I seem to remember reading in Trains recently–it might have been on here, but I am pretty sure it was in the magazine–that the general success measure for shortline railways was to have roughly 100 cars per mile per year. In other words, if you had a 40 mile short line, you would need to have 4000 car loads per year.
I realize this is a variable that can change based upon other factors. However, it leads me to something that I just don’t understand.
Do railroads use miles hauled as a variable for pricing? If that is the case, 1000 cars per year would seem to render a 1000 mile railroad just as viable as a ten mile railroad.
The notion that a ten mile railroad can survive much better with 1000 car loads per year than a 50 mile railroad suggests that railroads make more just for handling the car than they do for per-mile service?
Like Mr. Stahl said, it’s just a rule-of-thumb to judge whether a short line has the potential to be viable, and the number is “carloads generated.” The distance hauled by the short line, if it’s considerable, may actually degrade the value of the number of carloads.
Costs are not linear with mileage. If you graphed cost on the Y axis and mileage on the X axis, the resultant line starts high on the Y axis, plunges steeply, then flattens and approaches but never quite becomes horizontal (it continues to descend).
Pricing is not coupled to cost. Cost sets a floor for the price. Above that floor the price is set as high as possible until it is either just below the price of the competitor, or identical with the competitor, for equivalent service.
This is why I do not get it–although I am sure it is because of my ignorance rather than an industry irregularity.
The reason, I am told, Powder River Basin coal is so valuable to railroads is its long-haul potential. It would seem to me that, under the above analysis, a coal mine in Illinois hauling daily trips from Coffeen to Montery mine–50 miles–would be more profitable than Powder River Basin haulage. Yet, I do not think that is the case.
Profit is not the same as cost. Profit is the difference between cost and what the customer will pay you. The highest possible amount of what the customer will pay you is the amount a competitor charges. If your cost is less than that number, the difference between the two numbers is profit.
OK, try this. Put on your graph of rail costs vs. distance (for coal!) a second line of truck costs vs. distance. The second line starts on the Y axis a considerable amount BELOW the rail cost and then runs virtually horizontally across the graph. Somewhere around 50-100 miles (depending on idiosyncratic condi
Profit is not the same as cost. Profit is the difference between cost and what the customer will pay you. The highest possible amount of what the customer will pay you is the amount a competitor charges. If your cost is less than that number, the difference between the two numbers is profit.
OK, try this. Put on your graph of rail costs vs. distance (for coal!) a second line of truck costs vs. distance. The second line starts on the Y axis a considerable amount BELOW the rail cost and then runs virtually horizontally across the graph. Somewhere around 50-100 miles (depending o
What are some of the 10 mile unit train movements in the U. S. or Canada? Does anyone know the record of the shortest unit train movement in North America over the last 30 years or so?
So this means when I see Savage Bros. trucking coal from Wildcat to Carbon, Wildcat to Leamington, B Canyon and Wildcat to Sunnyside, Wildcat to Huntington, and Wildcat to Rock Springs …? And about 1,000 locations in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsyvania …?
There are a couple of “bottle train” operations in Northwest Indiana/South Chicago area which are probably 25 miles or so in length. Those are molten steel moves.
Those are not unit trains under anyone’s definition in the railroad business. They’re simply special moves.
A unit train by definition is multiple cars moving on a single waybill at reduced rates over single car, cars that could move in ordinary freight trains otherwise. Hot metal cars cannot move in ordinary freight trains.
BNSF defines a unit train as a “dedicated train set of cars and locomotives that cycle continuously between origins and destinations,” or also as “freight trains moving great tonnages of a single bulk product between two points without intermediate yarding and switching.”
I suppose times have changed, but when the BN gave us a hundred or so cars out of their hopper pool and two or three locomotives for a consignment of coal from one of our mines to any one of our several customers, they were “unit trains”.
Perhaps they are considered “special moves” rather than unit trains, but they do move on a regular (daily) basis. I cannot comment as to whether or not they can move with other freight cars, but it seems a natural to move them in a regular cycle from origin to destination.
I often see them in East Chicago on the IHB and they are impressive trains.
Remember my axiom - trucking is the mode of last resort
If the railroad can’t/won’t move it, you either move it by truck (at greater expense) or you shut down.
Whenever I see moves that could move by rail, indeed should move by rail, but are moving by truck, I usually conclude that the business was rejected by the railroad for any myriad of reasons, lack of capacity being the excuse de jure these days.
But, based on the limited information you’ve provided (and assuming there are parallel railroads in each of these corridors), it’s either a case of the customer ordering less than unit train equivalents (e.g. smaller operations) or an inability/unwillingness of the railroad to provide the necessary service. Remember, these are integrated railroads we’re talking about, so if the track owner doesn’t want to provide the transporter service, the customer cannot call up another rail service provider to provide said transporter service.
I used the 10 mile move as a hypothetical for sake of discussion.
However, fans of John G. Kneiling will remember his reference to a 5 mile dedicated rail move some time back.
Personally, the shortest unit train move that I know of was on the Camas Prairie Railroad, which ran 20 or 30 sets of 70 ton grain hoppers from a shuttle facility in Reubens ID down to the barge port of Lewiston ID, a distance of about 40 miles. This operation lasted until Y2K, when deferred maintenance of many trestles by the former Class I owners of the line finally caught up with things.
On that note, you may be interested to know that the current shortline operator of that line is making an effort to revive those little shuttle trains, as well as reviving a shorthaul log hauling operation from Jaype ID down to the mill in Lewiston, so the concept of the shorthaul unit train is not dead yet around here.
Apparently they did not understand their costs. Perhaps they did understand their costs but just wanted to milk the railroad and move on to another venture.