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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal [Think of "faster" in the cumulative vein rather than the single trip idea. 2 hours on one trip means you're two hours earlier for embarking on the return trip, then another 2 hours saved on the return trip, after a week you might have saved 10 or 15 hours in your cycle, after two weeks you might have added another trip or two to your cycle......., in a year you've added 10, 15, maybe 20 extra trips to your annual cycle. It's all about rail car utilization, the more revenue trips per year the better your bottom line. It's all about better labor utilization, the more miles a crew can cover within the hours of service, the better your labor productivity. If it has to go at a snail's pace, put it in a barge or a pipeline. Railroad technology is intended to move bulk commodities at speed, otherwise it's a waste of national capital. [/quote] Dave you are so right. I read recently that typically BNSFcycles a UPS/TOFC train set within TWO HOURS!! That unload, reload, inspected and back out to the west coast all in two freakin' hours. Remember these trains spend alot if most of their time at 70 MPH. So they are not wasting the time they saved rocketing across the continent all holed in the yard. Regarding what you said about crew utilization, about getting a crew to cover the most amount of miles within the hours of service law. I recently found out how "culturally" influenced the view within the industry is towards the practice. I thought that all Class 1's were gung ho about the concept and that it was the brotherhoods that were dragging their feet. How wrong I was! I recently interviewed with one of the Eastern RR that bought part of Conrail. The interviewer told me his RR was appalled [:(!][:0]at the long crew pools that Conrail had set up such as the Harrisburg to Pittsburgh and the Selkirk(Albany, NY) to Buffalo(300 miles). He said that they had to take those local agreements as part of the sale [}:)][}:)]but wanted to aboli***he long pools if they could preferring short ones of around 130 miles!! I thought the fewer crew starts you have for a given train and consists the better but apparently not all Class 1's seems to think so. I guess just because your are a Fortune 500 company and is making some kind of profit doesn't mean that the managment of the property is employing the forward thinking views on railroad operations [:p][:p]. And that labor isn't always or I should is usually not the problem in moving the industry forward. But getting back to your original point. I think that an increase in freight train speeds should be seen as an overall package in increasing "Fluidity" on the mainlines and the yards as well(the yards would be a tougher nut to crack). It shouldn't be just putting 10 trains in the hole waiting hours and hours on end for the hot "Blue Streak- UPS" train to barrel through when all those could be moving on the road towards their destinations instead of "going down on the law" and 10 dog catch crews have to find and pick them in places where there are no road access. This speaks to the need for the revival of lot more multitrack mainline in this country. And yes faster trains would mean higher fuel cost but if price correctly for the service it also means higher profits. Remember that Southwest and JetBlue pay the same high cost of fuel as the "Legacy Carriers" and they don't fly their 737's and A320's any slower than American, United, Delta and Northwest flies their 737's and A320's. So high speed and high fuel cost doesn't automatically mean the death kneel of railroad profitability as some doggedly thinks it does.
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