Re: DC location vs. ramp location. BNSF and a few others have done some suburban partnering with developers on logistics parks. In some cases (ie: Stockton CA on BNSF and Salt Lake City on UP) there was enough available land and development underway that it worked. In San Bernardino CA BNSF was had a little-needed manifest yard and shops that were converted into a 600,00+ lift/year ramp; UP had land adjacent to their main but woudn’t spend the money. But in many other markets railroads don’t pursue the “right” locations for new ramps, more so in urban markets (ie: Seattle/Tacoma). The impact on drays out West that isn’t too bad: in the East short hauls make long drays problematic. But as land prices go up there is a trend for large DCs to move further away from development (worst case I can think of is the Walmart DC in Hurricane, Utah, nowhere near any rail). And some large metro/distribution hubs such as Indianapolis have terrible ramps (CSX) or no ramps (NS). Shadow the Cats owner’s points are well taken.
Re: refrigerated shipping: greyhounds’ information on the nature of perishables and shelf-lives is great info. I found the vegetable breakdown illuminating. Fruits are more perishable, with much shorter shelf lives. Also, note that a refrigerated TL carrier is going to haul vegetables on one haul, fruit on another, and – sometimes – proteins on another. You want that flexibility. Regardless, I would argue the ability for railroads to penetrate those markets is mainly about service rather than equipment per se. And backhauls/empty moves. Once those get into the hundreds of miles, they eliminate the short- and medium-haul markets for railroads.
I don’t dispute the economics of moving goods in double-stack vs. conventional trailers. But remember that costs have to include convenience, cubing, delays from chassis, conversion from trailers to containers, and that ever-present handicap for railroads: the supply chain costs of poor reliability and limited schedules. Service needs to come first, THEN conversion can be on the table for discussion. That’s my opinion, and I could be wrong, but it seems consistent with what I see/hear from my clients
Trucking is nimble, goes everywhere, and fits its offerings to what businesses want. Railroads generally don’t. Trucks offer a complete matrix of service to everywhere; railroads don’t.
That trucking has this figured out is a blessing in disguise for railroads. Because instead of having to deal with thousands of businesses with different requirements, they can deal with a fractional number of that with a much smaller range of requirements. LTL trucking is a great example. It demands high levels of service. But on the retail side, it is the LTL trucker who has to deal with thousands of shippers. A railroad can deal with Old Dominion, YRC, Central, Estes, Saia, UPS, FedEx, others and have the vast majority of the LTL market available to it. Go for the 50 largest TL carriers and you probably have 2/3s of the non-gypsy market available to you. Go for the 25 largest refrigerated TL carriers and you likely only have about 15% or 20% available to you: traffic is much more a gypsy operation. That is changing with ELDs and the consolidation of cold chain providers that are accelerating pushing shipping to more financially sound/responsible truckers. The opportunities are huge, as greyhounds started this series with.
Railroads want to run large, long trains on as few schedules as possible between the smallest number of terminals possible. That flies in the face of what shippers want and trucking does. Take a metro area like DFW. BNSF has one ramp in the north Ft. Worth area at Alliance; UP has one domestic ramp east of Dallas at Mesquite and one international ramp south of Dallas. The levels of congestion in DFW mean that on shorter hauls, the time and cost of draying to opposite areas of the metro area become prohibitive. Both roads need two domestic ramps in the DFW metro area if they are to win medium- and shorter-haul traffic. But neither is interested in that. Chicago to DFW is about as short as they want to do, and that is a push. And so truckers get that market. Supply chain decisions are based on trucking proximity and convenience; not so much on railroad ramp location. What are store drays and last mile shipping costs vs. costs into and out of the general market? And when you factor in service, railroading looks even less compelling. Cold chains are even more demanding. Service needs to change first.
One last aside: BNSF is rebuilding and expanding the dormant Barstow CA ramp, focused on long-haul refrigerated truck traffic EB, mostly dry goods WB. For the long-haul, BNSF gets it. Not for the short haul though.
tree68 greyhounds I really want to deal with the PSR thing. I see it as good for railroading and good for this business in particular. But one thing at a time. A good deal of what I've seen about PSR is that it's great for the investors, not so much for the business of running a railroad. A smart business person would be looking for ways to get more business, even if it was in a fairly narrow range (ie, IM, bulk/unit trains). You don't do that by getting rid of the people who go out and find that business for you. Likewise, you can't cut operating and business costs without having some effect on actually running the railroad. That's not to say that there wasn't some fat to be cut, but how much is too much? This is why I suggested elsewhere that an analysis needs to be done post-EHH to see what stuck and what didn't, and the long-term effects on the railroad. Many of the ideas put forth as PSR go back years. Cutting dwell time and increasing velocity predate PSR. So do deferred maintenance and clearing out perceived "deadwood." We will have to wait to see how it all falls out in the end.
greyhounds I really want to deal with the PSR thing. I see it as good for railroading and good for this business in particular. But one thing at a time.
A good deal of what I've seen about PSR is that it's great for the investors, not so much for the business of running a railroad.
A smart business person would be looking for ways to get more business, even if it was in a fairly narrow range (ie, IM, bulk/unit trains). You don't do that by getting rid of the people who go out and find that business for you.
Likewise, you can't cut operating and business costs without having some effect on actually running the railroad. That's not to say that there wasn't some fat to be cut, but how much is too much? This is why I suggested elsewhere that an analysis needs to be done post-EHH to see what stuck and what didn't, and the long-term effects on the railroad.
Many of the ideas put forth as PSR go back years. Cutting dwell time and increasing velocity predate PSR. So do deferred maintenance and clearing out perceived "deadwood." We will have to wait to see how it all falls out in the end.
If PSR really did what it claims to do, things would be great. Trains would run on schedule, cars would make their connections, and everything would be great. Heck, with trains running on time train crews might even know when we are going to work!
Except the vast majority of that didn't happen. On CN, the cuts to infrastructure, staff and spending, and the shift to longer trains (before sidings had been lengthened) caused havoc and delays, with shippers suffering. Consider what happened in the Northern Ontario Zone, between Winnipeg and Toronto. Hunter decided to run 10,000'+ trains in both directions before any sidings were lengthened. His solution: perform a saw-by at every meet.
At CSX I understand he implemented a similar strategy, eliminating helper crews and having trains double the hills instead.
One could go on all day with examples, but the point here is that cost-cutting strategies like these gum up operations and play havoc with timekeeping. More mundane things like cutting maintenance crews and yard assignments have similar effects. More problems arise, fewer people are around to fix them, and the ones who remain have been alienated by the Culture of Fear that for some reason has to accompany all this.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, PSR is good for the shareholders but no one else.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
greyhoundsgreyhounds wrote the following post yesterday: First I'd like to thank most of the contributors to this thread. Your writings have been thoughtfull, knowledgeable, and incisive, for the most part.
Ken: Your remarks on various refrigerated cargoes and the possibilities for rail transport (again) are always of interest because of your background. You also mentioned PSR. Since you once worked on the IC, I am wondering if that overlapped with EHH's time there and what your thought of his contributions back then to railroading? A first-hand account would be valuable.
Shadow the Cats ownerThe biggest issue that the railroads are going to have to regain any measurable share in the produce market hauling is where the final Distribution centers are being built now. Not one of the Walmart the largest in terms of sales BTW Distribution centers has rail access they are all Truck service only. Amazon which owns Whole Foods is the same way so is Costco the other major Grocery chains are the same way also. The railroads cut their own throats with their lack of customer service to the produce markets.
Es macht nichts. It doesn't matter.
Rail movements of these comodities are going to be intermodal with pick up and delivery by truck. Rail is for line haul between intermodal terminals. If the "biggest" problem is that the grocery DCs don't have a rail spur, then rail intermodal is home free.
The railroads were driven out of this business by inane government economic regulation, which didn't apply to trucks hauling ag commodities. Fruit and vegetable perishables have a seasonality. It peaks in the summer months and hits its low volume in the winter. Truck rates have always followed this demand shift. Truck rates are high in the high volume summer and lower in the low volume winter. The government idiots held rail rates constant through the year.
This meant that rail prices underchaged vs. the market rate in the peak season and were undercut by trucks in the low season. The railroads were forced, by the damn government, to charge less than they could in the peak season and park their equipment in the winter when the truckers undercut the legally required rail charges. There was no way for the rails to make a buck in such a situation.
If rail service did falter it was because there was no sense in busting a hump to loose money.
charlie hebdoKen: Your remarks on various refrigerated cargoes and the possibilities for rail transport (again) are always of interest because of your background. You also mentioned PSR. Since you once worked on the IC, I am wondering if that overlapped with EHH's time there and what your thought of his contributions back then to railroading? A first-hand account would be valuable.
I left before EHH got there. I've often wondered how things would have turned out if I'd hung on until he showed up. When I left the place was a shambles. They had tried to sell the railroad as a whole. The Southern took a good look and made a negative offer. They said they'd take the ICG if IC Industries paid them to do so.
Then it was decided that the railroad could not be made profitable. So they started selling it off piecemeal. That's how the Chicago Central, Indiana Rail Road, Chicago, Missouri & Western, Paducah & Louisville, and Midsouth came about. (Hunter bought the Chicago Central back for some reason.)
The operating (and other) departments were largely staffed by a bunch of good old boys who didn't have much in the way of education. They knew how things had always been done and were not about to change. Even if the railroad was going down the drain. You couldn't talk to them about such things as marginal vs average costs. They didn't have a clue and resented being taken out of their comfort zone.
The really didn't like schedules. They preferred ad hoc railroading. I could go in to all kinds of examples. But I'll go with our one Birmingham to Chicago train, BC-4. We reached Birmingham on trackage rights over the Frisco. This meant we had very limited yard capacity in Birmingham. So, BC-4 had six hours built in to its "schedule" to allow reclasification in Jackson, TN. But that was apparently just too hard. What they'd do is take 30 hours. Today's BC-4 in to Jackson was tomorrow's BC-4 out of Jackson. So much for the "schedule". So much for equipment utilization.
I had a wife and a mortage so when I got a good job offer elsewhere I took it.
The importance of scheduled railroading cannot be overstated. A schedule is your profit plan. It defines the services to be offered (revenue) and the resources to be used (costs). A deviation from the schedule means you're out of your game plan and are likely to be a looser. Before EHH came to the IC schedules and customer service were readily ignored. The result was a failed enterprise.
Heck fire, EHH even improved the operation of our main intermodal train, #51. He ran it on a 12 hour schedule from Chicago to Memphis. That's a 42 MPH average speed. That may not sound like much, but it's a whole lot better than the good ole' boys could do. If you give a good marketing department (pretty much an oxymoron on most railroads) a reliable 42 MPH intermodal schedule between terminals they can dominate the lane. In fact, the best I ever saw was Santa Fe #188 which ran from Corwith (Chicago) to Hobart (LA) in 50 hours. The train was fully truck competitive at a 44 MPH average speed.
I'll admit that EHH left something (a lot?) to be desired with his implementations of PSR. But the concept is sound. It's going to take some time to work out the bugs, it always does. But running to a schedule and maximizing asset utilization are requirements for success. And anyone who could whip those good ole' boys in to line, as EHH did, gets my support.
I have an early 1960's ETT from the NYC (No. 14, October 27, 1963). Prominently included is "Operation Sunset," which showed expected times (to the minute) both for connections within the Central and for off-line connections.
It includes the phrase "Protected connections pay off - let's roll as advertised"
Sounds like Precision Scheduled Railroading to me...
Granted, at that point, NYC had a lot of issues, but this goes to show that the concept is hardly new. And, as I've pointed out, reducing terminal dwell time and increasing velocity are also not new concepts - even if some railroads couldn't see it that way.
What is "new" is milking every available penny out of the railroad to pay out to investors while selling it as an improvement.
Was EHH even involved in railroading in 1963? (short answer, no).
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68Was EHH even involved in railroading in 1963? (short answer, no).
True, but just barely. He started on the Frisco as carman-oiler in 1964 while a student at Memphis State.
42 MPH between Memphis and Chicago well golly they should be dominating on that market. NOPE they won't why it takes one of my drivers 8 hours to make that same trip with the current speed limits. Plus the customers at both ends are not waiting for the drivers to have to find and bring them the trailers off the train.
My hubby was running a head to head contest with EHH and the IC in 99 for a few months with his last carrier. Hauling McDonalds burgers to TN bounce to Memphis grab a load of Coors out of Memphis and back to West Chicago for unload and reload. He was running on average based on his old logs 3.5 rounds a week on that round robin.
Why not just ask the two Canadian carriers how they do it, both CP and CN have extensive refrigerated container fleets, of course they also market directly to shippers and control the service from door to door without middle men, so that might be part of the reason...and I know that at least CN has increased their refrigerated container fleet within the last couple of years, and I haven't worked in logistics for over 10 years now.
Shadow the Cats ownerMy hubby was running a head to head contest with EHH and the IC in 99 for a few months with his last carrier.
EHH was President and Chief Executive Officer of the IC from 1993 to 1998. Following the acquisition of IC by CN on February 11, 1998, Harrison was appointed Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer by CN. So the contest must have been really special, given that EHH was already in Montreal, Canada by early 1998.
charlie hebdo Shadow the Cats owner My hubby was running a head to head contest with EHH and the IC in 99 for a few months with his last carrier. EHH was President and Chief Executive Officer of the IC from 1993 to 1998. Following the acquisition of IC by CN on February 11, 1998, Harrison was appointed Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer by CN. So the contest must have been really special, given that EHH was already in Montreal, Canada by early 1998.
Shadow the Cats owner My hubby was running a head to head contest with EHH and the IC in 99 for a few months with his last carrier.
He was still in command of the IC operations overall as COO. Everyone knew that when the IC was bought by the CN that it was a matter of time before EHH took it over from the previous guy. Why as soon as the IC was taken over most of the senior CN people were being shown the door and forced out for the IC people coming into the offices.
GERALD L MCFARLANE JRWhy not just ask the two Canadian carriers how they do it, both CP and CN have extensive refrigerated container fleets, of course they also market directly to shippers and control the service from door to door without middle men, so that might be part of the reason...and I know that at least CN has increased their refrigerated container fleet within the last couple of years, and I haven't worked in logistics for over 10 years now.
AFAIK, CP was the launch customer for the Thermo King SLXi-DRC.
The fact that both CP & CN have reefer container fleets in Canada and provide complete door-to-door service is telling as to the adverse effects of US government regulatory nonsense on rail reefer business.
In the US there were severe, stringent, and frankly silly restrictions placed on rail-truck through movements. The government required rates often caused two trailers to be shipped to avoid a rate penalty. This lead to the rise of middlemen who "mated" trailers from two different shippers to make a two trailer pair. The middlemen formed a barrier between the railroads and the shippers and helped force the rails out of retail.
The trucking restrictions lead to terminal to terminal rates on intermodal. Such rates are automatically wrong in that they simultaneously undercharge some freight and overcharge other freight.
I've already mentiioned the adverse effect government rate regulations had on rail movement of fruits and vegetables.
This just didn't happen in Canada.
Bruce D GillingsRe: refrigerated shipping: greyhounds’ information on the nature of perishables and shelf-lives is great info. I found the vegetable breakdown illuminating. Fruits are more perishable, with much shorter shelf lives. Also, note that a refrigerated TL carrier is going to haul vegetables on one haul, fruit on another, and – sometimes – proteins on another. You want that flexibility.
I waited too long to reply. I didn't want to just prolong my own thread, but I reason this is important, so I'll reply.
Fruit just isn't a problem. In 2016 the US per capita "disappearance" of fruit was 255.81 pounds. Of that amount 114.20 pounds were processed. Mostly into fruit juice. In recent years per capita consumption of fruit juice has fallen like a rock, but it's still a big tonnage volume and the railroads can make dollars hauling it. (You're supposed to eat an apple, not "drink" an apple.) So, overall, we consume 44.6% of our fruit that is in someway processesed. Processed fruit is good to go by rail.
The largest fruit in the fresh category is the wonderful, humble banana (27.55 pounds per capita.) Bananas make up 10.8% of all fruit in the US and they're all imported, by boat. So they can take some transit time. They are picked green, shipped to a grocery distribution center, and then gassed to induce ripening. Railroads can haul bananas just fine. I know bananas. I got 'em moving on the ICG when I worked there. And I had quite a fight to do it. The dorks in our freight claims department should have been fired on the spot.
Next in line is fresh citrus such as oranges, grapefuit, lemons, limes, etc. These have shelf lives that can accomodate rail transit. Per capita disaappearance was 24 pounds in 2016.
Now let's go to apples. While most apples are processed and included in that volume, their fresh disappeance is 18.67 pounds per capita. (Baked apples and sweet potatoes are really good!) Apples come out of harvest, mostly in Washington State, and are held in controlled atmosphere storage. So they can accomodate rail transit times.
Do you like watermelon? I do. A summer job in high school was working the the melon fields with a hoe. (That's when I made up my mind to go to college.) Watermelon disappearance was 16.61 pounds per cap in 2016. Watermelons are also good to go by rail.
Add 'em up. Between the processed fruit, the bananas, the fresh citrus, the fresh apples, and the watermelons, it totals over 89% of the fruit transportation market that is readily available to the railroads. I'll leave the fresh stawberries to the truckers and air freight. But I'll contest things such as pears, grapes, cantalope, processed pinapple, etc. The marketing folks have to have some fun.
If anyone wants me to go in to the huge potential in long haul protein transport, I will. Hint: It's a backhaul for the fruits and vegetables and is a huge opportunity.
greyhoundsThe largest fruit in the fresh category is the wonderful, humble banana (27.55 pounds per capita.) Bananas make up 10.8% of all fruit in the US and they're all imported, by boat. So they can take some transit time. They are picked green, shipped to a grocery distribution center, and then gassed to induce ripening. Railroads can haul bananas just fine. I know bananas. I got 'em moving on the ICG when I worked there. And I had quite a fight to do it. The dorks in our freight claims department should have been fired on the spot.
United Fruit Company built their 'Fruit Pier' at Locust Point on the B&O in Baltimore. B&O in the 40's and 50's was famous for it's Banana Trains that operated to various locations on the system.
When I was a TM at Locust Point in the middle 70's, the B&O was no longer in the banana business - it was all truck. On the days when the banana boats were due, the streets leading to the Fruit Pier were clogged with referigerator trucks on both sides of the roadways, each waiting to get their loads and hit the road.
Personally, when I buy bananas, I buy the greenest that I can find at the store, if what is displayed are showing a 'ripe yellow' I will forego the purchase. I don't like when the banana 'meat' turns to 'mush' when fully ripe.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
greyhoundsThe largest fruit in the fresh category is the wonderful, humble banana (27.55 pounds per capita.)
As an aside, The hottest train on the old NYC Adirondack Division (Utica to Montreal) was BA-1, the "banana train." Often pulled by ALCO FA's, and probably steam before that.
The through line between Malone and Montreal came up about 1960, so the banana train was history at least by then.
I called another carrier near me it's about 40 miles away from us they run reefers exculsive and asked them what their make up of return loads is when they are hauling fruits is for the local grocery warehouse they deliver to as they use it as a return load for about 40% of their loads. They flat out said 90% of their loads are mixed in what they are hauling regardless of the customer they are going to for fruits anymore. Why that way their customers can get the freshest fruit possible. They order a couple pallets of each thing they want and 1 truck delivers it all to them. Not to many places anymore take 100 ton loads of apples or citrus or watermelons and bannas anymore people. Trucks have allowed diversification of produce loads inbound to allow grocery stores to cut inbound waste and storage issues. Instead of ordering say 2 trucks a week of all one fruit and hoping they sell it before it spoils of the softer stuff they order what with computer data has shown they will expect to sell in one week and order that amount. JIT inventory is not just for manufactoring anymore it has come to grocery stores also in their supply chains.
Shadow the Cats owner I called another carrier near me it's about 40 miles away from us they run reefers exculsive and asked them what their make up of return loads is when they are hauling fruits is for the local grocery warehouse they deliver to as they use it as a return load for about 40% of their loads. They flat out said 90% of their loads are mixed in what they are hauling regardless of the customer they are going to for fruits anymore. Why that way their customers can get the freshest fruit possible. They order a couple pallets of each thing they want and 1 truck delivers it all to them. Not to many places anymore take 100 ton loads of apples or citrus or watermelons and bannas anymore people. Trucks have allowed diversification of produce loads inbound to allow grocery stores to cut inbound waste and storage issues. Instead of ordering say 2 trucks a week of all one fruit and hoping they sell it before it spoils of the softer stuff they order what with computer data has shown they will expect to sell in one week and order that amount. JIT inventory is not just for manufactoring anymore it has come to grocery stores also in their supply chains.
That flexibility and versatility is what makes trucks so valuable. The number of truck turns relative to rail equipment turns is quite high, more so on shorter hauls. And yet that rail still manages to compete even with more expensive equipment and lower utilization speaks a lot about how efficient line-haul railroading is. From what I see, store delivery is predominantly from DCs, rather than a producer or straight from the fields or a packing house.
What greyhounds is advocating is how railroads capture the food moves to the DCs. In short-haul markets, that is going to be tough, except where a ramp is immediately adjacent to fields/packing houses/processing plants AND the DCs are very close to the destination ramps. My guess is for markets in the 350- to 600-mile range, that would be drays of less than 30 or 45 minutes. That really limits the field, as Shadow notes that many, many current industrial areas are decentralized or in areas where no good ramp exists (Indianapolis comes to mind). The shifting of locations of the facilities noted above from rail-centric to truck-centric has been going on since the 1960s, to the point where the majority of those facilities get outside of practical drayage range on shorter hauls. That is less relevant on 1200-mile for greater hauls. But then service comes into play. Trucks focus on service. Railroads are too focused on costs as determined by rates. And as any manager of a firm’s supply chain will tell you, and as Shadow correctly notes, the costs that a firm incurs from shipping by rail are mostly a lot more than just the rates. Far less so with trucking. A few railroad C-suite folks talk the talk, but walking the walk is minimal. The push to PSR is not about service, based on what we have seen. It is focused on the railroad’s costs, and passing the “savings” along to the shippers. And so far we are seeing the opposite.
Until railroading becomes service-centric and understands and evolves its service to lower full supply-chain costs, growth will be nominal at best. We are seeing that happening now, and as trucking capacity is more in balance with demand, we are seeing conversion on some lanes back to OTR trucks from intermodal.
My boss offers what we call a custom order service. We order resins in bulk from the manufacturer of them and then custom blend to our customers needs. Last year alone we received over 700 cars combined from the BNSF and NS. The BNSF was right about 500 carloads in volume. Yet we still have to go through multiple people and playing phone tag with the them trying to get a hold of anyone in customer service at the BNSF. Our smallest customers can call my office and ask for the owner of the company and get him on the phone.
See the difference in customer service I can't imagine doing what the railroad does to us to any of my customers we service. Also anything over a 2 hour drayage anymore with fuel costs what they are now and the intermodal cost savings is gone.
The 'S' in PSR does not stand for Service!
The boxcar is still key to perishable delivery. It wouldn't take much to update (resize) the boxcar to 8'6" interior width. Ro-Ro racks already exist. Transfer between boxcar and trailer would be seamless..
Intermodal can reach off rail customers no problem. An intermodal ramp car network across the country centered around producing areas would be of great benefit. Persiahbles/Seafood/Wine east. Meat/Parcels west.
SD60MAC9500The boxcar is still key to perishable delivery. It wouldn't take much to update (resize) the boxcar to 8'6" interior width. Ro-Ro racks already exist. Transfer between boxcar and trailer would be seamless..
The rock upon which all the 'automated' rack-handling systems I have seen so far have foundered is incompatibility between some of the freight (as packaged) and the most effective 'modules' of the handling system. I'm sure greyhounds can quote specific examples.
Much of the technology 'improvement' in RFID tagging and automatic warehouse systems should be highly adaptable, if not indeed OTS suited, to such an operation. I can't comment on how well such a thing can be seamlessly integrated into a given DC's infrastructure, but it is certainly a place where converged evolution ought to be directed.
I wonder if it makes sense to make handling racks that would fit standard DF-style rails and anchor points, and then develop a controlled-atmosphere system that would work with standard DF cars. You'd want 'smart thermostat' cores in the RFID of the palleted loads, so control of that system would be largely automatic. There are several forms of very-high-efficiency insulation system that would permit very thin walls to optimize both width and loading height. I suspect you'd also want some form of modular and perhaps smart dunnage.
Any consensus so far on what the outside and inside dimensions of practical handling rack modules should be?
Meanwhile, to throw a wrench, the dedicated drayage 'lanes' between logical stopping points on the railroad and the necessary primary chosen DCs (from which all other drayage traffic would subsequently radiate, on its own time and cost) are ideally suited both for early-adopter autonomous vehicle operation and the kinds of electric drive for larger classes of truck that have been discussed so far. I can easily see practical drayage cost net of all new capital being quite minimized if multiple 'trailers' can be operated in a fixed lane on determinable schedule with a single tractor, perhaps with 'short final' road connections separate from normal passenger-car traffic.
greyhoundsgreyhounds wrote the following post 15 days ago: Bruce D Gillings Re: refrigerated shipping: greyhounds’ information on the nature of perishables and shelf-lives is great info. I found the vegetable breakdown illuminating. Fruits are more perishable, with much shorter shelf lives. Also, note that a refrigerated TL carrier is going to haul vegetables on one haul, fruit on another, and – sometimes – proteins on another. You want that flexibility. I waited too long to reply. I didn't want to just prolong my own thread, but I reason this is important, so I'll reply. Fruit just isn't a problem. In 2016 the US per capita "disappearance" of fruit was 255.81 pounds. Of that amount 114.20 pounds were processed. Mostly into fruit juice. In recent years per capita consumption of fruit juice has fallen like a rock, but it's still a big tonnage volume and the railroads can make dollars hauling it. (You're supposed to eat an apple, not "drink" an apple.) So, overall, we consume 44.6% of our fruit that is in someway processesed. Processed fruit is good to go by rail.
I have been noticing more refrigerated containers from Tiger and England on UP container/trailer trains EB lately. The numbers are increasing, slowly but surely.
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