This is a huge potential for the railroads. People can put off buying a house, or a car, or a new TV. But they’re going to eat every day. A lot of the food moves long distances by truck. The railroads, by using the tremendous economics of double stack, can get a decent chunk of that business. If they don’t screw it up.
Big deal. Problem is this is a 48’ box essentially . A lot of shippers will not want to lose the 2 pallet positions over a 53’ trailer.
I could not remember why refridgerated containers didn’t catch now I remembered one of the larger reasons. You have to mount the fuel tank under the unit. The fuel tank is heavy enough that it can not be bolted onto the front like the unit is. This means that the frame has to enclose the fuel tank, and is now part of the body of the trailer/container. My company ran into this with 48’ containers. as the unit and fuel tank took up two pallet positions from the trailer. (making it essentially a 45’ box).
NFI is the third company to acquire this type of equipment. Rail Logicstics, JB Hunt and now NFI have taken the plunge and made investments in a type of equipment that was not being used in the US at all. (CP had some in use up north.) Besides the investments, this equipment is going to serve a rather large long haul market that has at best been an afterthought for decades.
I don’t know Rail Logistics from a Tom Tom, but JB Hunt and NFI are well established firms that at least have a reasonable expectation that their investments will not be lost. Their analysis obviously shows a market for the equipment with a good potential for profitable operation. How much business they can get using these containers is a question I can’t answer. But the overall market potential for rail intermodal movement of temperature controlled product is, in fact, a very big deal.
Having said that, my own often stated conviction is that the double stack container is not the best vehicle to open up the temperature controlled market for rail intermodal. (Please note: “Not the Best” doesn’t mean “Not Good Enough”)
Besides the cubic capacity loss that you cited, there are weight problems both off and on the rail. If you take a 13,000 pound reefer cotnainer and fill it with 45,000 pounds of proudct that would be 58,000 x 2 in a double stack well, or 116,000 pounds before you add fuel. That is right at the capacity of a Gunderson Maxi-Stack well. Put in 240 gallons of diesel for the two containers and you’ll have to reduce the lading by about 800 pounds per box. Not good.
And then there will be that pesky Tons Per Operative Brake thing with that much weight in the well.
I think chassis match up at origin will be a real problem. Some temperature controlled loa
How would one gauge the success of NFI running dry-van containers? Half of their already-small fleet was sold to CSX and converted to CSXU’s. If they’ve struggled to run dry van COFC, I wonder what leads them to believe that they will fare better w/ reefers, given the cut-throat world of pricing w/ food producers. As noted above, food is less affected by economic recession. As a result, everybody wants it. As a result of that - prices go LOW, LOW. I guess time will tell.
I am going to SAY IT AGAIN. These carriers that are ORDERING THESE are STUPID. For one reason NO USES A 48 FOOTER ANYMORE. EVERYTHING IS SHIPPED IN 53 FOOT Trailers or Containers UNLESS IT IS IMPORTED ANYMORE. Losing 2 spaces for a Backhaul ESPECIALLY WITH PRODUCE MEANS YOUR GOING TO RUN HOME EMPTY. Also with 200 gallons of Fuel in the Nose your talking about 1500 lbs of EXTRA TARE WIEGHT I looked up the Specs on these with a standard Chassis your Tare weight with the CAN and this is using a 15K lb Midroof sleeper truck is OVER 35K LBS. THEY ARE TO HEAVY. Reefer does not pay by the MILE they pay by the HUNDERED WEIGHT MORE WEIGHT MORE CASH with Produce even ICE CREAM IS THAT WAY. Unless they get into a specalized Niche like American Kobe Beef they are GOING TO LOOSE THEIR ENTIRE COMPAINES.
I don’t know why NFI acquired dry van containers. And I don’t know why they sold half their fleet to CSX. But I do know we can’t logically get to the conclusion that they “struggled” with the dry van fleet because they sold half of it.
Some railroads will supply dry van containers to companies such as NFI. (BNSF won’t). NFI may have simply decided that it was more advantageous to use rail supplied boxes.
No US railroad supplies domestic refrigerated containers. (CP has some for use in Canada.) Because of this, if NFI wants to ship containerized temperature controlled product in the US they’ll have to come up with the cotainers on their own. They’ve decided to do that to some degree. They are now the third company to acquire this type of equipment. I think that’s significant. How much success they, and the others, will have…we’ll just have to wait and see.
As to the rates being driven low, that plays into the railroads’ double stack wheelhouse. Moving a container 2000+ miles via double stack is much less costly than trucking. The rail cost advantage is very real. What is yet to be seen is if that line haul cost advantage can offset disadvantages, such as the cubic capacity loss, for a significant amount of reefer freight.
I looked at the PDF that Greyhounds included and in one of the pics you see that Hyndui built the containers. I placed a call yesterday to one of the Compaines I drove for. I asked him if he would even consider running a Hyundi Reefer trailer. He told me NOT EVEN IF THEY WERE GIVING THEM TO ME. For a Standard 53foot Dry Van they are 1000 lbs heavier. For a reefer they are coming in 2000 lbs heavier than a Great Dane which is Known to be the HEAVIEST THING OUT THERE. I asked him to call and get the tare weights on these things Ready to run. He did and called me back. He told me HE WOULD LOOSE 50% of his CONTRACTS SINCE HE COULD NOT CARRY THE REQUIRED WEIGHT EVEN WITH A MIDROOF SLEEPER. HIS CONTRACTED WEIGHT AMOUNT IS 44,000 WITH A 53 FOOTER. HE GOES I DOUBT I COULD HAUL 38,000 WITH THIS SETUP NO MAJOR SHIPPER IS GOING TO PAY TO LOSE 6,000 LBS SINCE THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO SHIP AN EXTRA CONTAINER EVERY 6 LOADS THIS IS GOING TO BE A HUGE LOSS FOR THE COMPANIES STUPID ENOUGH TO DO IT.
I SAID IT EARLIER IN THE LAST THREAD IF KLLM ONE OF THE LEADING OTR COMPANIES COULD NOT MAKE CONTIANERS WORK NO WAY IN HADES IS JB HUNT OR NFI BOTH OF WHICH HAVE NEXT TO NO EXPERIANCE IN REEFER GOING TO MAKE IT WORK. JUST FROM THE PRODUCTIVATY LOSS THIS IS DEAD ON ARRIVAL.
ed, thanks for following up on the tare weight question and getting that data on the OTR trailers. [bow] I agree that a 15 % or so payload loss penalty would be a business-killer in a tight competitive market where very dollar counts, such as OTR. What we’ll have to see now if that handicap carries over and also applies to a mostly rail-hauled intermodal operation too - or whether that’s different enough to be able to overcome that disadvantage.
Interestingly, NFI is in NJ just outside of Phila., I’m wondering if the Pennsylvania’s extra 10,000 lb. allowance for intermodal vehicles that I’ve mentioned before in one of the other threads is a factor with this - enough to get the reefer container off the train and to a nearby Distribution Center where it can be broken down and reloaded into conventional reefers with the usual weight capacity for local delivery. As greyhounds said, we’ll just have to see. I’ll try to ‘keep my ear to the ground’ to see if there’s anything in any of the local papers or business journals about how this is going. Even a failed experiment can be a source of information as to how to do it better next time.
ed, you’re nothing if not persistent and ‘vocal’. [tup] Oftentimes a informed skeptic can be the best friend for a new concept. I appreciate your contributions.
"The 77-year-old NFI operates nearly 10,000 vehicles and 15 million square feet of warehouse space at 50 locations nationwide, including nine in New Jersey. About 1,000 of its global work force of 5,000 are in the state, according to acompany fact sheet. By all indications, NFI — ranked No. 15 on the NJBIZ list of top 100 private companies — has dodged the recession. The company’s eight divisions are on pace to increase its 2008 revenue, which was nearly $750 million, by 5 percent to 10 percent, said Sidney Brown, its chief executive.
Was watching this on my messages on my cell. Had to thru my [2c] worth in. And then add more.
As I said earlier I could not remember one of the reasons why Refridgerated containers were abandoned by my company. One of the reasons was the loss of cube space and the heavier tare weight of equipment. The eqiupment ended up on barge operations in the carribean. Some of the containers are still used by the company as storage space(used containers are real good for this).
With 53’ truck trailers a lot of times you end up with cargo’s that either cube out(fill the box floor to ceiling , front to rear) or they weigh out (truck at 80000lbs) It is a very good shipper that can do both. Many of my companies regular shippers have a very good load software that helps them to do both and on top of that also balances the cargo so that you can legally drive down the road. Loads to California can be especially challenging as Ca has a very short kingpin to rear axle length (40’)
If your smart what you can do is (as an example, and if you have a mix of freight, load heavy stuff forward and light stuff aft. Say frozen dinners forward and frozen waffles in the back.
Yes there are shippers that do this all the time.(both refridgerated and dry). The fun part is when the loaders don’t follow the plan and then no one bothers to weigh the truck after loading. Then someone finds themselves in say Banning, Ca or Mojave, in the summer with the CHP saying make it legal.(have had to drag an empty trailer to the above a couple of times. customer was very unhappy about seals).
Getting back to the subject at hand. the loss of space 3473.8 cu ft vs 3683.6 cu ft
It is the interior length that hurts. In a 53 ft trailer you have 30 pallet positions. these are 40" x 48" GMA or blue CHEP pallets loaded sideways.
Just as information, when I was researching this equipment 18 months ago Hyundai specified a weight of 13,691pounds for the box and TK unit. That’s without fuel. You can get a 53’ chassis down to 6,900. That 13,691 is obviously plus or minus one or two percent. They’re all not going to weigh exactly 13,691 pounds.
So; with 50 gallons of fuel for the highway move at 7.3 pounds per gallon we have:
15000# is a workable weight for a tractor if you are not going very far with it. Many of the smaller sleeper trucks are in the 14000-16000 lb range and definitely any of the lighter day cabs.
One other question. Could someone tell me where to find specs on containers. More specifically I was wondering where to look for overhang rules for domestic containers.
I’ll comment on this. The reason refrigerated trailers are allowed 53 Ft like a dry van is that highway rules allow a 5 ft overhang from the body of the trailer. This was a change many years ago that allowed refrigerated trailers to go from 43 1/2 ft to 45ft .
The reason I ask about the overhang rules is would it be possible to have the unit overhang the end of the box? If nothing else have an electrically powered unit like an ocean container and hang a diesel generator underneath the highway chassis and on the end of a platform for rail.
AFAIK a domestic container/chassis/tractor combination is subject to exactly the same size and weight limits as a tractor trailer combination once it leaves the intermodal terminal gate and enters a public highway. So the reefer unit overhang should be the same.
I’m not exactly thrilled with the Hyundai design. They’ve recessed the reefer system into the 53’ length. No overhang. This reduces the cubic capacity of the container. For some freight, this won’t matter. For some freight, it will be a deal breaker. I don’t like deal breakers.
The problem is that you’ve got to get the overhang of the reefer unit all into the upper 6.5 feet off the front of the container. Take a look at this stack car. The bottom of the lower container will set about three feet in the well.
So, you’ve got to get the refrigeration system and fuel all above that three feet. It’s certainly possible. 20 years ago (when double stack was new) &nbs
What I don’t know is what are the domestic rules governing the size of containers on Railways. And more importantly could you have an overhang on the front?
What I am wondering is are their regs or rules(for railroad use) that require that unit be placed within the container framework. If I am reading the FMCSR’s (the highway regulations) correctly the container framework would be considered the body of the vehicle. The definitions(highway rules) are elastic.
is designed to carry trailers as well as double stack containers. The car can carry up to a 57 ft. trailer, two 28 ft trailers, or containers of various lengths. It has a 53 ft. well length. The hitches to secure the trailers are located on the car deck outside the well. When any trailer of any length is loaded the length of the trailer at, and ahead of, the kingpin is going to overhang the well. There is about 9 ft. of car length on each end extending past the well. Please note that the spec sheet says the car can handle nose mounts on reefer containers.
The overhang of a TK unit on a 53 ft box extending beyond the well is not an issue except for one thing. The bottom container has to fit in that 53 ft. well. That would be approximately the bottom three feet of the container. Above that height, and only above that height, can the refrigeration unit overhang the well. So, there is about six (or six and a half ) feet to work with.