The Interstate 95 conundrum

bjturon — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 03:04:23 GMT

Sorry!

That link is at... www.youtube.com/watch

Gives a good overview of the layout of the mainline from Florida to NJ.

bjturon — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 03:03:00 GMT

A cool cab video of a CSX freight going from Florida to NJ...

Florida to New Jersey in 156 Seconds (GE Juice Train)

www.youtube.com/watch

I hope you enjoy!

greyhounds — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 04:34:06 GMT

Tabeckett,

Thank you for the information and context. It is appreciated.

greyhounds — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 03:47:58 GMT

Transearch was (is?) a good starting point for regional freight flows. It will give you a good indication of what is coming out of a region and a moderately reasonable indication of what is coming in to a region. I didn't trust their modal market share break out.

What they did was calculate the production in a region by commodity, based on census data IIRC. They then projected a rail share of the production using the 2% waybill sample. They determined barge tons from Corps of Engineers data. Anything that they didn't find moving rail or barge was defaulted to truck movement. And that's how they determined modal market share.

I had used Transearch data at the railroad. After I left the railroad I went to work for Navistar, the surviving truck manufacturing division of International Harvester. Navistar wanted a couple folks who knew something about transportation to do market research. I was one of 'em.

Transearch found me at Navistar and came in to make a sales pitch. Their astounding presentation stated that the amount of coal being transported by truck was exploding. Well, Navistar bought truck registration data from JD Powers. We had a database of every medium and heavy duty truck registered in the US. When we pointed out that we were not seeing an increase in truck sales from any manufacturer into coal producing regions they had no answer.

It was because they defaulted tons to trucks. I pointed out that every UPS load on the ICG moved at 20,000 pound lading. Nobody recorded the weight. It didn't mattter. If you default to a category that category will be overstated.

But, Transearch is a good starting point. It can point you to the producers and receivers you need to talk to.

I've found www.truckloadrate.com to be a good source on truck rates. So with some purchased data you can start to put the puzzel together. But you're still going to have to get on the phone, send emails, and do face to face interviews to nail it all down. This takes people, time and money.

I've often thought that the railroads should talk to a company such as Nielsen. Nielsen provides market information. That's what they do. As an example, Kraft (before the break up) used Nielsen to tell it how much cheese was sold and how big a share of the cheese market each Kraft competitor had. Nielson knows how much cheese is sold, how much is sold by each major producer, etc. Well, if you've got that data, and you know where Kraft produces (produced?) cheese then you've got a good idea of the freight market for cheese. Nielsen can tell you such information about a whole lot of commodities. (Full disclosure, I did work for Nielsen.)

Do you think that anyone at CSX has even thought about talking to Neilsen?

DelawareRailfan — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 02:49:49 GMT

Fred -

I can't speak to the marketing end of things as it relates to CSXT's efforts to wrest more freight traffic from the parallel I-95. On the infrastructure side, CSXT is still looking at three obstacles along this eastern corridor to double-stacking which, I presume, could tip the scales in the railroad's favor once they are addressed: Virginia Avenue tunnel in DC, Howard Street tunnel in Baltimore and a tunnel (albeit a short one, by comparison) in Darby Township, PA, just west of Philadelphia. The railroad is already raising nine clearances east of Philly to accommodate doublestacks from/to the Port of Philadelphia so as to eliminate the need to run a daily doublestack between Philly and New York via Norfolk Southern between the City of Brotherly Love and Morrisville, PA.

Time - and investment - will tell.

Rail Pundit — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:32:42 GMT

Right, DCarleton. If anyone wants to rebuildthe A line or any other rail line, let them pay for it. I see many propoisals to do this or do that, but it's always the railroad that is expected to put up its - and its stockholders - capital. A reminder: Amtrak exists because railroads could not operate passenger service profitably, and even the ICC finally had recognized that truth and was allowing passenger trains to be annulled as their operators filed applications at the Commission. Like it or not, Amtrak was the government's effort to retain essential passenger service at as little expense to taxpayers as possible. Now we have the Republican clowns - as distinguished from the Democrat clowns - in Congress saying they want to "privatize" the Amtrak Northeast Corridor. These guys are good at committing other people's money. The same goes for proposals that various lines by double-tracked, etc. Those who own the rail infrastructure can be counted upon to invest capital when and where they legitimately can see an opportunity to operate profitably. Here endeth the lesson in economics.

D.Carleton — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:08:03 GMT

"So that is the question: is there a market to be served between Baltimore and Florida?"

Quite likely the answer is "yes." The next question is the deal breaker: Is there sufficient infrastructure to handle growth in such a market. The national rail mileage peaked in 1916 at 254,000 miles. Today that has been rationalized to 140,000 miles. (In the mean time the national population almost tripled.) One of the prime examples of this rationalization was the combination of the SAL and ACL. The parallel SAL was downgraded and ultimately the northern section was abandoned and lifted to the NC state line. CSX today has enough traffic to fill out its franchise and turn a healthy profit.

There are those who wish to rebuild/re-engineer the former SAL for fast passenger trains. This could open the door to intermodal expansion either through operating over the rebuilt line or the opening of slots on the A line by the diversion of passenger trains to the old SAL. Do not expect CSX to fund any part of the rebuilding of the SAL. If someone else wants it bad enough then let them pay for it.

tabeckett — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:26:30 GMT

This will be a long post, mostly about trucking, but may give some background for those not entirely familiar with how things work in that world:

To CNSF's comments on teams: that is all correct. Team drivers are usually paid a mileage rate to the truck, and the drivers typically split it evenly, but can work out any division they want privately. In case of husband/wife teams, it doesn't really matter, it's all going in the same pot most of the time. As you note, the big deal is speed. A team that knows how to manage their time and works well together can outrun any train they want, though the new hours of service have limited this somewhat. The big plus for the company is that we get twice the utilization out of the equipment, for no additional cost. The customer wins because their freight gets delivered in half the time.

The other side of that is indeed the problems recruiting and retaining team drivers. Keep in mind, truck drivers working in a sleeper cab are essentially living, for weeks at a time, in an 8x8 foot metal box. They might have some creature comforts-TV, fridge, maybe a microwave-but generally nothing in the way of facilites, and you're pretty much a hostage to the truck. While there are some porta potty set ups that can be used on the truck, the overwhelming majority of drivers have to get up, get dressed, walk across a windswept parking lot into the building to use the rest room, get a shower, etc. It rapidly loses its appeal(??) when you have to do it at 2 AM in Des Moines in February. Now imagine sharing all that with another person.....at 35 cents/mile, for three or four weeks at a time, then take 3-6 days off, and do it again. The team works best when the truck is always moving, so ideally one driver is in the seat, and the other is sleeping. Many people cannot sleep in a moving truck, and you have to be able to trust the driver not to put it in the ditch while you're asleep behind him. There is little contact between the drivers, except at change over, which might amount to a couple of hours/day, if that. I was once offered a dedicated team run from Alexandria LA to the west coast. I think it was 4 weeks out, a week off. I declined it. I like what little space I had, and did want to live in an 8x8 foot box with anyone. Love may be grand, but I don't LIKE anyone that much!!

Hours of service also matter. Without getting into a long discussion of the intricacies of the sleeper berth rule, it was easier in the old days with a 10 hour driving period and 8 hour break. In that regime, it was also possible to split time in the sleeper, as long as one sleeper period was at least two hours, and the total added up to at least 8 hours. So drivers could split their time 4 on/4 off, or 5 on/5 off, the latter being a plan that was popular, worked well, and many used. Now, you have to split the sleeper time into an 8 hour break, and at least a 2 hour break, with the total break time adding up to 10 hours. This kills the previous arrangement, and makes the driver who is driving take an 8 hour shift. Very few can run 8 hours straight-and it's not really a good idea anyway-so there is some down time during that 8 hours which reduces the efficiency.

Someone commented on payload. As a practical matter, the 45,000 lb limit is about right. If loaded carefully, and depending on weight of the truck, that can be pushed to 46,000 with standard equipment. There are lightweight trailers that can load to 48,000 lbs, but they may not be sturdy enough to withstand the rigors of rail transport. But the approximately 65,000 lb max load on the rail is about right, regardless of equipment, since any trailer, or container/chassis combination must can weigh no more than 80,000 on the road with a tractor.

There have also been some comments on the length of haul. We figure our load velocity at 42-45 MPH door to door for solo drivers, which is almost all of them. As a practical matter, 400-500 miles/day is what we can get, depending on where they are running. A driver picking up in Jersey headed for Florida is going to be hampered by traffic, which is going to cut down the miles he can run. They are also limited by the 14 hour rule, which states that once a driver starts his day, he must finish and be parked for a 10 hour break no more than 14 hours later. If I start my day at 0700 in Newark NJ, I have to be parked and on a break by 2100, or I'm in violation. During that 14 hour period, I can drive 11 hours. If I'm sitting on a dock, that 14 hours is ticking away. So, if I drive an hour to my pick up, spend 4 hours on the dock, then head south, I'm left with 9 driving hours once I leave the shipper. If I encounter heavy traffic delays en route, that limits the miles I can drive. The advent of electronic logs has really affected the way this plays out. In the pre e-log days, many drivers logged miles, and not time. Illegal, to be sure, since it is falsification, but in order to maximize the miles-since just about every OTR driver is paid on mileage-drivers would figure every mile at 60 MPH, even if they were at 15 MPH on the Beltway-and come up with hours. That way, a driver would start in Newark, shut down in Rocky Mount NC, 446 miles away, and log approximately 7 1/2 hours, regardless of how long it really took. If you started at 0700, left the shipper at noon, and did not get to Rocky Mount til midnight, so be it; your log would show you parked and on a break most likely around 2030, figuring pee breaks, etc. Up until recently, even trucks with satellite did not match the locator to the driver log, so you could get away with it. You could start running again at 0630. With e-logs, it will show actual elapsed time, since the machine automatically has the driver on drive line if the truck is moving. When your time is up, you're done. The machine will put you in violation as soon as your 14 hours ticks off. Under those circunstances, the truck might only make Fredericksburg. So the 500 mile day is still a realistic possibility, and almost a certainty away from any urban area, but it could be much less than that for a run starting in the northeast and running the I 95 corridor. If CSX could figure out a way to take advantage of that, they might be on to something. Anyone remember the Sprint trains MILW ran?? Chicago to Twin Cities overnight-is there a potential for that kind of service in this lane?? Get the marketing people moving!!!

Rail Pundit — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:39:40 GMT

There obviously are some very bright people participating here. And...... Intermodal is not a separate form of transportation. It is a means of moving goods from where it is to where its owners want it to be. It's an excellent way of serving customers that do not have rail sidings into their facilities. Historically, intermodal has been a lower-priced alternative to all-highway or standard rail car service. There are tradeoffs of price and service. Intermodal was he first rail service to be fully deregulated even before Staggers was enacted in 1980. That's because every intermodal shipment could just as easily have remained on the highway so shippers did not need any protection by the Interstate Commerce Commission from the rapacious railroads. Even the distances at which intermodal is competitive vary as different shippers have different requirements for service. Charge enough and a relatively short haul becomes competitive. Ofr course, charge too much and the railroad won't see the traffic at all. Charge low enough rates and you have the kind of volume that BNSF and UP enjoy off the West Coast and that NS and CSX hope to have in the East. Intermodal is a rail version of what we are seeing in the short line segment of the industry. Class I carriers really do have a hard time handling smaller volumes and loose cars profitably, so they turn to the short lines to handle the first mile and last mile, contenting themselves with the long haul that they do so well. It keeps the short lines in business, and it generally makes customers happy.

Old Head — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:30:50 GMT

greyhounds is correct: We need a comprehensive understanding of the potential traffic--and much more--to plan a service that would reduce the number of trucks on I-95. Freight traffic databases such as Transearch that cover all of the modes have been available for decades. And CSX must have a service design and/or strategic planning department like most big RRs, although they may leave development of potential intermodal services to the intermodal people. It's not improper to engage in a scoping type of discussion, as Fred's renewed request seeks. How else would anyone in a position of responsibility decide what to study in greater detail, anyway? To the point made by greyhounds, however, even such a scoping discussion must be based on certain (educated) assumptions about the traffic. Otherwise it's just speculation.

Trinity River Bottoms Boomer — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:55:00 GMT

Neat stuff guys, all of it! I still would like to know what the current situation is in Tampa. Has CSX constructed a new modern intermodal terminal in the Tampa Bay area and with the Port of Tampa expanding and gearing up for the future including the traffic growth they expect when the Panama Canal widening project is completed is CSX prepaing to handle any new Florida to Northeast destination container trains or not? If they aren't is there a possiblity that this traffic will be deverted to West Palm Beach and given to the FEC to deliver it to the CSX at Jax to cut transit time?

CNSF — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:37:01 GMT

I would think CSX's next move should be to go after freight moving between Florida and points north of NJ, such as Boston, Montreal, Toronto/Buffalo, etc. That was supposed to be the big benefit of the Conrail purchase, after all.

Fred Frailey — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 05:15:02 GMT

Holy moly, I forget to bring my summation of intermodal service on the A Line to a conclusion. And it is this: CSX today markets between New Jersey, Philly and Baltimore on one end and Florida on the other, and essentially nothing in between. So that is the question: is there a market to be served between Baltimore and Florida? CSX is saying no, there is not. Its exceptions are Q102 and Q103 between Charleston SC and Jax, handling double stack ocean containers.

What do you think?

Fred Frailey

greyhounds — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 03:40:57 GMT

Old Head,

No one here can reaslistically propose a plan to take trucks of I-95. We don't know anything beyond the fact that there are a lot of trucks on that Interstate Highway.

We don't know where the trucks are loaded, where they're going, what they're hauling, what they're charging, who is paying the freight, what the service requirements are, or the specific volumes. Those are the starting points.

That would be information gathered by market research and analysis. After gaining that knowledge a tentative plan for train services and equipment could be developed.

Doing it any other way would put the cart before the horse. My unfortunate belief is that CSX just doesn't have the people in position to do the research. CSX should have a comprehensive data base on all the freight that moves in its territory. (And I mean comprehensive, inclusive as posible of all the freight.) If that were the case, analysis and planning could be done in concert with market changes. I'd be very surprised if CSX has even thought of such a data base.

Old Head — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:05:30 GMT

CNSF: That rings true, all of it.