Remember, a lot of the present container traffic is overhead shipping, with some going to the East Coast for transshipment to Europe. With size limitations in the Suez Canal it is cheaper and faster to ship containers to the West Coast, unload move on trains to the East Coast then load for Europe.
A lot of this traffic will go away when the Panama Canal opens its new locks that will accomodate today's container ships.
Rick J
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Anyone who watches the Roanoke railcam, Roanoke VA, will tell you there are many trains which pass through with lots of boxcars in the consist. There are many totally containers trains.
I think it can be said that most types of Class 1 traffic can be seen, at one time or another, passing through Roanoke. Recently, and I believe they are new cars, could be seen grey coloured ore cars.
Alan, Oliver & North Fork Railroad
https://www.buckfast.org.uk/
If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Lewis Carroll English author & recreational mathematician (1832 - 1898)
BRAKIE Rastafarr NittanyLion This was an unusual move, but I just saw a train of approximately 60 cars. Every single one was a CSX boxcar. Interesting. For whatever reason, I haven't seen a single boxcar since this thread started. On the other hand, it's always nice to chase the Canadian on my way to work. That's a oddity..Boxcars can be seen on the NE Corridor.
Rastafarr NittanyLion This was an unusual move, but I just saw a train of approximately 60 cars. Every single one was a CSX boxcar. Interesting. For whatever reason, I haven't seen a single boxcar since this thread started. On the other hand, it's always nice to chase the Canadian on my way to work.
NittanyLion This was an unusual move, but I just saw a train of approximately 60 cars. Every single one was a CSX boxcar.
This was an unusual move, but I just saw a train of approximately 60 cars.
Every single one was a CSX boxcar.
Interesting. For whatever reason, I haven't seen a single boxcar since this thread started. On the other hand, it's always nice to chase the Canadian on my way to work.
And, naturally, the very day I complain about not seeing boxcars, I spot a westbound mixed freight with at least thirty of them right behind the AC44s. Pleasant surprises, right?
Stu
Streamlined steam, oh, what a dream!!
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Never confuse revenue and profit. It is quite possible that because of the amount of handling that it takes to move boxcars, while the trailers generated less revenue, they had lower cost and generated more profit.
The fact that the boxcar has to be switched on both ends (and more than likely one or more times in the middle) and the intermodal car might not have to be switched at all could be a huge cost difference.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
yeah, brakie. the sad thing was we switched this traffic on both ends so we kind of had them locked in and i thought we should wait until the B&O or some trucking outfit tried to pirate the business away before we took such a cut in revenue. olin corporation and the us mint were not going anywhere.
i don't want to start a horror story contest but we lost a real good shipper because the stations department wouldn't pay the overtime needed to generate the customer's freight bills. they wanted to pay up on a regular basis and sometimes went 2 or 3 months without getting a bill. then they would get hammered with tens of thousands of dollars in past due notices. all to save paying some billing clerk a little time and a half. this wasn't a service issue since they were located at a joint agency location and just started giving the other road the road haul. it was kind of sad to see their traffic manager come over to the office and beg the agent for his freight bills. we were kind of like a church without a poor box.
only reason PRR management looked more stupid that NYC was because there were more of them. intellectual incest in it's highest form. oh, well, at least they only mated with their own kind.
charlie9 i guess that was progress. charlie
i guess that was progress.
charlie
Or as I called it railroad management at its best.. sadly shakes head.
I never could understand their logic or is it their misguided logic?
i finally have to shoot my mouth off on this. a personal experience from many years ago. i wonder how much early intermodal success was at the expense of lucrative box car traffic. sometimes railroad management shoots itself in the foot.
i know change is often inevitable and if you don't do something, your competition will, but here is the case in point;
we were hauling a metal product from the St Louis area to Phila. Pa. in box cars going at a rate of minimum weight 120,000 lbs and a revenue of about $2000.00 each car load. our intermodal sales people attacked the customer and convinced them to go with piggy back service. a trailer minimum weight of 40,000 lbs at a cost of a little over $500.00 per trailer.
i brought this up and the regional sales manager said there were factors i did not understand such as car utilization. let me see, 1 box car = 2000 bucks vs. 3 trailers plus one and a half flat cars for only 3/4 of the revenue.
oh, and by the way, we provided the drayage for the trailers on both ends.
zstripe So in essence,the boxcar and or containers,become their warehouse.......on wheels..
Indeed..The boxcar still has uses and shippers are using them.
Another overlooked fact is the railroads distribution centers that load/unload boxcars for off line shippers and receivers.There are contract warehouses that unload boxcars for their customers and store the material or merchandise till needed..Then when the warehouse customer calls these items is rubbered to their customers stores* or manufacturing plant.
*When a merchandise order comes into the warehouse the customer's item(s) is pulled,priced and repacked before it ships to the customers stores..
NittanyLion There's two truths as far as I'm concerned: There's the absolute truth. That's X railroad handled Y of cartype Z. Then there's localized truth. Railroad X handles Y of cartype Z in an given location. Back home in Pittsburgh, I'm not sure I've ever seen a reefer. Ever. Here in VA, the only ones I see are in the Juice Train. But where my brother lives in Ohio, I see blocks of five or six of them in a general freight all the time. Here, boxcars are common and plentiful in the trains passing through town. I assume most of them are full of newsprint and lumber. Back home, they were infrequent and often the big autoparts cars. No, the boxcar is not dead and buried once and for all, but...it may effectively appear to be in a given area. What's most important is whether or not they'd appear in your locale (although if you're one of those do anything guys, well then go nuts I guess).
There's two truths as far as I'm concerned:
There's the absolute truth. That's X railroad handled Y of cartype Z.
Then there's localized truth. Railroad X handles Y of cartype Z in an given location.
Back home in Pittsburgh, I'm not sure I've ever seen a reefer. Ever. Here in VA, the only ones I see are in the Juice Train. But where my brother lives in Ohio, I see blocks of five or six of them in a general freight all the time. Here, boxcars are common and plentiful in the trains passing through town. I assume most of them are full of newsprint and lumber. Back home, they were infrequent and often the big autoparts cars.
No, the boxcar is not dead and buried once and for all, but...it may effectively appear to be in a given area. What's most important is whether or not they'd appear in your locale (although if you're one of those do anything guys, well then go nuts I guess).
There is one more truth, that a lot of people are missing,,, There are a lot of manufacturing,suppliers,and or distributors,that do not warehouse any more. They don't have the space or,the building to accommodate,large,volumes of inventory.. So in essence,the boxcar and or containers,become their warehouse.......on wheels..
Known,Fact...
Cheers,
Frank
dehusmanNot saying boxcars aren't important or aren't being used, but they are nowhere near as common as they used to be.
I suspect that would be based on location and traffic pattern.Today's 50' and 53' boxcars carry almost twice as much as a old 40' boxcar did..Some short lines makes their living delivering boxcars.
There are freight car leasing companies that's buying up used 50 and 53 foot boxcars..
We know solid reefer trains (except for the Tropacana OJ train) disappeared years ago and was recently revived by the U.P and a large produce forwarder..
I've seen this reefer train roll through Fostoria with its 64' reefers and its quite the sight and far from the old PFE trains I recall seeing on the PRR years ago..
BRAKIE Dave,I couldn't get those links you posted to work.
Dave,I couldn't get those links you posted to work.
Try these
Link1
Link 2
Guys,I guess the railroad count the car style differently then you.That's fine.
In 1980 there were over 400,000 boxcars in N America.
Today there are less than 100,000
That's a significant difference.
I will go by the weekly performance report on the cars types handle during the reported week since it was done by railroads and they should know. I still see hundreds of 50' general service boxcars roll by the house every week.. BTW..When you live within 300' of a busy NS main line you tend to see what is haul and I will tell you up front there is far more merchandise trains,grain trains and coal drags then intermodal on the Sandusky line.CSX at Fostoria is about even.NS still runs a lot of general freight through Fostoria.
I will go by the weekly performance report on the cars types handle during the reported week since it was done by railroads and they should know.
I still see hundreds of 50' general service boxcars roll by the house every week..
BTW..When you live within 300' of a busy NS main line you tend to see what is haul and I will tell you up front there is far more merchandise trains,grain trains and coal drags then intermodal on the Sandusky line.CSX at Fostoria is about even.NS still runs a lot of general freight through Fostoria.
Really cool, but near where I live maybe 1/3 the trains are bulk, 1/3 are intermodal and the rest auto or manifest. That makes boxcars about 5% of the total cars at the very best.
Not saying boxcars aren't important or aren't being used, but they are nowhere near as common as they used to be.
They're certainly not dead on CN or CP. I see 'em all the time on my drive to work (which phenomenon caused this thread). I have yet to see an entire boxcar train. Mostly they seem to be in mixed freights along with tankers, containers, covered hoppers and the like. None of it's my era, true, but still cool to see rolling behind GEVOs through some spectacular scenery.
Reading these two studies its obvious that boxcars are on the decline and the graph on the ages of cars is a portent of things to come.
http://www.railsolutionsinc.com/pdf/Investors-Guide-2012-2013-Section1.pdf
http://www.railserve.com/stats_records/freight_railcar_statistics.html
The interesting thing is see is the HUGE drop in boxcars in the 1980's as boxcars were phased out of grain service. That was a huge decrease in the need for general service boxcars.
Larry--
I did not say the boxcar is dead; I said the general purpose boxcar (of decades past) is dead. There is a difference.
If one goes to the link provided above and reads the year to date NS carloadings, one would see that intermodal is king, followed by coal, chemicals, finished vehicles and grain.
The remaining traffic that can possibly move in boxcars is a relative minority. Many of those boxcars are specialty cars built for a specific commodity, and not the general purpose one size fits all and carries just about anything 50' boxcars of decades past.
What you see in your area is what you see--but the overall numbers say that boxcars are a minority.
John
UP 4-12-2 So, I see boxcars in the yards--but out on the NS mainline they appear to be greatly outnumbered by containers of one kind or another, either single or double stacked, or trailers. John
So, I see boxcars in the yards--but out on the NS mainline they appear to be greatly outnumbered by containers of one kind or another, either single or double stacked, or trailers.
John,I respectfully disagree..I see lots of 50' boxcars on NS and CSX..The boxcar isn't as dead as you and many others think..The number of boxcars reported handle by the railroads will prove that.
There's no need to second guess,prove or disprove the types of cars the railroads report they handle during a given week..They know and report.
That's all we need to know.
Numerically speaking, compared to the numbers of boxcars in service years ago, the general purpose boxcar is basically dead.
I owned one of the early 2000's BNSF diesel roster books, and it included a brief discussion that the railroad had gone from owning about 7000 general purpose boxcars down to basically zero within a year or two.
Many of the boxcars that remain are considered by the rail industry to be "specialty" boxcars. They have a specific cargo they carry and may be captive to a specific industry--like Auto Parts or Newsprint. Trains magazine carried an article a couple years back that basically said most of today's boxcars are specially built for a specific purpose--and if that purpose goes away, they may get scrapped.
Here in PA I've seen long lines of old yellow 1970's Railbox general purpose boxcars in storage a couple years ago. Since those cars are approaching 40 years of age, the end of their effective lifespan (some cars are not allowed in interchange service between railroads after 40 years of age--tank cars get an extra ten years, I'm assuming due to the complexities of the coatings, etc. inside them) is fast approaching. I have noticed recently that the number of Railbox boxcars in actual service--moving through Enola Yard on a daily basis--is less than it appeared to be just a couple years ago.
Obviously there are former Railbox cars out there in their second, third, or fourth paint schemes, but those numbers are declining and I suspect that many of them are carrying the paper products as they are often seen in cuts with the known (and still fairly common) Canadian newsprint boxcars and the new TTX yellow hi cube boxcars built specially for paper service.
Disregarding box car and container counts. One of the reasons box cars are still used is that containers and trailers weigh out before they cube out. A fifty foot boxcar is good for 77 tons of freight or 154,000 lbs. while a 53' container is still only road legal for 40 tons or 80,000 lbs.
As an example when I lived in Alaska our company would receive containers or trailers (the only way we could receive freight) of various oil products, case of cans, drums, large containers etc. But we could not load the containers to the roof the best we could have them loaded was about 75% full. By the way the cost to ship a trailer from Seatlle to Anchorage in 1994 was about $4,500.
One of our competitors did receive bulk oil by Tank Car, Quaker State had a seven compartment car that sat on a team track for a long time while they unloaded the tank car periodically for each type of oil.
Dave,That still doesn't have anything to do with the types of cars handled..NS just reported the number of containters..No big deal since IM cars is used in captive service between point A and point B and point B back to point A...NS 234 hauls stacks from Norfork to Chicago and 233 hauls 'em back to Norfork..Some days 233 hauls more air then containers.
BRAKIE Dave,Go the next step and check this and get the real picture..Note the drop in trailers.Containers remain around the same level. http://www.nscorp.com/mktgpublic/MKTGApp
Dave,Go the next step and check this and get the real picture..Note the drop in trailers.Containers remain around the same level.
http://www.nscorp.com/mktgpublic/MKTGApp
That's a dead link. Go back to my previous post, it has the live link, then you have to navigate to the report you want to view.
Brakie, the same can be said of much of the CN traffic through Michigan. A lot of it is auto parts, and auto parts are shipped in box cars.
Many days you may only see two intermodel trains a day, one each direction. Very much different than other parts of the country where intermodel seems to dominate rail traffic.
Of course this still hasn't anything to do with the the number of car types handled and less it twisted and bent out of shape.
If you want more detailed system level information, look for carloading statistics. It took about 3 minutes to find the information for the NS:
http://www.nscorp.com/mktgpublic/webservices/nscorp/carloading_links_mktg_graph.jsp
Click on the "Current report : Carloads" link on the top line
PS: My estimates of the NS handling 64,2000 intermodal boxes was pretty close, the real number was 67,490 (I missed it by 5%).
NittanyLionNo, the boxcar is not dead and buried once and for all, but...it may effectively appear to be in a given area. What's most important is whether or not they'd appear in your locale (although if you're one of those do anything guys, well then go nuts I guess).
There are those that believe the boxcar is a oddity intoday's railroad business because like you say they live in a place full of IM trains.
Come to Bucyrus and watch the NS on the Sandusky line and you will see far more boxcars and open hoppers then intermodal.
The point I take out of all this is that boxcars, despite what I thought previously, are still very useful in many situations. Containers make intermodal transport more efficient, true, but they don't work for everyone and probably never will completely replace the good ol' boxie. Good news that!