A lot of the appeal, to me at least, about railroads is the history-what happened, and why it happened. Something just as interesting, is contemplating the future of railroading.
Over the last few years, I’ve seen many references to studies that railroading will be in an expansion mode in the near future. I can’t recall the numbers, but it seems like I’ve read something like a 30% increase in ton-miles in the next 20 years(?)
How are railroads going to accomplish this? How will that change the face of railroading as we know it today?
That’s not really a huge increase, at least not over that time frame - only about 1.5 % per year (simple rate - not “compounded”), which is actually a little less than the usual annual increases in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other economic measures.
Without seeming to be too complacent, a variety of factors will probably bring a lot of that traffic to the rails without too much effort on their part - the natural drive for efficiency/ economy by shippers of all kinds, fuel considerations, truck driver shortages, low water levels on the MidWest waterways, environmental factors, etc.
What the rails will have to do to accomodate it - that’s the interesting part. I’ll think about that a while. Increasing physical capacity is the critical part. Electrification is my “pet” solution. Adding tracks in key areas to increase capacity - increasing the performance and “through-put” of yards and terminals, such as the Chicago CREATE projects, the NS Shenandoah and “Heartland” corridors, and so on. “More Power !” to keep the road fluid, as Railway Man pointed out in the “Location” thread. And so on.
Don’t quote me on those growth figures. I was guessing from memory, which is dangerous. Maybe someone else can recall what some of those recent growth projections were.
My guess is that the RR’s will not resort to double- or triple-tracking except in cases where there is no route alternative – like the desert or over the mountains to California.
This may be a WAG but I suspect in the foreseeable future, the big RR’s will get permission and use other lines, especially those “short” lines that aren’t so short, especially in the Northeast. If time were no consideration, how many ways are there to route a coal unit train from the Mississippi River to the Boston area? Under today’s laws it is not inconceivable that a computer-generated list of available alternative (short) lines can be drawn up and constantly updated, possibly even to the Big Six’s’ being able to (automatically) electronically book one train/one line for temporary service, complete with scheduling and manifest. If the laws go back to “re-regulation,” I suspect the Bigs will lobby hard to make agreements with the shorts more flexible (if not outright acquisition), and make run-throughs easier.
A lot of the reason for possible roundabout methods as I’ve discussed above is that there is just so freakin’ much red tape to go through to build a new line, sometimes even to go (or go back) to double- or triple-tracking, what with environmental reports, aquisition, NIMBY’ism, and such other things that are frequently discussed in these forums. - a.s.
Al, do you see a revival of routings such as the “Alphabet Route” which linked Chicago and the Midwest with the East Coast, including New England, and had crews running through interchange points, and was competitive with the NYC?
For those who had never heard of the Alphabet Route, it comprised the NKP, W&LE, P&WV, WM, RDG, CNJ, L&HR, and NYNH&H.
Not to say that this is going to “take care” of the capacity problem, it won’t, but PTC will help with some traffic capacity. I also think, since rail traffic is down, railroads are using this as a time to breath and double and tripple track some of the primary lines for more capacity. I also think that some public support wouldn’t hurt any. The public seems to think that the railroads just don’t exist anymore. The ones who realise that we are still here think we suck pretty mutch.
Governmant support will be a great help too. Intermodal traffic will speed up the shipping process, so that people will realise the rr’s aren’t alway’s late. Also I’ve noticed that NS at least is is expanding yard trackage. The new ECP break’s, if theay work, will allow less distance to stop a train. That ='s the ability to run trains more closley together. There again you will add a little more capacity. Hope that this is helpful
I was thinking narrowly like a good stereotypical (civil) engineer - mainly only of physical changes and improvements.
But al-in-chgo is right to point out that the same can be achieved such as with agreements with short lines. Some easy examples are BN’s (now BNSF) with the Montana Rail Link, NS with the W&LE, NS with Guilford to get to Boston, CP and CN with each other to NYC, CN buying the WC, the USX roads, and now the EJ&E, and various others.
I don’t think we’ll ever see rails relaid over Snoqualmie Pass (ex-MILW Puget Sound / Pacific Coast Extension), but they’re still there and used occasionally at Stampede Pass, and still in at Tennessee Pass.
Some of the rest of al’s ideas are intriguing, bu quite believable - esp. the automated / electronic booking of temporary detour or trackage rights moves. With as much standardization and interchange and locomotive sharing/ run-throughs as there is now - at the operating end, it really doesn’t matter much whose train it is. As long as the crew is qualified for the district and the locomotives, and the train meets safety requirements - just climb on and Highball ! If not already pre-determined as al suggests, then just let the accountants sort out the interline payments later, as with detour moves.
You’re probably not mistaken, Norris. This was lifted from the company website:
With the Department of Transportation (DOT) projecting U.S. freight railroad demand rising 88 percent by 2035, UP is committed to maintaining its 32,200 track miles to meet current and future demand.
There have also been articles in both Trains and Railway Age showing current and future capacity constraints.
Johnny, Your analogy is great, but I don’t know about those particular routes. Since I stuck my neck out on modern technology, it probably won’t be a matter of a shipping clerk or RR transportation dept. employee having his/her favorite routings. With today’s technology ( but only if the need is great enough to bother and the specific software is forthcoming, yada) it could be almost entirely computerized.
Analogy: When I take the free “Super Saver” shipping from Amazon, I have to accept a longer delivery window, and I can’t specify whether the carrier will be USPS or UPS (that may apply to all Amazon orders, I’m not sure). Usually it’s USPS, once in a while UPS. Perhaps a logistics dept. has to figure out the comparative advantage of each and every order, but I doubt it. Don’t know for sure, but if the decision how to route were computerized, it would make sense to me. Of course, the Logistics or RR Shipping dept. (whatever) will need some human beings around, even if they are only computer support techs. It can’t be completely automated, but again I don’t see every single train or carload being examined as to the comparative advantage of using one routing over the other. Too many variables and probably too much money to be saved for people to work each detail through.
Similarly, my high-tech future scenario envisions that not every box
PTC will not increase capacity. Unfortunately it may significantly harm capacity, because it uses braking algorithms that expect the worst-case wheel-rail adhesion scenario, whereas an engineer will use braking appropriate for the rail conditions at the instant, which are usually much better than worst-case.
With a few specific exceptions, old secondary lines will not be returned to service to alleviate capacity maximums on existing lines. The cost to reconstruct the track, signal, and structures on a moribund line (where the track, signal, and structures are invariably junk or darn close to it) is very close to the cost for an additional track plus signal and structures on an existing line, and, the secondary line closed to through traffic will still be cursed with excessive operating cost that rendered it moribund in the first place.
Converting carload or bulk freight to intermodal does not create capacity, it costs capacity. Intermodal is signficantly less efficient in delivery of ton-miles per train-mile than carload, and much less efficient than bulk freight.
The correspondence between gross ton miles and the GDP in the last 20 years is nearly perfect. Graphed together, the lines pretty much lay on top of each other. However, this correspondence may diverge positively in favor of GTM in the future, because the ability of truck and water-born freight to compete for inland and coast-wise transportation is shrinking. On the other hand, the cost pressures that are harming truck may have such severe parallel effects on the general economy that rail freight demand regresses and it loses whatever growth it might have otherwise experienced. But I think that even in the worst-case scenario, the rate of change in rail freight demand will not dip below the rate of change in the GDP.
Suppose the GDP grows, on average, at a modest 2.34% compounded over the next 30 years. At the end of 30 years that doubles the
I didn’t think PTC would speed up trains, nor do I think there’s much of a chance of bringing dead lines back to life. With the costs of new double/triple/etc lines being what it is, isn’t the future in speeding up trains on the existing lines? I wonder too, if an expansion in traffic might push out some of the (in the future) less desireable traffic? For example, this month’s Trains Magazine talks about 110 car shuttle loading grain facilities squeezing out smaller facilities. Could that be a pattern used for some other traffic as well? RWM’s example of loose car shippers and logistics parks seems to say yes.
It is much to wade through, but the Surface Transportation Commission final report takes an in depth look at the future and future requirements for all modes. http://transportationfortomorrow.org/final_report/ I don’t know if it is spelled out in this report, but I think the AAR has tossed out numbers of $100 billion+ for the capacity espansion needed to handle all the rail traffic at levels expected in the next 20-25 years. However present trends suggest that the rails will only be able to come up with around 80% of the money needed from internal cash flow and borrowings.
The industry is striving to increase velocity which is not the same thing as speed. Velocity is the total system throughput time. The means and methods of increasing it include reducing dwell time in terminals, and waits for meet and pass events. Increasing speed, however, is not economically attractive because the fuel consumption and locomotive-hours per train-hour increase dramatically.
As congestion increases, the capability suffers of small, inefficient Origin-Destination pairs to compete large, efficient Origin-Destination pairs. Many shippers and consignees are located and constructed with little thought to whether they can compete in a market where railways are not chasing after the last possible carload to fill a train to tonnage. Shuttle elevators appeared in the 1980s and have already wiped out thousands of country elevators. The small country elevator that cannot load 26-car blocks has already ceased to exist except where served by a short line that is squeezing out the last value of the physical plant for cash flow.
RWM: Your post on velocity brings on the question; With the downturn in traffic is velocity improving and if so does that mean a more efficient use of rolling stock and therefor a mothballing of more equipment than a straight line relationship to decreased traffic would seem to allow?
I’ll tackle this one…on our little railroad (the one that runs trains behind yellow power), velocity has been above goal for the most part since last fall, and the goal, which had previously been in the 17-18 mph range for the past several winters, has now been placed as over 20 (keep in mind that UP uses a different method of calculating velocity in-house, that reduces the figure). They say that each mile per hour gained in velocity is the same effect as adding in excess of 200 locomotives to the fleet.
“When the railroad returns, not if, it will not only transform the half-forgotten jewels that lie along the nation’s obscure operating railroad routes but also reshape regions far from existing tracks. Return will alter everyday life more dramatically than the arrival of personal computers, Internet connections, or cell phones. Return will remake the United States economy in ways that private-sector savants already anticipate. However difficult it is to imagine a grass-grown railroad track becoming a high-speed, heavily trafficked route, it is still more difficult to imagine grass growing through the pavement of interstate highways. But a least some people with imagination have made the intellectual leap…whether or not they know it, millions of Americans live in an economy waiting for the train…” (Page 14).
Longer trains - RWM alluded to this just above, and provided numbers for coal trains over the past couple of decades. If I recall correctly, it was 110 cars, now 115 cars, going to 135 cars, soon-to-be 150 cars. That’s a 36 % increase in about 20 years, to match the need. Intermodals are lengthening similarly.
ECP braking and DPU operations will facilitiate longer trains, as they become more widespread, familiar, and “settled” technology. That will enable to each train to get more traffic into and through each “slot” in the operating schedule. There were articles and letters in Trains in the 1970s about 150 to 200 car trains on either the GM&O or the IC. Also, now that roller bearings are universal, defect detectors are more common and getting better in capacbility and communication, and the mechanical people are getting more sophisticated, running longer trains ought to be more feasible without so much of a problem from declining reliability as more cars are added - each with its own probability of failure, and which - generally and simplified - causes the probability of a train delay to be proportional to the individual car’s failure probability, but raised to thepower = number of cars. John Kneiling called for 5-mile trains, and look at what the Australians are doing - though I don’t think we’ll see 500 car trains here soon. But I can see regular operation of 200+ car trains with several DPU sets spaced at about every 50 cars or so in the near future. A continuing trend will also be to “incentivize” or force traffic onto or into unit train operations - either bulk or intermodal - to avoid inefficiencies in local switching and yard activities (see below).
RWM mentioned in another thread the operational efficiency tendency for most trains on a line to move at pretty
As long as there are customers who need small lots of cars (or even one), there will be the need to sort them along the line. The alternative is sending the loads to trucks, which we mostly agree is not a desireable solution.
Of course, intermodal can figure into that, removing the “first mile” and “last mile” by rail and replacing it with a TOFC or container which is handled by trucks.
I think the railroads already do a reasonable job with single car traffic - pre-blocking and the like. The issue would appear to be in capacity - both raw cars and the ability to efficiently sort them.
Perhaps Carl can enlighten us to approximately how long it would normally take to get a 150 car over the hump, never mind the time it takes a crew to trim up each of the resulting cuts.
And a question that just occurs to me - are cars ever run over the hump twice? That is to say that track 47 has all the cars for destination X, but they are then reblocked for points beyond X before they leave? Or is that the job of the folks at X yard?