It has been some time since the columns of John Kneiling, Trains professional iconoclast in the seventies and eighties, have appeared. I wondered if the two concepts (see links below), cargosprinter and ACTS containersystem, when combined, come close to his integral train concept.
I would like to know from the forum members from down under how CRT’s cargosprinter is doing.
It seems that the concept died very quickly with DB Cargo / Railion in Germany. They used it between the airport at Frankfurt and either Hamburg or Berlin. I think it was problems with timetable paths and service commitments that killed the project.
John’s idea was for a single stack slide-on/slide-off system with distributed power, and having all the cars permanently coupled (“weld shut the knuckles” was his way of stating that) to prevent the temptation to hump the lot. Kneiling was not a fan of double stacks, prefering the simpler cheaper modal transfer methods. Nor was he a fan of megayards, prefering that consists remain unmolested from point of origin to destination - if that means running shorter more direct trains, then that’s what you do.
Not too suprising real railroaders have lost sight of his vision.
I came across J. G. Kneiling, Integral Train Systems, Kalmbach, Milwaukee back in the 1970s at the Northwestern University Transportation Center Library – great place, great book.
One controversial issue was to run freight trains at passenger train speeds – even bulk cargo trains. I had a discussion with Mark Hemphill on this point on this forum, and given the price of a coal gon (50 K) and the price of oil, I conceded the point that you probably don’t want to do that these days, but Integral Train Systems argued that fuel is cheap compared to the cost of lower utilization of equipment and speed was the thing.
Another controversy was the 500-car integral train itself. What siding could hold it to let another train go by in single-track territory? I guess the argument is that if you had a small number of fast mega-trains, you would perhaps have one mega train per day on most lines – I guess it would “saw by” other traffic put into the “hole.” But what happens to traffic when a 5-mile long train blocks a grade crossing?
Double stacks are not quite a factor of two improvement over single, but the figures I have seen indicate they cut down on fuel consumption – they certainly reduce train length for a given number of containers and there is that thing about siding capacity. And ocean containers can be stacked.
I really don’t see why side-transfer gear never caught on – is it just one of those adoption things like the Dvorak keyboard, or does it have some intrinsic problems?
As to yarding and welding the knuckles shut to prevent it, those articulated spine cars are pretty much a step in that direction, and who yards or humps intermodals anyway? And the FRA is working on standards for electro-pneumatic brakes, another element of the Integral Train.
You were at Northwestern in the 70’s.?? In the Transportation Center? In the 70’s? I went there after my Army time (Transportaiton Corps, Of Course) and before my railroad employment.
Doug Hagestad has just became Associate Director of the Center. He also works with the University of Denver. When he goes to Denver he drives so as he can parallel the UP on US 30. My kind of guy.
Doug’s had boots on the ground with a railroad (he was also Army Transportation, 714th Railway Operating Batilion), and he was a genuine honcho at the ICG, and he now teaches. He loves movin’ freight. Which is what it’s all about.
As a teenager in new yor, I knew John fairly well. I would generally be on one or the other ends of the fantrip streetcar when changing ends to pull down or put up the trolley pole, almost an assigned task on the streetcar fantrips he organized in the New York - New Jersey area. He organized some pretty wonderful fan trips including a gate car train on the 3rd Avenue Elevated with a flat car with railings for fan occupancy! And a fine camelback 4-6-0 CNJR trip with a shop and roundhouse visit. I thought his column was terrific . I also remember the Hun
I seem to remember he was a proponent of railroads hauling low value bulk commodities, while leaving the high value cargo to trucks. Of course times change and the present amount of trade with China would have been unimaginable 10-15 years ago and unthinkable during the cold war.
Regarding hump yards and IM, there was an article in Trains not too long ago about Europe humping intermodal FedEx style at selected central sites. I believe one of the benefits was unclogging the ports and reducing transloading. I may be wrong, but I believe that unlike the U.S. with our multitude of ‘standards’, Europe has remained relatively standardized on container sizes. They’ve also avoided spine cars in order for this to work. Are they using 2 axle flats to reduce tarre weight. Thoughts?
There’s a current Modern Marvels on the History channel on all kinds of containers, including IM. I believe it was the shipping company Matson, that drove the 20 & 40’ container standards that made it all work, not the railroads or the pundits.
Remember a while back when Michael Sol ran a simulation comparing the shorter faster train model with actual data from current long train operations? Although only a simulation, it suggested that car utilization and labor productivity improved with the shorter faster model. Not sure about fuel use productivity, but an increase in average speed is certainly one of the key analyzing tools used by Wall Street types to rate rail company performance. Again, it comes down to the attitude of overly cautious risk aversion by rail professionals. (see Allegory of the Cave reference in Gen-Set thread)
This aspect always suggested to me that a consolidated rail industry would do well to turn to directional running where-ever and when-ever possible.
Besides, with the increased speed, wouldn’t a 500 car train take no more time
What sticks with me about Kneiling’s writings was his emphasis on what’s economic. He sought simple, basic utility; nothing superfluous. He thought railroads were missing out on profitable opportunity, which in the big picture affected everybody.
John stopped by the Northwestern one day in the late 1960s to pitch his services to my boss and I. We asked him to come by while he was in town because we had both read his articles in Trains and wanted to met him. His pitch was simple, he was like a headhunter but with cars. He would go out and find ways we could save car days. We never followed up because in those days the Northwestern had zero cash availble for anything except survival. I beleve that was the same year the entire capital budget was a new switch machine across the street in Northwestern Station. We would go over and see it on our lunch hour. Nothing like getting out on the line to see where the capital was being spent!
Think Trains jinx. The article was written by Dr. Chip Kraft, who found out too late to change the article, that Intercontainer had just notified SCNF Fret that they would no longer need the humpyard as SNCF Fret service was so bad it was driving customers away. ICF and all the European Intermodal Operators have gone exclusively to
direct unit trains or use through tracks and have the container crane pick off containers at intermediate points, usually no more than one. Interestingly no European Railway Company markets Intermodal service, this is done by a specialized IM marketing company, the Railway Company provides a locomotive and driver. The Europeans use whatever flatcars are available for containers, the IM companies tend to have skeletal flats, but for flexibility ordinary flats are used, four axle cars are more common but two axle aren’t rare. Spine cars are not seen. The Europeans have as many IM unit types as we do, especially the Swiss, Semi-trailers, Megaboxes, 20’, 40’, 45’, ACTS containers, Cargo Domino, and the very common Swapbody. The Europeans also like to put one 40’ or 2 20’ containers on a 60’ flatcar with a deck so tha
OK, with fond memories of John Kneiling, I’ll comment on the “Cargo Sprinter”.
It’s like an RDC car for freight, and I’m confident that it would work well in the right applications.
The first thing you’d have to get by would be the one person crew on the “Cargo Sprinter”. As anyone may easily see from another thread, this one person crew concept drives some people nuts. But it, and the “Cargo Sprinter”, will do just fine in the right applications.
The “Cargo Sprinter” would be “Just The Ticket” on under capacity lines such as the CN in Iowa and the UP between Chicago and the Twin Cities. Or on my favorite, the BNSF line though Dodge City and Garden City, Kansas.
You could load it with fresh beef near Joslin, Illinois and drive it into a NS ramp in Chicago for movement further east. You could load it with fresh pork out of Waterloo, Iowa and do the same. You could really load it from the three huge beef plants in Dodge City and Garden City which produce around 15% of the beef in the US. Or you could originate the “Train” at a paper mill, lumber mill, whatever and provide a “feeder” service to the established intermodal network. That would divert freight from truck to rail.
Ain’t gonna’ happen for two reasons. 1) The unions can’t see the jobs to despite their face. A one person crew is change and they hate change. 2) The railroad companies are not “Marketing Companies” If someone shows up with a boat load of containers or a mine load of coal the railroads know what to do. If you’ve got 24 loads/day to New York they want you to go through a middleman. There’s nothing wrong with that except the middlemen aren’t railroad market development people and won’t put this concept together.
