With so much stuff coming in from China and other Asian countries i.e. containers arriving at westcoast ports to be shipped east…what percentage of these cans would go west empty?
An official of BNSF (IIRC) recently observed that there is an east/west imbalance. He said many containers that arrive on our west coast are unloaded/reloaded then depart our east coast for Europe, then to the Far East – sort of a around the world west to east movement. I don’t remember him giving the numbers, however.
Previously I had heard that only about 15% go west loaded. (approx 2 yrs ago.)
More recently I heard that this had increased significantly. Someone from BNSF had quoted a figure of 80%, which seemed really high. i.e. given our trade imbalance w/ China, I can’t imagine that its that high.
There is an increase in grain, scrap paper, and scrap metal that is being shipped out in steamship boxes.
This increase in WB business is causing some challenges for the RR’s. They were formerly used to running huge trains of WB empties w/ little power required. Now that is changing.
Don’t the railroads have to run the locomotives back west anyway, to even out power requirements? If 4 locomtives are used to run a loaded train from LA to Chicago, the railroad has to get the 4 units back to LA to pull the next loade train.
Would some of the W/B power be assigned to loaded grain cars?
[D)] I never thought of that! You’re absolutely right.
BNSF tries to keep a group of locomotives more less captive to each major commodity (grain, coal, and intermodal.) They don’t tend to swap between any of them to a great degree.
WHat you might find is that a number of locomotives (say perhaps 4) bring an on dock so cal international train to LPC at Joliet. Only 2 of those 4 were needed to take that train set back with largely empties. The other 2 units could be assigned to a hot Z train back toward LA during the late week rush.
BNSF has a heavy day-of-week fluctuation in volumes (heaviest end of week at most terminals) so power may be swapped around to handle day to day peaks and valleys.
I sometimes see a westbound Union Pacific train on the Sunset Route through Arizona that is 100 or so empty well cars.