We tried. That was, and still is I hope, a well maintained rail line.
I was riding the 2nd engine on CC-6 one night east from Waterloo. We had an old engineer who had about six more runs before retirement. We left Waterloo and he took that train up to 69 MPH, then we’d drop back to 67, then back up to 69. He ran like that almost to Dubuque where he had to slow down to get down the hill to the river and cross the bridge.
Quite the ride though an Iowa night.
To market the line we did things like establish twice daily service between Chicago and the UP at Council Bluffs. The trains made decent time.
Eastbound freight was comming into Markham yard. Markham had two humps, a northbound hump and a southbound hump. The northbound hump classified cars for eastern connections. All freight in from Iowa was going to the southbound hump. This meant it had to be rehumped to go on east. We got Council Bluffs to make two Markham blocks, one for each hump. By bypassing the southbound hump for traffic moving east we saved a day or so on transit via the ICG.
We did what we could.
A good part of the line’s traffic base was 1) UP interchange and 2) packing house products. The UP got in bed with the C&NW so that hurt. The meat went to trucks largely due to stupid Federal economic regulations and union work rules that required 16-20 crewmembers to move a train
I dont have issues with Intermodal Ship Boxes. I started off with those and some had thier own chassis with reefers under. Used to run Crab out of the Chesapeake to the seaport.
Ok, I agree, Intermodal with drayage will work very well for the meat plants. It will free up the “Big” reefers like the 48’s and 53’s for more productive work in same time frame elsewhere.
It would be so easy to throw down some ramps in the west, lay track somewhere close the the plant and make it happen. The drivers waiting for thier own loads could run dray rates to and from plant to railhead for a few per day while waiting and make a dollar to boot.
No, I think the meat will move in 53’ reefer containers. We’re not going to run empty all the way back and 53’ will be needed for the backhaul.
Neither will any track need to be put down. All we need is an unused yard or side track near the packing house. The packing houses are already rail served to handle by products. We don’t even need ramps. Use of bimodal chassis will preclude that.
This is a hanging curveball and the railroads have a big bat.
We tried. That was, and still is I hope, a well maintained rail line.
I was riding the 2nd engine on CC-6 one night east from Waterloo. We had an old engineer who had about six more runs before retirement. We left Waterloo and he took that train up to 69 MPH, then we’d drop back to 67, then back up to 69. He ran like that almost to Dubuque where he had to slow down to get down the hill to the river and cross the bridge.
Quite the ride though an Iowa night.
To market the line we did things like establish twice daily service between Chicago and the UP at Council Bluffs. The trains made decent time.
Eastbound freight was comming into Markham yard. Markham had two humps, a northbound hump and a southbound hump. The northbound hump classified cars for eastern connections. All freight in from Iowa was going to the southbound hump. This meant it had to be rehumped to go on east. We got Council Bluffs to make two Markham blocks, one for each hump. By bypassing the southbound hump for traffic moving east we saved a day or so on transit via the ICG.
We did what we could.
A good part of the line’s traffic base was 1) UP interchange and 2) packing house products. The UP got in bed with the C&NW so that hurt. The meat went to trucks largely due to stupid Federal economic regulations and union work rules that required 16-20 c
I really enjoyed your commentary on the Iowa Division. Thanks for the description. How much of the traffic on that line was off the UP? 50%?
You mentioned coming down the hill at Dubuque. That city is really a fascinating railroad route. Probably not very efficient, but from a fan standpoint, it sure is neat. As a side note, back in 1993 I was in Dubuque on business and was amazed to see the water level creeping higher by the minute at the US61 overpass south of the city. By the next morning the water level was over the rails.
What kind of grade was that going west out of Dubuque? Was it much of a challenge (as in trains stalling)? The tunnel and crossing at East Dubuque had a very unique feel.
This process is well and good. However were you are forgetting the BIG PICTURE is while in route say there is a change in Consignee don’t laugh happens all the time or say there is a RECALL then all of a sudden time is of the ESSENCE to get that product off the trailer before it contaminates the whole load. Well say it is on a fast TOFC and a change of consignee happens due to Wal-Mart DC in WI running low and the trailer was going to CA with a truck you send a either a Sat message and turn that truck around AAP o next check call tell them or call the drivers Cell phone. Rail you have to call the RR then have the trailer removed then put into the next train headed in the right directin then switch it into the next train headed for the area to be drayed. Recall same thing.
At sometime in the 1960’s, the IC did have a TOFC service for beef from Iowa to Chicago. If I recall correctly, hanging beef was shipped in this service. The service had been started to try to keep some of the business that had moved in reefer cars. Near the end of the decade, the IC did an in depth study of the costs for the movement and and for many reasons concluded it was not in the economic interest to continue to offer the service. Increasing the charges on the service was not an option because the truck competition was effectively setting the ceiling for the charges.
I don’t have any way of finding or evaluating the numbers that might be in play today, but I agree that the return of some of this business to the rails might be possible. When the IC was providing the TOFC service, they owned the reefer trailers fully equipped with the interior equipment-rails and hooks-, did the cartage and all the other services necessary to handle the business. Just a guess, but I think that if there is a shift back to rail movement, it will follow the JB Hunt business model where the trucking companies will be the primary carrier bringing the loads to the railroads for the line haul movement.
As improved structural materials make it possible for RoadRailer-type trailers to carry heavier loads, with the increasingly high price of diesel fuel (until diesel fuel made from biomass becomes widely available) I can see new, insulated RoadRailers being assigned to more and more perishable foodstuff transport service.
Imagine several years from now a new shipping terminal in Watsonville, CA that will aggregate insulated RoadRailer trailers loaded with fruits and vegetables from the Salinas Valley area into 100-trailer trains pulled by two SD70ACe’s or two ES44AC’s for shipment to destinations 800 or more miles away.
I see a couple of challenges for the movement of meat. Not saying it cant be done, but challenges which will need to be addressed.
First, it appears the concentration of the meat packing is in two locations…Iowa and Kansas. Do either of these locations have the infrastructure in place to establish a hub and spoke type operation for the intermodal movement of the meat? In other words, at some location, loads would have to be consolidated in order to build trains. Isnt Schneider running a daily train from Kansas City to Marion Oh of intermodal loads?
Kansas might be a good location for something like this to occur. It is right smack in the middle of the country. Rail lines to the west coast, Chicago, the Southeast via the old Frisco line, south to DFW and Houston, to the Northwest via BNSF or UP. What kind of intermodal staging area would be required and where would be a good location?
Would Iowa be as good a location for rail as Kansas? Possibly for the west coast and maybe the east coast if they could get thru Chicago.
Another challenge that I see would be the return of refrigerated equipment to Kansas and Iowa. I am not sure how much refer business is inbound to those locations, or actually even dry freight which could move. Deadhead issues would be a factor in pricing.
Liberal Kansas, Fort Morgan Colorado, Garden City Kansas, Dumas Texas, Omaha NE, Waterloo and a whole bunch of others between the Divide and the Cumberland in Tenn. Mostly beef. But in the Ozarks the game becomes that of Chicken with similar problems, East Coast hams, Pork, bacon etc. and so on.
Part of the problem with Meat Loads is that they get priority but not as important as raw milk inbound to a store distribution. They want that meat NOW. Like yesterday. There is absolutely no tolerance for delay anywhere in the game. Read what I have posted in the past about days of lost time waiting for one to be loaded and ponder on that.
I once set a record from Garden City south to I40 (At the time I70 was under Chain Law and blizzards) and then to Bakersfield to Salinas. I think it was 2450 miles on the ground straight through without stopping. After a nap at (Nap = 14 hours) Bakersfield, I was shoo’ed in direct to the first dock past hundreds of waiting trucks full of thier loads at the big food place there in Salinas. The fragging I recieved on the radio was not worth it. Never again.
The SW Kansas concentration extends into the Texas Panhandle centered around Amarillo. Altogether, the Kansas/Texas concentration produces 42% of the “fed beef” in the US. (excludes old dairy cows that are no longer efficient milk producers)
Let’s deal with the Iowa pork. Nothing would kill this concept faster than trying to establish one “HUB” to handle the pork. This market is served by an underutilized rail line, the CN’s Iowa route. It makes no sense to pay exhorbatant trucking fees to gather the po
Assuming 6 miles to gallon and 5 dollar desiel approx 84 cents out of that two dollar something per mile goes into just moving the stuff. Then the driver pay which I think is about 50 cents roughly for a company man makes it at least 1.30 a mile just to move the beef; never mind anything else.
I think Rail beats truck because it can move alot of tons on that same fuel. The problem is TIME… gotta break that clock and do it faster than a team can.
They can probably establish regional locals at the plant/rail head and do it again on the other end near the Northeast and Southern Cities.
No matter how bad the fuel gets that beef needs to be moved. The USA is about a few weeks or less from not being able to eat well.
One thing about this is grocery companys want the very best service at a WalMart price. The railroads like BNSF seem to want to be paid right for good service but truckers and I,v done it will run a load as fast and hard as they can for the lowest dollar they can get.
Truckers will remain the dominant and superior mode for a considerable amount of time regardless of other conditions. Railroading remains inherently flawed for a number of reasons. First, unlike most carload moves these days, truckers operate door-to-door in virtually every market. Even the best intermodal service still consumes a substantial amount time in the terminal transload process. Second, truckers do not interline freight. They have none of the built-in inherent delays of interchange, not to mention all of the absurd institutional silliness created by interchange. Even in the worst traffic, truckers can still get through Chicago in a fraction of the time it takes rail shipments, carload or intermodal. Third, with their inherent flexibility truckers do a much better job at securing backhauls and reducing empty mileage to the lowest possible number. No self-respecting trucker would be caught dead with the kind of empty return ratio’s associated with most rail moves. Finally, there are no government-sanctioned monopolies in the trucking industry. Open access is simply a fact of life. Trucking is a business where only the strong, and the smart, survive. Railroads are getting better but always seem to be playing catch-up.
…The strong are sometimes those who run 6 days on a bag of chips and a few pints of water in a exercise of endurance until the billing gets finished and the payroll sent. Trains have advantage of putting a fresh engine, crew when the previous one goes dead on the law.
It is a very fast, fluid and mobile business. A few words over the satellite from dispatcher makes it all happen within a few minutes. I remember in the later years Ive put together a trip empty to load and then to delivery from A to B (OR multi stop LCL) within a few minutes and go and was on time more or less taking traffic into consideration.
I depended on 10 PM to 6 AM to put the miles away between any city end to end. Traffic is a liability. Once in a while Convoys of several dozen to one hundred or more just stomps the freeway flat and clears the logjams of the cars.
And you wonder why the cars are so stressed around the trucks.
Rail is sometimes too muscle bound and not very agile to make a move in my humble opinion. If I was a warehouse boss who wants this stuff sent to some market in NYC right now, I will have a big truck at the dock with one simple phone call.
Trains are going to have to find a way to strip out anything that delays them and be able to show up when that dockman gets up and calls for somebody to get this load out of the door.
Unfortunately, we have no way to slow the Country down because now, everything is JIT with no warehouse involved or excessive delays.
That ship arrives crossing the Pacific taking a month to the west coast. Everyone is patient. But once that box hits USA Dirt or pavement all want it NOW.
Interesting comment about USA being a few weeks from hunger.
Interesting article friday in WSJ about hog farmers and the squeeze they are in over higher corn prices and lack of compensation. Look for hog production to diminish as margins are non existant was the message.
Now, with corn production seemingly dropping due to the flooding in the heartland, it might be a very intersting year.
So why can’t domestic intermodal have mid-route sorting? It seems that in an effort to simplfy the intermodal movements to near zero events, other than passing other trains and crew changes, the railroads have reduced the routing utility. What seems to be really needed is an intermodal system that can take standard plate van trailers and allow sorting quickly at mid-points.
The whole time while reading through this thread, I kept thinking, “everything suggested: local truck, long-haul rail, concentrated service area with door-to-door capability, etc, has or is being done by Triple Crown.” So far, they have found a niche in the automotive parts and paper business, but it wouldn’t take a lot of effort to go after the meat and fruit markets. The only draw-back is very thin back-haul to SW Kansas and Texas. That, and BNSF and UP don’t know how to operate road-railer trains profitably like NS.