A FRIDAY DEPARTURE FROM BOTH TERMINALS AND MONDAY ARRIVAL, NY - LA SHOULD GET NEW BUSINESS WITH A 57 OR 58 HOUR RUNNING TIME. ANY COMBINATION THAT WORKS OF THE FOUR AVALABLE, BNSF-CSX, BNSF-NS, UP-CSX OR UP-NS. PROBABLY CONTAINER ONLY.
There is no market for premium train service. The Santa Fe experiment with Q-trains in the early 1990’s proved that along with the ltl and perishables fail on Amtrak. The congestion in the east isn’t helping matters much. (If you can get west of Chicago & Memphis, it moves well to the west coast - the problem is in the east 1/3 of the country.
What is the problem with the eastern 1/3 of the country, mudchicken?
Chronic congestion, all the way back to the PRR/NYC days. Some can be bypassed, some can’t. (too many terminals, junctions, interlockings …average train speeds are not the same east vs. west.)
It would be a great idea…if the Erie Lackawanna ROW was still in place.
The UP is running multiple super fast perishable trains from Yakima, Wa and Delano, Ca to the east coast. They want to expand them to the south east. The Super C service could be reactivated if the BNSF wanted. the business.
caldreamer, methinks BNSF knows what they are doing and why as is reflected by their results.
Unless some of us here have inside info about what business is out there that will reward the start up costs and mitigate the disruption a “new Super C” would cause then I suggest we are speculating with nostalgia for the past.
Can’t speak to what UPRR is doing, as their line through this part of South Central Kansas (old RI/now UPR OKT sub) seems to be primarily grain and occasionally gen merch trains).
BNSF runs a number of container trains both East and West through here,( South of Wichita, at Mulvane). Both domestic cans and export cans. Have not done any couts, but they seem to have plenty of traffic, recently; UPS and Fedex are easily recognizable traffic, dopuble stacks and some have a mix of both COFC and TOFC. Regular TOFC with many reefer trailers, mixed dry vans, not to mention Yellow-Roadway and Ellis, and other both regular freight lines and irregular freight operators. Lately, the tank trains seem to be mostly in the evening, and night(?) around here. There has been an import can train (eastbound) that usually has two or three units on head-end, with a couple of mid-train helper DPUs with one or two end of train DPUs. Makes for interesting train watching!
Point being, without seeing an employee timetable, I think they are alrerady running scheduled trains (without the publicity of a Super C, on a regular basis). There seems to be a regular appearance on a daily basis of the same types of consists about the same time frame each week (purely, an unscientific observation). [:-^]
I dont think there is that much NYC - LA truckload business. Tell me what is manufactured in either SoCal or the Empire State? Sure, there is vegetables/fruit coming out of Ca, but what else?
As far as UPS/FedEx. They now offer 3rd day service, in addition to NDA and 2nd day. The manner in which distribution is set up these days, most stuff goes thru distribution centers which are regionally located.
the big business are the import containers.
Ed
A new Super C would just be a freight version of the ‘Amtrak effect’ - i.e., disruptions - to operations, if there are only 1 or 2 Main Tracks. More tracks than that, a Super C probably could be accomodated - but there isn’t that much 3+ track mains.
- Paul North.
Is a “Super C” really necessary? Given UPS, FedEx, and other expedited movements already on the system, I get the impression that adding another special train isn’t really necessary.
C’mon, Paul. If BNSF, on the old ATSF, can’t do for one ‘Super C,’ with a double-track main, what it did with a whole passenger fleet on mostly single track in the old days, that’s a pitiful comment, indeed. Especially with today’s (hopefully temporary) reduced traffic.
Oh fred, don’t be critical! [st]
As i recall - back in the ‘golden years’ ATSF steam could hand 2500 ton trains. A 4 unit FT set could handle 3500 tons.
Todays trains are into 5 digits on both tonnage and length.
MP173 I don’t have any recent numbers, but a few years ago there were roughly 580,000 truckloads of refrigerated produce departing California for the East Coast per year. I think as long as 2/3 of our population lives east of the Mississippi River and 90% of our lettuce is grown in California there is a demand for consistent, reliable, quick service. I don’t think that having a Super C type schedule would be worth the havoc caused to other traffic, though. My two cents.
Just to throw another wrinkle in here: Later this year will see an enlarged Panama Canal. How this will affect or effect North American traffic patterns remains to be seen: either it changes everything, it changes nothing or something in between. More than likely there will be something and the potential big loser is the west coast and the railroads that serve it. The western railroads would be warry to invest in capex for west coast imports to the east.
On the other hand the east coast may see increased port traffic and thus the eastern railroads, with lower traffic and corresponding stock price, may be a bargin in the long run. Does this play into CP’s interest in NS?
A transcontinental Super C should be able to compete completely with an enhanced P. C. for domestic traffic and for certain types of freight for international traffic. With reduced traffic levels I don’t see any capital investment necessary.
Keep in mind the so-called “Bullet Train” test schedules that were run several years ago by BNSF. I believe that the schedule was appreciably faster than existing intermodal schedules but proved to be too disruptive to other operations.
Butwere they not a bit faster than my proposal?
Speed breeds priority - priority forces decisions upon trains that don’t have priority and dictates decisions when and where priority trains meet. Priority decreases the throughput of line segments, when looking at the overall capacity of those line segments.