Try and get customers to make relations with those of the opposite ends of the route to further spur local growth.
Create a train
Make it high priority, and give it an enticing name, to hopefully attract shippers.
Give it as much frequency as needed, adjusting with the changes in the economy.
Put an intermediate stop at Clearing Yard Chicago for crew changes between the WSOR and the INRD, as well as to set off and pick up loads (the train would be manifest combined with Intermodal)
Use the best locomotives from the two regionals.
Obviously the WSOR doesn’t have property up to Green Bay, let alone have haulage rights. In theory it sounds good, but could it work?
They do have haulage rights on CSX from Terre Haute to Chicago via Danville and Woodland Jct. The issue would be talking about using at least 3 crews to get from Chicago to Indy via Terre Haute, which would increase your costs, let alone almost 24 hours of transit time. The BRC charges a pretty penny to run non owner roads, neither the WSOR or the INRD have ownership intereste in the BRC if I recall correctly. Frequency on the WSOR side would be an issue, as they are faced with Metra slotting. On top of the operational issues, is there a demand for such a service? It seems like a non starter to me.
the BRC must be using haulage rights as their life line then, since almost everyone goes to Clearing…
The Metra issue could be lessened if they built a switch at Prarie Crossing from the MDN TO the NCS, which has a lot fewer commuter trains, none on the weekend/holidays, and now only sees five freights go down the WC past Mundelein, give or take one or two…You’d also have the opportunity to exchange your BRC trackage rights for IHB trackage, or even going down on the CSX along 290 if need be. Not sure about the rates of either, though. And yes…the INRD haulage from Terre Haute is one of the biggest issues, as well as recrewing. Heck…it might even take a second WSOR crew for that leg of the route, making four crews, also cutting profits from the train…
I guess the proper way to look at it would be to give it a SWOT analysis…
Green Bay to Indy is far too short of a haul to make an efficient intermodal service lane. At less than 400 miles you could drive a truck at 60mph between the two points before a trailer could be moved from a shipper, loaded onto a railcar, marshalled into a train, shipped, yarded, unloaded and then hauled to the reciver.
In fact, a trucker would only be given 12 hrs transit time for such a load. I’m not a rail industry expert, but from what I’ve seen a trailer shipped via such a service as you describe would wait in the intermodal yard to be loaded, then for the train to be asembled, and then sent down the line only to have to wade through the Chicago terminal congestion, interchanged between the two rail lines and then moved on to Indy.
If two trailers left a shipper at 8am, the truck would likely be in Indy before 8pm. The trailer sent via rail would be on board a train that was probably just leaving the intermodal yard in Milwaulkee. The train would likely have a 5pm cut-off for all loads to be hauled that day, loading would finish, the crew called, the train assembled and air tests done and then sent on its way.
If things worked well the train would arrive to an intermodal faclity in Indy sometime the next day and the trailer would be delivered in the morning of the second day. It’s simply the way the system works out for such short hauls.