Several months ago there was an article about the number of Intermodal Freight trains on each railroad.
How much of the freight train has to be intermodal containers or trailers for the trains to be included in the number of intermodal trains each day?
The CN often runs trains where the first 20% to 50% is manifest freight, then the remaining train is all intermodal containers in well cars and trailers on spine flat cars.
The CN was the one road that did not have an offical count of intermodal trains, is this because their trains are considered mixed?
There is no standard to define what is and what is not an intermodal train. Each RR has their own definition. On NS, it’s based on the train’s primary purpose. If it’s to move trailers and containers, then it will have an intermodal symbol and train type. They can carry other types of traffic, by plan, such as a block of autoracks and blocks of intermodal traffic can be carried by other-than-intermodal trains, but that is generally an exception.
The reason for designating certain trains as intermodal is to allow the intermodal marketing and operating guys some control over the train schedules.
Don has it right. More generally an intermodal train is whatever the intermodal marketing department says is an intermodal train.
Not all intermodal trains run full every day. The more wasted space, and the more consistent the waste, the harder the operating department will look to “fill” the train to some tonnage limit to reduce cost. The best fill is other priority traffic. What exactly constitutes other priority trafic depends on what there is and how well it meshes with the intermodal traffic. Automobiles and auto parts is a possible example.
I think the CN is simply filling their intermodal trains with conventional traffic. While it may look random in terms of cars. it is not random in terms of destination and intermediate switching.
Railfans tend to look at a train as a collection of cars run by the railroad for the fans benefit.
Each train the railroad operates has a defined business purpose both in the traffic it handles and the schedule it observes and on most carriers all trains are scheduled - not necessarily to the minute like passenger trains but into time slots during the day.
On my carrier, Intermodal is the highest priority of train (but within Intermodal some trains have higher priority than others). Automotive is the next highest priority. General merchandise trains are of the next priority and then bulk commodity trains are fit in as track time permits.
Since CN must have a set schedule, could somebody at Kalmbach get a copy of the schedule and use it to determine how many of each type of trains operate on their lines, to make a new map of trains per day. Intermodal, Coal, Auto Carriers, and others.