Impact on freight railroads?
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Very little if any.
It will be self regulating. After a few speeding collisions, the businesses will wise up.
Rey little if any. Railroads have not found high speed profitable in many cases. The silk craze is over, the Super C was a flop, none of the intermodals like the Apollos or Alpha Jets lasted very long. The last thing I saw was UPS testing faster Z trains with Genesis power, and that of course did not survive long with PSR.
Now we have notch restrictions and intermodal as a commodity too many places, and no inexpensive switching even with road power. So if you want fast transport with reasonably assured premise delivery, itâs not going to be a train that likely provides it.
I was depressed at the demise of the CP Exoressway service. It was not lack of vision and not lack of competent management and marketing that killed it. But youâre not going to see it, or even remotely expedited Cold Connect service, againâŚ
Maybe it will help my frustration behind two semis side-by-side, with one passing the other going one-half mph faster, and taking ten minutes to get around.
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Removing governors gets Washington out, but small towns and state troopers in, in, inâŚ
Half a MPH difference is high speed on I-81 - they are at 0.1 MPH difference.
Tried I-81 one time on a trip from Jacksonville to Summit Point, WV instead of I-95 - NEVER AGAIN.
Smokey and the Bandit was a work of fiction.
Speed costs money, how fast do you want to go out of business?
Trust me, it does frustrate us as much as it does you.
What many people in autos donât seem to notice is how many autos pull that poopy. The CMS ( Collision Mitigation System) in many trucks will display how fast the vehicle ahead of you is moving, the distance to that vehicle and your following distance in seconds
I canât tell you how often I will come up behind a slow auto, that is not even doing my speed limit, never mind the auto speed limit, just to have them speed up, as I try to pass them. They will typically pace me about 20-50â ahead of me, in the right lane, until I give up and get back behind them, only to have them slow down again. It isnât just governed trucks having turtle races, yep that does happen, but autos deserve more credit/blame than they usually get, and in that situation it is completely avoidable
As to the government âDoing Awayâ with governors, I donât know of any government regulations that Require governors, companies use them because they get rate reductions from their insurance carriers for having them, those that use them probably wonât change their ways
I have driven trucks without governors, and a truck with a governor set at 80 mph, which was/is the speed limit in Utah, where I was running to weekly, I never got a speeding ticket in any of those trucks. Nor did I have any desire to drive them that fast, where it wasnât allowed, But it sure was Nice to have that ability to actually Pass someone in a more appropriate manner
Doug
The measure blocks a proposed mandate for governors.
And: It also includes a $275m investment in expanding truck parking spaces and simplifying the wording of federal regulations.
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Rented a long distance U-Haul truck that had a 55 MPH governor. If you worked it ârightâ you could get 62 MPH a lot of the time. A very frustrating trip from Florida to Maryland on I-95.
Most carriers set their own speed limits. They run from the lower end of Prime Schneider and JB Hunt at around 60 to 62 mph to Swift and their entire family at 65. Crete has 65 on the foot 68 on cruise. Werner is at 65 Heartland has everything set at 70.
Thereâs very few trucks out there running 75 plus especially with fuel as high as it is. About the only ones that will be running that fast are livestock haulers Southern Pride aka the jet engine transporting company and maybe some owner operator drivers. But the rest are keeping in slower to keep your costs down.
Iâve driven trucks that were capable of doing speeds faster than west coast speed limits. Did I ever run them there maybe but letâs just say that my bosses all hated the fuel bill for anything over 75 mph. At 75 mph 
a 88 international truck that was setup properly for higher speeds got 5.5 mpg better than she got at 65 and slightly lower than the 5.8 at 55 mph. Why so good at 75 when youâre literally turning the transmission 2 times for every 1 turn of your engine it helps.
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I hadnât heard about this measure yet.
As has been mentioned, the governors causing turtle races frustrates everyone, I donât want to drive around everywhere at 75 mph, but being able to pass another vehicle, and get out of the way is nice
Expanding parking is badly needed, the lack of parking would be analogous to a railroad having a bunch of 6500â sidings, with just an occasional 18,000â siding. We often have to shut down more than an hour early, just because we donât have enough parking, and going over HOS, driving around looking for a place to park is no excuse
I just interviewed and road tested on Monday with a fuel distributor, so finding overnight parking wonât be an issue anymore. I will miss the longer runs, but the better pay, more home time and more Predictable schedule will definitely be nice. The change from tractor trailer to truck and trailer, with the double articulation will be interesting
Simplifying the wording in Federal regulations sure wonât be a bad thing
Doug
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Yes and increasing gridlock and congestion on our limited capacity interstate systemâŚthis is not going to make much of difference in the trucking industry with speed of transport. Rails still have the advantage even at slower speeds you can beat a OTR truck in transit time between point A and point B with absolute control over what moves and what does not.
The analogy about adding sidings to overnite parking would be better if the trucking industry paid for parking, same as rails pay for sidings.
Agree that additional parking is needed, however, why should TAXPAYERS be the one that is providing it? I do most of my long distance traveling at night, in doing so nearly every Interstate Rest Area I pass has all truck parking spots filled as well as trucks parked on the edges of the entrance ramp and the exit ramp.
The railroad siding analogy is bogus. Railroad build their own âparking spacesâ on their own property and attempt to run a Operating Plan that doesnât overburden the physical plant that they have built and are operating. Railroads also have to end runs at premature locations account of the hours of service, however, railroads canât just leave the crew on the train for their rest period and have them be active at the conclusion of the rest period, like truckers can. Two different industries with two different operating constraints.
Agree. And I donât care to give the trucking industry additional subsidized infrastructure.
Hey guys, I wasnât suggesting how additional parking should be funded, I never said that it should be tax payer funded, I was just commenting that parking IS a huge issue
Again, I wasnât comparing parking and sidings in the context of who pays for them, but rather in how trucks can get âHeld Outâ further from their destinations simply because there is a shortage of parking, and a driver risks running afoul of HOS rules, if trying to find parking closer to their destination
You are among the very few that I have ever heard claim this. It is a very rare situation when the railroad can beat a truck dock to dock in transit times, which is why as much freight moves by truck as it does, Faster and more Predictable dock to dock times
It would vary from traffic lane to traffic lane but, my guess is that at around 1,000 miles it would make more sense to haul either as TOFC, or in domestic cans than to rubber tire most loads. High value, such as electronics, and perishables often still make more sense over the road, but there is a lot more cargo that in my opinion should go IM, but it gets back to, in too many cases people want to order Tomorrow, and Get it Yesterday, and the truck times are more predictable
Iâm a Trucker, AND a Railfan, frankly I have been a railfan even longer, by Decades, than I have been a truck driver, I see where each mode has itâs own strengths and weaknesses.
I have said for many years, that there are many more ways in which both industries can, and Should work together
Doug
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What sort of ârulesâ are contained in the truck bill of lading regarding âheldâ time for both load pick up and load delivery? Do the ârulesâ have teeth? Why arenât the ârulesâ monetarily enforced upon the shippers and consignees that violate them? If there arenât rules, why not?
Railroads have rules with a financial component regarding how shipments are delivered as well as how long the cars can be held for loading/unloading with the rules being applied by the day, not the hour.
I get the feeling the truck drivers, even for the big outfits, donât get the backing from their corporate apparatus in getting into and out of a customers facility with minimal delay.
Balt, what I was referring to by âHeld Outâ is that I have often had to layover for the day earlier than my HOS would require, because of the parking issue.
The Tri-Cities area of central Washington State is a great example, I have shut down many times with well over an hour available, because I know that if I get there even as early as 5:00 pm, there isnât likely to be any parking available. I have literally driven around a small area for over 20 minutes, just trying to find a place to park, and no available parking is not an excuse for an HOS violation
My current, soon be former employer does charge a âDetention Fee â for excessive wait times for loading or unloading at some customers, but it is hard to legally enforce if they donât have a standing agreement
Charlie had commented that expanded parking was a part of the bill, I just commented that Parking IS a major problem, I donât know what the answer is, but I didnât suggest that the taxpayers should fund it, just that it is a problem
Doug