in key lanes, you can expect to see the idea taken up by others. I assume you are following the RailRunner scenario, and have considered the ways in which this is similar to RoadRailer operations, and the ways in which it is different.
Personally, I think there’s money to be made in both types of operation. But I’m doing the same thing FedEx is … waiting for others to make the mistakes and show where the problems are before dedicating large amounts of capital and time to using the technology.
Seems to me that Triple Crown is the only outfit that has figured out how to make it work. Plenty of opportunity there for someone else to try if they can pull it off.
I’d like to know why Schneider, Swift, Clipper and others stopped the roadrailer service. It can’t be because it’s not profitable otherwise Triple Crown would be in the poor house.
Why is Triple Crown the only roadrailer business left?
This has been beaten to death – when will you get it?
Go back and read the various Amtrak M&E threads. That will explain some of the economics regarding what bottom-line ‘profitability’ is for a RoadRailer service. Some of the more expert comments there contain some of the more relevant issues for your review.
Triple Crown has intensive railroad backing. If you know anything about six-sigma, you’ll recognize the importance of a strong ‘champion’ in getting acceptance of innovative concepts during the time they’re established, and in overcoming obstacles thereafter. For the others, RoadRailers were a niche modality – and when typical problems, like lane balance and backhaul-by-rail, came up… they figured the results weren’t worth the expense.
For better or worse, many managers DO look primarily at short-run rather than long-run results. Since the collapse of the Internet bubble, three-month and six-month targets for opportunity capital have become once again ‘significant’ to analysts… whether or not this mindset is appropriate for long-term capital or market development. This may change given enough time, or major shifts in some of the factors involved. But right now there’s a sweet spot for TOFC, and a different sweet spot for all-truck moves, and there just isn’t for bi-modal where there isn’t a dedication to the technology and sufficient capitalization in place. I’d be surprised to find any truck line undertaking the necessary steps at ‘full equipment price’ – or in fact any shipper not affiliated with a railroad dedicated to the concept making extensive early use of the system.
An important take-home message from Amtrak M&E is that ‘profitability’ often has to be defined in much more significant terms than ‘did we make or lose money on the packages we shipped’. That’s fine for someone running an eBay business, but as soon as scaling and operating factors come into play, there are many additional expenses, and reserves, that have to be arran
That wasn’t very nice…Just because a topic has been covered here before is no reason to jump on a guy for asking a question,…IS IT? Are you trying to say that in order for a person to ask a question (here) they are first required to read every thread here to make sure it hasn’t been asked before?..That would be absolutely silly.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod
This has been beaten to death – when will you get it?
Go back and read the various Amtrak M&E threads. That will explain some of the economics regarding what bottom-line ‘profitability’ is for a RoadRailer service. Mark Hemphill’s comments, in particular, raised some of the more relevant issues for your review.
Triple Crown has intensive railroad backing. If you know anything about six-sigma, you’ll recognize the importance of a strong ‘champion’ in getting acceptance of innovative concepts during the time they’re established, and in overcoming obstacles thereafter. For the others, RoadRailers were a niche modality – and when typical problems, like lane balance and backhaul-by-rail, came up… they figured the results weren’t worth the expense.
For better or worse, many managers DO look primarily at short-run rather than long-run results. Since the collapse of the Internet bubble, three-month and six-month targets for opportunity capital have become once again ‘significant’ to analysts… whether or not this mindset is appropriate for long-term capital or market development. This may change given enough time, or major shifts in some of the factors involved. But right now there’s a sweet spot for TOFC, and a different sweet spot for all-truck moves, and there just isn’t for bi-modal where there isn’t a dedication to the technology and sufficient capitalization in place. I’d be surprised to find any truck line undertaking the necessary steps at ‘full equipment price’ – or in fact any shipper not affiliated with a railroad dedicated to the concept making extensive early use of the system.
An important take-home message from Amtrak M&E is that ‘profitability’ often has to be defined in much more significant terms than ‘did we make or lose money on the packages we shipped’. That’s fine for someone running an eBay business, but as soon as scaling and operating factors come into play, there ar
It’s not that it wasn’t a nice and polite question – just that you keep asking the same one over and over. There’s no reason to ‘wade through all those threads’ – most of them were started by you, and participated in by you rather avidly, so you should remember what was in them.
When I said “beaten to death” I meant within the RoadRailer business threads, not in general. And yes, I responded a bit more intensively to Junctionfan than I would to most other posters, because I KNOW that he’s already covered this particular issue with many questions before, and also that I’ve suggested that he do some of the financial and operational modeling to answer some of the question before he asks it – repeatedly – in the forums.
Hopefully, both of you will note that (once again) I provided answers and approaches in my post which do, in fact, address the question Junctionfan asked. And will further support any positive and original thinking on the topic as the thread progresses. I am not privy to internal thinking at Schneider and Swift, so I cannot say exactly why they chose not to continue; in the specific case of Swift I am, in fact, looking forward to finding out whetner they’ve quit ‘for good’ or because there are factors that need to change for them to resume. But my point was, and is, that it’s possible to figure out some of the problems from first principles, before having to ask for proprietary information (etc.) which will almost certainly not be provided for general postings!
Well, that’s cool I guess… After reading into this thread, I was tempted to ask a question, but was afraid someone would bite my head off if the subject had been touched on in the “many” other threads you refer to.
Perhaps you might know the answer. In the context of the other providers of roadrailer service bowing out of the equation, as one living near TC’s mainhub (Ft Wayne, IN) I see NS continuing
One of Schneider’s main problems was the limited availablity of RoadRailer equipment, to my understanding. When they needed trailers in a given area, and all that was available for a highway move far off rails was a RoadRailer, it was a waste of capital. Then, when the only available trailer for a potential RoadRailer move ended up being a highway van, it again defeated the purpose. It would work well in dedicated service lanes such as Swift had, but we can now see that it is somewhat problematic for them, too, other issues (scheduling, transit times, and train costs, etc.) notwithstanding.
Schneider is going to try containers now. There are about 150 brand spankin’ new orange 53’ containers sitting outside the Stoughton Trailers plant in Evansville, WI just waiting to be trucked to Chicago and put in service. And according to my reports, Schneider will be using railroad chassis to haul them, so they have no investment in that, only the cans.
Picture a Schnieder can on a Rail Runner set up. Now that’s versatility! If only Railrunner and Triple Crown work together and enough chassis become available.
Dave M
Waterloo, WI
Thankyou guys[:)]
TC is currently adding capactiy at Piqua Yard (in Fort Wayne) as I type this. They are reconfiguring the west end switch lead to allow for two trains to simultaneously work 1/2 the yard each and have two more standing by waiting their turn. Obviously, NS and TC expect growth (actually are swamped) and invested accordingly. I can’t say if TC is embracing the railrunner concept, but I have seen a few here and there on the back end of a TC train.
Triple Crown is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Norfolk Southern, so there wouldn’t be any investor information available on its website.
Ok trucking reasons were given to answer the main question.Swift andSchneider wont do it because dispatchers dont understand "Hey thats a road railer trailer not a highway one."Trust me Trucking companies dont like to be told we cant get that hot load cause that trailer isnt for that service.Its a van isnt it?would be the response.Let TC do what its doing they are doing a great job finding their niche.Freight dry up?Where?I wish it would slow down a bit to keep things fluid or better yet maybe this.Managers wake up and increase capacity(this is trucking and rail)before they get swamped to the point they dont know what to do.