Referring back to the blog piece linked to the locked thread entitled, “What Changes Must Be Made In The Trucking Industry?”, I have some ideas that pertain to the relationship between railroading and trucking. I brought this up in the locked thread, but the thread was locked before these ideas could be explored. I know that many in the trucking industry are passionate about being squeezed by costs and regulations. If they are passionate about what is happening now, I cannot imagine how they are going to feel as this new pro-rail, anti-truck transportation agenda moves forward as public policy as the FRA alludes to in their new mission statement.
In reading the abovementioned blog piece, I must say the first writer has sure put some creative juice into crafting his message to hit all the buttons. But his vengeance is understandable considering that he is pushing back against this emerging societal message that rail is the Primadonna of “green” transportation, and that trucking should take a back seat and just move freight from the shipper to the nearest railhead, and vice versa.
From sources including the FRA, the Trains article, WIRED UP, and think tanks cited within that article, I keep hearing the message that “we” need to get trucks off the highways and shift their freight to rail
mmmm–interesting blog piece there–and you are right about his general crabbiness[:-^]
The thing I’m kinda curious about is how one is going to fund the dang needed infrastructure when the $$$$ flow is not quite up to snuff[:-^]
The one thing I’m curious about is also just which areas are going to be ‘targetted’ for the infrastructure projects? It appears that most of this will be in major urban areas—which will make the rural areas that much more the sole province of the trucking industry —or what?[%-)]
It depends on whether we use the carrot or stick approach to get truck traffic onto rails. With the carrot, we rebuild railroads, develop new, faster trains, and reinvent the terminals, so the whole system will be more attractive to shippers than long haul trucking.
With the stick approach, we just add taxes or fees to long haul trucking to make rail the most favorable choice, even if it is slower.
So we only need the dollars for the carrot approach, not with the stick. With the stick, transportation just slows down to save fuel for the nation.
It’s coming to the point were there not going to be a matter of choice. It’s not just fuel efficiency that is a huge plus to trains; other factors like taking through traffic trucking off the interstates, and the cheaper rates and maintenance of the rail infrastructure.
I have mentioned this fact in another thread; the key rail routes need more tracks for intermodal trains to pass the slower manifest, coal, grain trains, etc. Treating the major railroad routes more like fast interstate highways would make the trains even faster than trucks and improving intermodal Terminal loading/unloading times.
After decades of neglect; upgrades are severely needed. If the restructuring of the “Steel Interstate” system should be treated as the construction of the highway interstates. With great investment would rely turn out for the better.
Short-haul trucking needs to adapted to the changing times. It needs too if the nation’s economy is going to thrive and function while meeting quick delivery demands.
Just let the price of motor fuel continue its long term path up to $4.00, $5.00 and $5.00+ per gallon. My only wish is that the Commonwealth of Virginia would shift their tax rate from cents/gallon to % of selling price.
John G. Kneiling used to write in the late 1960’s and 1970’s about how that was the approach taken in Great Britain and the rest of Europe. He especially liked to point out that the result was just more expensive trucking - that the railroads were still not competitive in the minds of the shippers - unless the railroad intermodal service was improved = faster.
So - Yes, we’ll need the dollars for the ‘carrot approach’. But I think the improvements ought to be identified, planned, designed, and funded by the users, such as the railroads and their shippers = the market, not by a government agency that’s attempting to predict how this particular market is going to evolve and reshape itself, in all of its variations and nuances in the many different locations all across this vast nation - it’s not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. That’s not to say that there’s no role for government agencies, such as ‘authority’ financing, owning and ‘operating’ - perhaps via private contractor management - a giant public team track/ intermodal terminal in certain locations, keeping a level playing field, and enforcing the rules and user fee collections or taxes, etc. But I believe that the community of those users is better at identifying the best and most cost-effective ‘fixes’ that they actually need to fulfill a demand or solve a problem that is impeding them, and then ‘self-financing’ it through user fees or a tax, etc. That helps to assure that it’s the actual users - the ones who receive the benefits - are the same ones who mostly pay for it, instead of the public at large, some of which may have no use for the improvement.&nb
What do you think CARB in Commiefornia is trying now. Basically forcing companies to retire perfectly GOOD equipment and replace it with crap just to run their state. However 90% of the companies are small less than 30 trucks and can not afford to replace everything on the schedule CARB wants. So the large Companies will get all the Frieght. Trouble is the big boys do not have enough drivers trailers and such. What are they goiing to do shove it all on the RR considering that CARB also wants bigger cuts in Emmissions from the RR’s than the EPA does. CARB is going to take the 8th largest ECONOMY and destroy it because they can. The RR’s can not haul the Produce out of the Central Valley they ripped out all the loading tracks. So how are the RR’s supposed to help haul the crap out. Transloading anytime you reload produce you risk BRUISING THE HELL OUT OF IT.
Longtime Trains columnist John G. Kneiling also liked to point out that in his admittedly cynical view, such environmental and other regulations usually also resulted in ‘turfing out’ the little guys. Ed Benton above seems to be providing yet another real-life example of that effect at work in California.
Would this be an opportunity for refrigerated RoadRailer service ? Load off-the-rail/ on-the-tires at the produce picker’s/ processor’s warehouse, dray to either an existing intermodal terminal or a new ‘team track’ operation to assemble into a daily inter-line train to the Midwestern (Chicago) and NorthEastern US points, where it is broken up for final delivery by highway ?
Wouldn’t the California example noted above have the self-leveling effect of making produce from other areas and even other countries more cost competitive?
Interesting point Paul. Would the equipment (trailers) work with extant rail equipment? What about the cooling units? Who would check those en route while on rails? I like that idea though, but I’d bet someone somewhere looked at it. There must be a “yeah, but…” somewhere with that.
Well if this is something that should happen, and if we expect to make it happen by private investment, why not just let the marketplace bring it about. If it should happen, it will happen.
However, what I keep reading about are big plans to force it to happen. Why do that?
Good questions. Yes - sure seems like it. Amtrak tagged RR’s onto the back of some of its trains for a few years in the mid-1990’s. That can be done in theory with mainline freights, too, but isn’t seen in actual practice - they all seem to be dedicated operations.
"Garrity says that Carrier Transicold units were chosen for the fleet, because Carrier seemed to be farther along with its remote tracking and system control at the time the order was placed.
Ice Cold Express keeps track of trailer location and load condition through a tracking and communication system provided by Arinc in Colorado Springs. The Arinc system uses a flat antenna that glues to the trailer roof. Communication equipment hooks directly to the refrigeration unit’s microprocessor controls.
Thanks, Zug. [tup] I thought so, but I couldn’t find anything on the TCS website that mentions it to confirm my aging memory, so I didn’t want to say so without being sure. See “Triple Crown Services - RoadRailer Fleet - Equipment Specifications” at - http://www.triplecrownsvc.com/RRFleet.html and at - http://www.triplecrownsvc.com/Equipment.html - which describes only the dry vans.
More interesting for this thread is the following TCS webpage:
It was news to me too that Triple Crown has reefers.
Anyway, I hope no one decides to “Help” the transition of long haul movements from truck to rail. Things are going in the right direction now. Just leave it alone and let it develop.
In another thread I posed the question as to why a large truckload carreir, JB Hunt, had transistioned from being 100% over the road to being primarily an intermodal operation while other motor carriers had not. (Some of the other larger truckload carriers, such as Schneider, are following business models similar to Hunt.) I said the reason was that JB Hunt was large enough to deal with railroads. Most truckers are not.
Here are two items from Marten Transport’s web site. They are particularly important because Marten is a large temperature controlled carrier that is increasingly focusing on rail intermodal for the longer hauls.
They’ve “transformed” themselves from a long haul over the road reefer operation. Now, just why would a company “transform” itself? Companies “transform” themselves when they see they’re going nowhere good. Marten aparently saw some real problems ahead for long haul trucking.
He’s the second. It’s a explination of why Marten is increasingly using intermodal.to move temperature controlled loads over longer distances.
It seems to me that with the introduction of the Interstate system years ago, the RR industry took a terrible beating, their loss of business was largely due to the fact that the trucking industry got “free” road systems (what competition), maintained by we the taxpayers (and don’t even try to tell me that the licenses for trucks pay their way), the trucks ‘tearell’ out of the roads. And tell me that an 80,000 lb (or more) monster roaring up to your rear bumper usually at speeds way in excess of their speed limit, (driven by someone quite often on some stimulant) isn’t a cause for concern about the safety of we little autos. Truckers act as if they own the road. Either incease the truckers cost to use the (free to them) roads, subsidize the RR’s to improve/expand their roadways to at least the status they were before the trucking industry got their big break,or both.
The trucking indusrtry and teamsters have had a stranglehold on the country for decades.
A relative of mine owns a trucking company and a freind was with a major trucking firm, and yes it’s been tougher than years past with the cost of fuel being so high, but it seems to me the RR’s use the same high priced fuel… Let both indusrties play by the same (equal) rules and let the market determine the best methjod of shipping. I suspect we’ll see a proper balance for both industries. As for the loss of jobs, it seems that trains had more personnel years ago, hey, the trucking companies would robotize the driving of trucks NOW if they could.and many of us have had to change careers due “modernization, new forms of competition” etc.
Cbqjohn, if you have that mindset about professional drivers, then why are 75% of the car/truck accidents caused by the car? (true study, look it up)
Anyway, more freight will probably only go to rail if a) the price of fuel jumps to around 6 to 8 bucks/gallon, and b) transit times on rail drops. Example: I can drive a load from Neenah, WI to Cherokee, AL in 25 hours, legally, burning about 140 gallons of diesel. I’m not aware of anything short of intermodal that can go just over 800 miles in that short of a time period.
The railroads have many advantages over trucks…fuel efficiency…the ability to operate with far less labor… are just two of many. However, trucking has one advantage that trumps all: the trucking industry can tap directly in to the entrepreneurial spirit that is the wellspring of all good things in the US and Canada. Anyone with ambition and modest savings can start his own business…that one fact alone has been the trucking industry’s saving grace…
That is certainly the impression. And although it is true that the fault in car - truck crashes lies with the passenger auto driver about 75% of the time, these are a sampling of the difficulties of two such different vehicle types sharing the road:
