I’ve read this term used in reference to NS,CN, and I think IC. It’s usually just given a quick overview type of explanation. What is it? How does it work,and how does it mesh with un-scheduled(?) railroads? Is it the best way to run a railroad? The wave of the future?
A few years back, NS stated that it was going to run “scheduled trains” no matter how much of the train was ready. I saw that happen for probably a few weeks ( it was kind of odd seeing 3 locos and 20-30 cars). I don’t think it lasted for long.
Hunter Harrison started it on the Illinois Central, and it made the railroad the most efficient in North America. CN bought IC and had him do the same thing on CN, making CN the most efficient in North America.
Terminals work best when arrivals are spread out, rather than arriving in bunches plugging the receiving yard. You start with the time you want a train to arrive and the time it takes to travel from the other terminal, and that tells you when it should leave from the other terminal. You also need to look at how many trains, and which type, are traveling over the connecting lines, so you can spread them out and keep them out of each others way. CN was the only major railway with a higher average speed in 2005 compared to 2004, because they manage their line capacity and the yard capacity better than the others.
There have been some complaints lately about how CN hauls grain in Canada, mentioning that CP does a better job. When a CN train leaves some of their terminals, they look at the length and tonnage of the train and have been adding grain cars and other traffic to the train if it is decided the train has extra room. CP prefers to move most of its grain in dedicated unit trains, which is more a more efficient way to move grain, but less efficient overall.
There is a certain amount of “scheduled” running, even on an unscheduled road. I can generally expect certain trains at certain times along the line I live near. The crews are normally called at a certain time for each of the trains. However, I can’t set my watch by them. The two through southbounds are essentially run-throughs - the delivering road has to deliver them on time, too.
Their arrival time at destination can be affected by something as simple as how many setouts and pickups they do at several yards along the line.
As china points out - sometimes the traffic that’s there doesn’t warrant even running a train. Other times a second section may be necessary. I’ve seen both.
There are several advantages to operating a schedueled railroad.
First, everybody can plan ahead with a reasonalbe degree of certainty. For operations with Just-In-Time operations, this is critical.
Planning ahead can also fit with the railroad operations also. Trains are made up with cut-off times, and if “the schedule” is being kept, all of the traffic makes the connection.
This has several advantages, some of which are reduced car hire, increased over-the-road speeds, reduced dwell times in yards, reduced crew delays and the resultant overtime and additional delay in crew availability, ability to service and inspect locomotives and cars in a meaningful way rather than “as fast as you can” and to also be able to make necessary running repairs.
There are other advantages, but all of them translate into an easier to run railroad, operated in a way the customers appreciate and at a reduced cost.
There is a business model that has three operating modes - the lowest possible cost (see McDonalds and Walmart), the highest possible product quality no matter the cost, and the best customer service (see Nordstrom).
This model says that only one result can be maximized and the other two may or may not be present - usually are not present. Current railroad operating practice seldom succeeds at any of those results.
Running a scheduled railroad manages to keep the cost of production (transportation) at its lowest level, creates the highest quality product possible, and automatically creates a very high level of customer service - the kind that easily exceeds the customers needs.
Eric,
While I agree with most of your post above I must sadly disagree that a scheduled railroad will “easily exceed the customers needs”. With motor carrier revenues 9 nor 10 times the railroads on half the volume, railroad service quality has a long, long way to go, even with a scheduled railroad.
Mac
True, but you start from where you are, not from where you want to be. If you begin to have the cars arrive when you say they will, you have already exceeded the customers expectations. That, among other things, causes trust in the service to improve, which creates more traffic. Then, of course, you need to do better, again exceeding the customers expectation with some other part of the service system.
Just getting the cars to their destination when you say they will get there will be a quantum improvement over present service, and it will reduce the cost of providing the transportation to the railroad.
For starters, you will get a capacity improvement simply because the cars will be available for a new load sooner.
From a customer perspective, a scheduled RR is all about the RR and not much about the customer. Actual service delivered has dimished under some of these schemes because of numerous hoops the customer has to jump through in order to meet the carriers demands (i.e. the CN IMX system). I’d guess that the RR makes more money, but these schemes turn out to be very customer un-friendly.
Does this cause other, awkward problems in equipment utilization? For example: not knowing if the 10:00A.M. train will be 30 cars with 2 locomotives, or 100 cars with 4 locomotives?
Murphy,
I doubt it. With a bit of practice train sizes should stabalize so I doubt you would get wild swings. From the yard’s point of view anything smaller than the maximum is easily handled, so that is a benefit.
Mac
That is another problem with railroad “customer service” - making the customer increase his own costs to lower the railroads costs just to get a load moved. My own job was ellimated in 1993 by just such a system - just enough short of my 30 years not to be able to receive my RRA at 60 ---- I now “get” to go to 68 and by then my SS just may be greater than my RRA. Ah, well, now I inspect 18-wheelers and build airplanes and do contract corporate security - three jobs that all together do not pay 1/2 of what my Station Agents position paid 15 years ago.
MAC is correct. You usually know as much as 16 hours (almost always at least 8) what is comming, so you can plan your yard moves, balance your crews, etc. Being scheduled, adds to this ease. You know a year in advance what is going to happen (well, within reason), it makes empty car distribution (for loading) much easier because you know when a car(s) is(are) actually going to go on spot - even if it still is 1500 miles away and not yet even on your own railroad, yet. You can plan your power - schedule your 92, 180 and annual inspections, repairs that do not result from a break-down, and so on. With the current systems, repairs usually don’t happen until the locomotive breaks, probably right in front of the hottest train on the railroad.
Not to mention you can adjust rates based on scheduled capacity availability. With a scheduled railroad, you can better fit in those unexpected extras at a time when it least impacts operations. Not all the traffic on a scheduled railroad has to be scheduled.
Nice topic.
Eric, can you fill us in on what a Station Agent did? I know things are really concentrated now with centralized customer service, and am curious as to how that works for customers today.
Also, what is the CN IMX system?
Now, a few more questions. Does a scheduled railroad mean the same as say…airline schedules? Is a train scheduled to leave at a certain time daily? Or does a scheduled railroad mean that each car is “scheduled” for delivery, as far as trains, reclassification, connecting train, etc? I have heard both.
As far as NS and CN…I live in a community which has both lines (Valparaiso, In). NS’s trains run tight. Their trains show up very regularly. Not that you can set your clock, but you can make an educated guess when you hear a whistle…and usually have a 50% chance of being correct, maybe more. And not just the intermodals either, but the general freights too.
CN on the other hand is not nearly as punctual. While NS’s trains are usually within an hour, CN’s can be 4-8 hours variation.
I wonder if CN is happy with their performance. Perhaps someone can fill us in.
ed
Go to CN’s web site, www.cn.ca. Basically IMX stands for InterModal eXcellence. Whether it is excellence or not is in the eyes of the beholder. What the previous post was referring to is the rules that all railroads have for in-gating, out-gating , storage charges, and demurrage charges relating to chassis, containers and trailers. Part of the so called problem is that with the growth of intermodal traffic and security concerns the railways have had to implement procedures that limit access to the ramps to bona fide carriers which are those that have an interchange agreement with the railway or an IMC and a pick up (release no,) number or a delivery number. In order to smooth the traffic flow of trucks in and out of the ramps the railways have generally assigned specific pick up and/or delivery times. If you miss your appointment you can still get in, but it is via the slow lane as opposed to the faster reserved lane.
Does scheduled railroading on the whole, get cars to their destinations faster, or simply in a more predictable fashion?
Here’s what “scheduled railroad” means on NS.
All merchandise and intermodal traffic moves on a commercial schedule. All trains in the train plan are to operate every day they are scheduled, regardless of size. The place to “fix” problems with the operations is at the train plan level, not by operating extras or annulling trains everyday. NS has very good tools for balancing traffic flow accross the network by adjusting the train plan.
It also means that every car gets a trip plan based on the train plan and connections/blocking at intermediate terminals.
The trains, connections, and individual car trips are all monitored and measured.
Not all trains on the network have fixed schedules, however. Coal and grain, for example, move based on customer demand on “dyanamically” created schedules.
In a perfect world, there would never be extras, annulments, held for power or crews. But the state of the art isn’t quite that good…yet.
oltmannd: That almost sounds like all trains are scheduled,except those that are unscheduled. Is the train plan constantly changing to meet current needs, or is it more of a slow adjustment over time?
What methods do railroads use for scheduling. In Britain the sevice is validated on a train graph with time along the horizontal axis and locations along the vertical. With this system you can get a clear indication of what trains are going to be in a given area at a given time and when you get trains fighting for space, the best place to hold a train. The main things we look for are headway between trains going in the same direction to make sure fast trains are not following slow trains for large distances and junction margins so a train does not show up at a junction just as a train in the oposite direction is diverging across its path. In addition many freight paths in Britain are headed as Q or Y paths in the working Time Table. Q is run as required, this week a power staition only needs a delivery every 3 hours not every 2 hours so every third train is canceled. Y is either or, there are two major coal loading points in Scotland, Falkland Yard and Hunterston, one week coal train 6E50 may start at Falkland the next it will start from Hunterston, but the train will have the same times from Barassie Jnt were the routes converge to its destination. I know British railways mainly deal with passenger trains but the principle is the same.
If a factory has connections with two railroads, would a scheduled railroad have a leg up on a non-scheduled railroad? kenneo’s post above makes it sound as if a facility with “Just in Time” operations would favor sceduled railroading. Would there be enough of an advantage, that the railroad could price their service higher?