I asked this in a previous thread on a slightly different topic but I guess it was too late in the game, so I didn’t get an answer. I am still curious though…It has been said that due to the economic downturn there are less trains on the rails. Here is my question… if most trains on a given line aren’t going to the same place, since they all are headed to a certain yard or other destination, wouldn’t the trains just be shorter? I find it hard to believe a whole train wouldn’t be needed at once, or do they consolidate operations somehow? I might be able to guess an answer but would appreciate a bit more of an expert opinion on this. Thanks!
No, there will be fewer trains. Trains will be combined, two or three becoming one, if not for a whole run just a major segment. Three usually 100 car trains from Oak Island Yard in NJ to, say, Blue Island Yard in Chicagoland could be consolidated down to one train a day of up to 150 cars a day if need be. If 75 of those 300 cars are going to St. Louis instead of CHicago, then the one train can be run to Pittsburgh and broken up into two. The usual game of build, tear apart, rebuild, move on to the next junction or yard, etc. that is normally done in railroading No sense spending money for three locomotive sets and three crew sets when it can be done with one locomotive and one crew (per division or whatever the rules are).
I don’t know if it’s really a result of the economic downturn or just a change in operating procedures, but the Union Pacific is running fewer trains on the Sunset Route through SE Arizona and they seem to be longer because nearly all of them now have one or two helpers on the end. Where there used to be 10 or 12 trains per day, now there are only 5 or 6.
For an example I will use Ford Motor Company. If we normally pull 4 trains a day with 80 loads from a plant when the economy is running at a normal pace, what happens when everybody quits buying cars? First thing is that the 4 trains get combined into two trains.(This also applys to the emptys coming in to be loaded). Then there are the parts cars that bring everything necessary to build the autos. Maybe one train a day bringing loads into the plant and one empty out. That train will be smaller and added onto one of the empty auto rack trains coming in and loads going out. All of this leads to less trains and sometimes no trains when the plants finally shut down.
You can duplicate this all over the country…just replace autos with jelly, paper, dog food, etc.
Also, if a train gets small enough, that block can be added to another train and maybe go a longer route to get to its destination. Just take it a few hundred more miles and add it to another block going to the same end point. Sometimes this is cheaper than using another crew to take it a more direct route. Fuel is cheaper than labor.
We try to Annull trains that are less than 60 cars just due to the cost of running the train. the traffic is usually forwarded to the next days train. occasionally we have to run a small train due to a lack of traffic to make a 60 car train or high priority traffic the needs to move.