The concept was more relevant back in the days of the Spanish crown land grants.
Last several decades it’s been more used to satirize Los Angeles’ insistence upon being the bully in all matters of Southern California .
Now there’s something you don’t hear every day.
CN tried something similar between Montreal and Toronto back in the 1990s. The equipment proved to be unreliable and ended up being rescued by normal locomotives on a regular basis.
http://tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2012/04/cns-ecorail.html?m=1
Profit/loss/demand aside, so
[quote user=“PNWRMNM”]
SD60MAC9500
A service case exist… It’s not about why it can’t work. HOw do we make it work?
SD60,
I think you are trying to say that a service case exists. I am embarrased to say that I spent half of last nignt thinking about this move. I think you are right that about 8,000 containers per day move from Port to IE. I planned on 1800 per day.
My best guess is that truck cost is about $500 based on a 7 hour round trip at $75 per hour. I could be off a bit, but the fact is easy to find if anyone cares.
Here is my estimate of rail costs using 6 sets of 100 box trains.
Crew of 2 BNSF or UP men @ $250 for 8 hours $ 500 trip.
Fuel 2 units of 2000 HP, 600 gallons at $3 $1800 trip
Engine wet lease 2x$1000/3 trips/day $ 700 trip
Car hire $6/slot/day 3 trips/day $ 200 trip
Trackage rights at $.50 per loaded mi on 90 mi. $4500 trip
Overhead at profit on Op cost at 100% $3200
Total $10,900, say $11,000 per trip is $110 per box line haul
Now the hard part - Terminal costs assumed to be $75 per lift at 4 per round trip, is $300 per box
IE dray not over 15 miles 3 hours at $70, say $200.
Total per box is $110 + 300 + 200 = $610 before the hard parts
What
The physical appearance of; Vernon, Southgate, Compton, Watts, Lynwood, is a problem of the indviduals living in
OK my take on this project after reading up on it.
First, this was done to reduce car emissions waiting at railroad crossings. It is just beyond my comprehension why the full cost of the project was assessed to the railroads. Seems to me that it should be 50/50 minimum. Take the Californians out of the project accounting / project management and you won’t end up with a boon doggle. So first slice the debt in half and assess 50% to automobile users in the LA basin.
Second, almost $50 per container as a charge is very steep, slash that after you slash the debt load that needs to be recovered. I have this weird feeling that a drop in the per container fee will entice more traffic or trains.
Third, 40 mph top speed while in the trench…are you joking? If possible given the infrastructure bump that up to 55 mph. It may not be possible but even a 5-10 mph increase would be positive.
Fourth, open this up to all trains that want or have a desire to use the corridor including switch jobs and locomotive moves. Develop a seperate tarriff factor for those.
…and Walla, a financially sustainable project.
Surely you mean “Voila!”?
Thought it was Walla Walla[oX)]
Oops! probably should have used that.
One more thing I want to add is the LA Basin is somewhat geographically unique in that it is a surrounded by mountains in three directions like a bowl…so it has a tendency to trap / accumulate smog. So they have a bigger issue meeting EPA requirements than other large cities.
That’s certainly true. Maybe people have forgotten how brown the air was there before the took action? It didn’t get cleaned up by itself or through social altruism by the automakers.
That’s certainly true. Maybe people have forgotten how bad and brown the air was there before the took action? It didn’t get cleaned up by itself or through social altruism by the automakers.
Is the Alameda Corridor “underutilized” or “under capacity”? They aren’t the same thing…
Judging traffic by train count alone is not a good practice today. It has been pointed out many times on this forum that railroads are running fewer, but longer trains. Do you have a container count from 2006 vs today? That would be a better judge of what is going on.
Are the railroads paying their share on train count, car count or container count?
What is being counted matters.
My argument is not judging by train count alone. Train count is not the core of my argument. Go back to my OP and click on the first referenced link for TEU information. Also concerning the Alameda Corridor is owned by the ACTA, not the Class 1’s. Tolls are assessed per TEU and another toll is collected on non intermodal rolling stock as well. This is just an example not actual information. Out of those average 60trains/day in 2006 let’s say 50 on average were stack trains which carried 6 million TEU’s that year. Today’s count of 28/day. Maybe 20 are stack trains. If those 20 stack trains/day only carry 2 million TEU’s in a year. Do you see where the shortfall in revenue would be?
Considering all the reports of vessels being delayed from docking at West Coast ports that includes the one(s) connected to the Alameda Corridor - what is the REAL HOLD UP?
Can’t containers be unloaded from vessels fast enough? There is not enough on site storage before final forwarding? Final forwarding of the containers is too slow or is artificially constrained?
Perhaps the ships captains are warry that Pacific Harbor Line engineers will try to ram their ships? [(-D][(-D]
Ships are more likely to ram the docks.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/oocl-vessel-blamed-for-crane-collapse-at-taiwan-port
[quote user=“BaltACD”]
SD60MAC9500
n012944
SD60MAC9500
In 2006 train count stood at 60/day.
Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day.
Judging traffic by train count alone is not a good practice today. It has been pointed out many times on this forum that railroads are running fewer, but longer trains. Do you have a container count from 2006 vs today? That would be a better judge of what is going on.
My argument is not judging by train count alone. Train count is not the core of my argument. Go back to my OP and click on the first referenced link for TEU information. Also concerning the Alameda Corridor is owned by the ACTA, not the Class 1’s. Tolls are assesed per TEU and another toll is collected on non intermodal rolling stock as well. Example. Out those 60trains/day in 2006 let’s say 50 were stack trains which carried 6 million TEU’s that year. Today’s count of 28/day. Maybe 20 are stack trains. If those 20 stack trains/day only carry 2 million TEU’s in a year. Do you see where the shortfall in revenue would be?
Considering all the reports of vessels being delayed from docking at West Coast ports that includes the one(s) connected to the Alameda Corridor - what is the REAL HOLD UP?