I believe there are virtually no successful trucking firms out of the 100,000 trucking firms in the US. I base this on a couple of things. I recall having only read about two successful trucking companies over the years in the WSJ; UPS and Cedar Rapids Steel Transit. The other is a conversation with a smart intermodal guy during one of those long coffee breaks along Market St at the Espee. The only successful truck lines he could think of were a few operations with about 20 tractors that had found a lucrative niche. When they grew too big they would lose their service edge and the returns would suffer.
Perhaps others with more experience with trucking in places like downstate IL would care to expand on my limited exposure to trucking. The very specialized chemical trucking firms I worked with hauling plastics and petrochemicals were all at the edge of bankruptcy since Carter’s deregulation of the trucking business.
I think you are correct. It will be someone who flourished flipping homes in Vegas.
I was shocked to learn about five years ago that one of the Big 3 auto manufactures had contracted out their set-up auto physical distribution to UPS! I always was happy I never had to find out what the world would be like if one of my captive chemical producers had contracted his outbound shiping to UPS. As a capitive Texan once told me, “You’ve got me by the b**** but I’m in a perfect postition to p*** on you!” It was a sad day in railroading when the customers got bigger than us[oX)].
Its SOP in Europe, has been for a while. National borders and customs requirements caused it to happen, even though much of that has gone away with the formation of the EU and the EEC. Transfesa has the Ford contract (now they are part of DB Schenker), DB Schenker has Volkswagen, TX Logistics has Audi, There are also a few specialist Auto only Logistics companies. UPS and Fedex are trying to play catch up in the Logistics business to avoid being just a supplier.
You’ve got a good point. The “aggregation-and-batch method” used in railroading adds many “events” to a rail move. Each of these events has a possibilty for failure which will degrade service quality. They also add expense. These “events” are not present in a truckload move where the unit of sale is the same as the unit of production and a driver personally oversees each move and ensures its quality. As you say, it is hard for a railroad to match the service quality offered by a trucker.
However, if service qaulity was all that counted everything would move by truck. Service qaulity certainly has to be present, but it is part of a service
Hunts Point recieves truck loads every night of Meats, Seafood, Grocery, Fruits, Vegs etc… basically everything consumed the next day in NYC’s Butchers, Restraunts etc. While I dont claim Hunts supplies ALL of NYC’s food, I will say from experience that there is a great deal of inbound deliveries to Hunts from all around the USA and in some cases overseas as well.
Butter in from Baltimore, Seafood from Boston, Meats from the West and Produce from all kinds of places. I think Lemons out of Yuma, Cabbage and other Produce from Nogales, California and elsewhere.
To GET to Hunts Point requires stopping at one of the truckstops an hour or so away… Conneticut, New Jersey etc. And running in with hundreds of other trucks late in the afternoon and evening. By morning the outbounds empties start getting out of the city. The lucky ones get into Jersey or New England to reload before the rush hour.
Usually the GW (George Washington Bridge) recieves hundreds of trucks an hour on the upper deck plus more on the lower deck trying to get into Hunts from Jersey and I THINK it was the Throgs or White’s that took traffic i
On shipping produce. I’m one of those truck drivers(OTR gang) who pulls a refridgerated(temperature controlled) trailer.
A lot of produce these days gets moved in Truck Load quantities(ie 40,000lb lots/ 20 pallet) The patterns I see is that it moves very quickly & is absolutely not subject to delay unless someone really wants a lot of trouble. Cargo has to be temperature checked continously & must keep moving.
A lot of this can move 500 miles a day but there is a lot that has to move faster(ie team freight) .
There is a huge variety of not only refridgerated freight but also stuff that is temperature sensitive. (protect from freezing, protect from excessive heat, keep 0 deg f or below. maintain a temperture of xx to xx Deg F).
Railroads are getting a little better at this. Most railroads when they rebuld or but a new refridgerated railcar they will put a Thermo King SB III unit or a Carrier Ultra. Both of these units were developed primarily for truck trailer use. (If you look inside older railcars you will see the units mounted in the area for mech. equipment with the roof section over this are cut away. the new railcars simply have the units mounted on the end of the car.s
If the railroads were smart, they would get into this business. I would not accept traditional rail rates, but would insist on getting the rates that they would get if they were a trucking company(this also means providing trucking company service).
The other comment I would make is that railroads would have to have multiple departures daily to get the best chance at this business. One
On shipping produce. I’m one of those truck drivers(OTR gang) who pulls a refridgerated(temperature controlled) trailer.
A lot of produce these days gets moved in Truck Load quantities(ie 40,000lb lots/ 20 pallet) The patterns I see is that it moves very quickly & is absolutely not subject to delay unless someone really wants a lot of trouble. Cargo has to be temperature checked continously & must keep moving.
A lot of this can move 500 miles a day but there is a lot that has to move faster(ie team freight) .
There is a huge variety of not only refridgerated freight but also stuff that is temperature sensitive. (protect from freezing, protect from excessive heat, keep 0 deg f or below. maintain a temperture of xx to xx Deg F).
Railroads are getting a little better at this. Most railroads when they rebuld or but a new refridgerated railcar they will put a Thermo King SB III unit or a Carrier Ultra. Both of these units were developed primarily for truck trailer use. (If you look inside older railcars you will see the units mounted in the area for mech. equipment with the roof section over this are cut away. the new railcars simply have the units mounted on the end of the car.s
If the railroads were smart, they would get into this business. I would not accept traditional rail rates, but would insist on getting the rates that they would get if they were a trucking company(this also means providing trucking company service).
The other comment I would make is that railroads would have to have multiple departures daily to get the best chance at this bus
As diesel fuel continues to climb the opportunity for rail to take over a lot of the California Produce Market to the midwest and east exists.
Salinas being captive to the UP should seriously consider trucks hauling the produce to a terminal such as Stockton where it can be placed on a BNSF train for Chicago or Kansas City or even points in Texas. If it is continuing east than the cars receive priority at whatever point they interchange with an eastern road. If trucker’s haul it within a certain radius to destinations such as the way JB Hunt handles there trucks than much of the fuel crisis can be resolved for the truckers and bring down prices in the grocery store.
Many years ago I was in the trucking industry as an owner operator and after loading my trailer using a rental tractor while waiting for mine undergoing a major overhaul in eastern Canada for a trip to Vancouver I received the bad news that my tractor was not going to be ready in time for the trip. I contacted the railroad about transporting my trailer to Vancouver and within hours after loading it was on its way west. I used the same railroads airline five days later to fly out rent a truck and unload my trailer. I reloaded using the rental tractor back to Toronto and once again flew home to Toronto and waited for my trailer. By that time my tractor was waiting for me and I unloaded when it returned to Toronto. If the company I had worked for had spotted that trailer on the railcar I would have been terminated. There were no damages to any of the shipments and inspite of all of the expenses incurred I made more money on that trip than I would have had I driven all the way. And I got to spend more time with my family and that time was priceless. That was when I decided it was time for me to look at something else for a living. Oh and I might mention that the trailer arrived at both destinations still clean. If I had driven it I would have had to wash the rig at both ends another expense I did not
Well, good. Now think about how much money you would have made as an o/o if you would have brought two trailers to the railhead in Toronto. Then grabbed a third load and driven it west. You deliver your over the road load, then go get the TOFC loads and deliver them. Then load two on the rail east and drive one back. Repeat the delivery process for the three trailers in Toronto.
You’d save the air fare and get paid for three loads while driving one.
Marx Truck Line out of Sioux City, Iowa used to do that on the ICG. They were bringing
As one who has worked in both the trucking and rail industries, I’m always amused when a group of rail folks start predicting the demise of the trucking industry. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the trucking industry’s demise are greatly exaggerated. Several commenters have correctly surmised that railroads really are “doomed by complexity”, to quote from my March 2007 TRAINS feature. We will be exploring the train vs. truck phenomenon, specifically as it relates to perishables, in another feature in the September 2008 issue. Truckers simply have too many inherent advantages over railroads. Railroads will be important niche players but the mass market remains with the truckers.
I would suspect that something that factors into rail passenger usage also factors into rail freight usage, especially perishables. That would be the mileage break - that point at which it becomes more favorable to use one mode over the other. I have no idea what that is, and it’s going to be different for each commodity, but I’m sure it’s there.
Well, Jim, I don’t think anyone predicted the demise of the trucking industry.
And I disagree that railroads are “doomed” by complexity. They’re hampered and disadvantaged by complexity - but not “doomed”.
There are advantaqes and disadvantages when shipping by rail. One advantage is the lower rail linehaul cost once you get past all the collecting, aggregating, sorting, and distributing you have to do to use rail. It’s the relationship of that line haul rail cost. to the other steps and to trucking costs that determines when and where rail transport is viable vis a vis trucking.
Over time the cost relationships change. That means the niches change. A market niche that was closed to rail when diesel truck fuel was $1.25/gallon can become very open to rail when truck fuel is $4.70/gallon. It’s important for the railroads to understand such changes and exploit the new niches when they open up.
It will be interesting to see what you have to say regarding perishables. It’s important to remember that there are niches within the niche when it comes to perishables. Commodities such as potatoes, apples, onions, carrots, etc. are "Le
The thought of dozens of railcars being washed, sanitized and reloaded in days at the Meat Plants out there in Meat Country is a thought that worries me.
What people dont understand is that when you bring in a empty reefer into a meat plant to be loaded, you are given a place to wait, your trailer sent to be washed (While you arrange payment) and then sent to be loaded.
That loading will take 2,3 or 4 days. That includes night and day. You sit. If you were a husband/wife team you arranged a regional run to zip around the area running other trailers to make money or rescue singles who are late with thier deliveries while the one meat load is loading. With a 1000 mile range every 24 hours, teams can break the clock and make it happen.
If a railroad sent all these cars to be loaded that slowly, it would not work well. Sure, it can be done, just add some track and rail docks and man it with migrants or other maginal populations willing to work in those kind of places.
Trucking’s demise is something that will never happen. A thought of the USA without trucking is also a vision of a Nation in arnachy and martial law.
Well, good. Now think about how much money you would have made as an o/o if you would have brought two trailers to the railhead in Toronto. Then grabbed a third load and driven it west. You deliver your over the road load, then go get the TOFC loads and deliver them. Then load two on the rail east and drive one back. Repeat the delivery process for the three trailers in Toronto.
You’d save the air fare and get paid for three loads while driving one.
Marx Truck Line out of Sioux City, Iowa used to do that on the ICG.&
I don’t think we’ll see large volumes of domestic meat moving in refrigerated railcars. It’ll go intermodal.
The situation described by Last Chance favors intermodal over trucking because the intermodal carrier doesn’t have to leave drivers with the trailers/containers. Just establish a pool at the slaughterhouse. When a load is ready just get a local drayman to grab it and bring it to the ramp.