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Why do railroads run intermodal so fast?

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It was said above, but bears repeating, the spoils goes to he who provides the best "value" given all of the alternatives. (Value as defined by Cost x Speed x Reliability). It was mentioned above that steamships only move at 15 knots or so. So what's the alternative? Air? Look at the value equation above and the cost blows it out of the water. As a result of no alternative, steamship wins for that leg of the trip. However, once you hit dry land, there are more alternatives (truck or intermodal.) Again, back to value. If I'm the shipping manager, do I want to pay a little more for a truck to get the faster transit and higher reliability? Depends on the product (inventory cost and consequence of the shipment being late.) If inventory cost is low and consequence is low, go intermodal... or if consequence is mitigated by highly reliable train (i.e. UPS on BNSF) then again, go intermodal. Finally and I don't think I've seen this above - even the so-called "Mighty BNSF" only averages 33 MPH on their intermodal trains from departure to ground (See www.aar.org.) http://www.railroadpm.org/Home/RPM/Performance%20Reports/BNSF.aspx Lots of terminal time, loading, unloading, cross-towns for interline traffic, etc. that wastes time enroute. That's why you gotta run the wheels off on the mainline - to make up for this handling junk.
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