There is one other aspect here, which is that the ‘old ATSF’ did not have an ordinary CTC-style double-track main; it had a very large number of sidings that gave the effect of a 4-track main as far as overtake of slower traffic without compromising opposing traffic were concerned, as well as the nominal existence of a ‘priority’ traffic flow at 90+ mph, with appropriate ATC, relatively uncompromised by a high volume of profitable traffic at more restricted but still high speed.
In my opinion, the defining characteristic of any ‘super-Z’ service still revolves around overall cost that is billable to the customer, that the customer is willing to pay for on an ongoing basis, with enough customers to make regular scheduled operation of the service (not just the occasional train) possible.
And that is where any revived Super C proposal will, well, meet with the same fate the original Super C did, whether or not a modern implementation of '40s dispatch ‘ingenuity’ discovers a way to path the service into existing traffic.
I know of a number of technical proposals for accelerated container traffic in various lanes, some of which use energy storage techniques to reduce the cost of repeatedly slowing and accelerating the high-speed trains to reduce the ‘energy agio’ associated with practical operation. So far, none of them provides enough tangible benefit to shippers to make them a practical proposition … without more effective subsidy from one place or another than anyone has figured out how to secure.
I still think there is enough prospective volume to run my father’s old N
If what you are proposing for the NEC side loading/unloading containers by some sort of mechanical transfer system which requires modified railcars and highway chassis why not use a Railrunner type bi-modal system (intermodal road chassis with rail bogie connections)?
For the distances you’re talking about it seems a better fit…
Back in the 80’s and 90’s both N.S and Conrail tried to get Amtrak interested in moving Triple Crown roadrailers on the NEC so there is a precedent. Amtrak itself also studied moving USPS traffic from Baltimore to New Haven using Amtrak Roadrailers.
There are additional reasons: capital cost and tare weight for the RailRunners are both higher, and there are tracking and stability issues at the speeds that would be required, especially north of New Haven. These are part of the reason you have not seen any particular use of RailRunners in actual high-speed intermodal service.
Dwell time at a particular stop has to be restricted to no more than several minutes. It is technically possible to load and unload multiple containers nearly simultaneously (with some care as to where the loads and ‘unloads’ are spotted in the consist) and once the containers are moved they are fully clear of the operating track and ‘locked down’. (They can then be accessed for intermodal transfer to chassis by any of the normal, comparatively slow and ‘piecewise’ methods, including if necessary gantry lift).
Remember that this is an electrified main with restrictions on cat height and relatively high voltage on what I expect to be an increasing percentage of the route. That compromises the ‘best’ alternative technology, the ‘original’ version of the old CargoSpeed approach that gang-lifts and rotates van trailers (or loaded RailRunner chassis), as opposed to containers in wells, so that an appropriate number of tractors can tie on and move them away.
If you try using RailRunners as Triple Crown ran RoadRailers, you encounter the fun involved in breaking the air and then handling all the intermediate 3-piece trucks that were suppor
Yes, we do see “reduced traffic levels” on the railroads when compared to the banner years of the middle of the last decade. But we are not back to the bad-old-days of the 1970s when a mainline might not see a freight train for days. An expedited schedule would still be too much of a disruption for regular traffic. Such disruption commands a premium price and shippers already feel gouged at what they are paying now.
Nevertheless, all focus in Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Worth and Omaha is fixated on the potential impending silence of the musical-chairs-merger game. This is our distraction for 2016, at least.
Nailed it. The volumes needed to justify super-priority rail transit time just dont’s exist with a cost of capital of less tha 8%. The market for speed is down to the individual package level today.
The auto business was one of the few industries that could generate volumes of traffic sufficient for 700+ -mile moves that could produce volumes of traffic worth the expense of expedited handling - for example, centralized stamping plants that could belch forth 70 hi-cube box car loads of parts a day for a half-dozen assembly plants. In today’s world, domestic parts manufacturing is assigned to several dozen associated companies usually within a hundred miles (read - trucking distance) of each assembly facility.
Parts produced outside the US now move in containers, which is where the railroad place time-priority handling.
Speed for speed’s sake is seldom a logistics manager’s concern. Consistency in transit time is the goal.
I thought from what you wrote that you were proposing a network somewhat akin to what Triple Crown was doing before they downsized. In other words a 500 mile or so rail corridor(the whole NEC with maybe some secondary short diesel drawn hauls connecting) with drayage routes extending out a few hundred miles from the ramps. You could handle both ISO boxes from the ports (NY/NJ, Baltimore, Norfolk/Newport News) and domestic 53’ foot containers.
That would fit the “break the train and haul the box to it’s final destination” spec…
Or are you suggesting using the sideloading service as a feeder to and f
The premise for the ‘service’ itself was similar to the original Federal Express model in that the trains were to operate in ‘zero business days’ (all the containers were set for loading or transfer after reasonable business close, and delivered to their transfer dock locations before opening). The original idea was to leave Pot Yard after 10:00 and be at the last Boston stop by about 7:30, and that in turn fixed the dwell times at any intermediate points.
Yes, there was going to be connection both to industrial locations away from the NEC (notably in central and northern New Jersey) and some connection to other intermodal service (most of that was trailers, rather than ISO series 1 or 3 boxes, in the mid-Seventies when this was worked out, and it was NOT expected that there would be much of a premium on ‘overnight’ service for most boxes coming off ships at Baltimore or Port of NY & NJ, so no ‘direct’ transfer yards train-to-train. Any intermediate box delivered by rail would be loaded into an appropriate position on the sideloading frame, just as a truck-delivered box would be.) Note that this was treated no differently from other containers as far as the high-speed train operation itself was concerned. The point was to minimize both stopped time and track occupancy (which on the NEC, even in the '70s, was minimal in overnight hours) and key to the operation were two things: the ability to move any or all containers in the consist simultaneously, and the ability to start loading a container to any slot in the consist only a short time after unloading from that slot had s
carnej1
I thought from what you wrote that you were proposing a network somewhat akin to what Triple Crown was doing before they downsized. In other words a 500 mile or so rail corridor(the whole NEC with maybe some secondary short diesel drawn hauls connecting) with drayage routes extending out a few hundred miles from the ramps.
The premise for the ‘service’ itself was similar to the original Federal Express model in that the trains were to operate in ‘zero business days’ (all the containers were set for loading or transfer after reasonable business close, and delivered to their transfer dock locations before opening). The original idea was to leave Pot Yard after 10:00 and be at the last Boston stop by about 7:30, and that in turn fixed the dwell times at any intermediate points.
Yes, there was going to be connection both to industrial locations away from the NEC (notably in central and northern New Jersey) and some connection to other intermodal service (most of that was trailers, rather than ISO series 1 or 3 boxes, in the mid-Seventies when this was worked out, and it was NOT expected that there would be much of a premium on ‘overnight’ service for most boxes coming off ships at Baltimore or Port of NY & NJ, so no ‘direct’ transfer yards train-to-train. Any intermediate box delivered by rail would be loaded into an appropriate position on the sideloading frame, just as a truck-delivered box would be.) Note that this was treated no differently from other containers as far as the high-speed train operation itself was concerned. The point was to minimize both stopped time and track occupancy (which on the NEC, even in the '70s, was minimal in overnight hours) and key to the operatio
I wouldn’t say they are super fast. They do get better handling than a normal manifest train. They have started the Jacksonville train. Some of them have also been getting blocks of non-Railex, non-perishable foodstuffs tacked onto them.
It was a Conrail thing, which depended also on the ‘original’ proposed improvement of the NEC to what were supposed to be 150 mph speeds for passenger equipment. The use of the containers was for handling efficiency (and clearance), and tu use the ISO standards to keep costs down (and ensure a progressive base of costed-down equipment, standards in associated handling equipment, provide financing incentive with better potential ‘resale’ markets for special equipment, etc.). My understanding is that COFC at the time was thought of as a heavier version of Flexi-Van type service … with much heavier tare requirements … and not particularly economical for ‘inland’ direct service; the ‘hot’ intermodal traffic was all ‘piggyback’ TOFC which had low tare and good compatibility with most any existing ‘tractors’, but were structurally difficult to handle by any kind of lifting when loaded, with little prospect the vans could be modified cost-effectively to permit that on a scale and scope adequate for running a high-speed ‘nonlinear-access’ service. (Apparently he started with the idea of using vans on articulated Fuel-Foiler underframes with very low kangaroo pockets as being more “practical” at that time, but there were so many problems that cropped up so fast that he went to the ‘one-level’ sideloading idea quickly, and the more complicated ‘well car’ version as a distant alternative.
There was a portable version of the transfer rack that a business could erect to ‘store’ a container so the truck chassis would not be lost for per diem - my father said he got the importance of this directly from Kneiling. These were designed to fold for 'shipping&#
I.S. Brunel’s name is always associated with successes and failures: the Great Western Railway (error in setting gauge at 7 feet) and the “atmospheric” extension of it (failure), HMS Great Eastern, a failed passenger ship which laid the first tranatlantic cable and many great bridges, stations and tunnels, some still in use, I believe.
Ye gods, even if reliability is more important to the customer than speed, shouldn’t the shipper and/or the railroad have more respect for utilization of their equipment than that?