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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard Cargil studied the posibilities of installing a loop, just like the one at the Bulk Materials (coke loadout) facility, but the cost of buying or leasing long term the amount of real estate needed on the ship channel was prohibitive.[/quote] Which confirms my allegation of real estate constraints. Do go on.... [quote]QUOTE: The elevator here was built in the 1920s, with several silos added as time passed, and the facility is now so closely crowded by other plants that a loop or ballon track just wasn't possible.[/quote] Again, nothing to disagree with you here. Existing physical plant seems to favor parallel sidings/spurs over wide arcing loops from an economics, whether out in no man's land or in the high priced metropolis. [quote]QUOTE: Cargil, not BNSF, wanted the loop track, it is faster.[/quote] Aye, there's the rub! Cargill just wants faster service, not necessarily a loop track. It's just that railroad SOP gives expediency to loops over sidings, and Cargill (apparently being manned by folks who have evolved upward from "Agricummy") is just taking note of what their past experience with the railroads suggests for future investment. It's not a physics thing, it's purely an attitude thing. [quote]QUOTE: BNSF worked a deal with Cargil...they will guarentee two 100 to 125 car unit grain trains every 8 hours, and provide the road crews at North Yard if Cargil will promise to turn at least one entire unit train every eight hours...so they will always be one loaded train on site waiting to spot in the elevator, and one empty ready to return every eight hours...PTRA will provide the logistics and the crews to pull and spot the elevator, Cargil will provide the crews and locomotive to do the actual load out.[/quote] Which suggests several things in refutation of the current status quo. The railroads can provide time expedient service for shuttle trains without the ostensibly "speedier" loop track layouts (if the customer happens to be a big fish in the rail shipping pond). Non-railroaders can handle load out duties when need be (it ain't rocket science, suprise, suprise). [quote]QUOTE: When Cargil has emptied the cars, PTRA will use BNSF road power(that came in on the last load) to pull the empties, do a inital terminal air test, hang the fred, and return the empty to North Yard and the BNSF crew waiting there.[/quote] What this suggests is that rail shuttle shippers should just lease their own locomotives (including DPU's/remote control units) and have the railroad use that equipment instead of the precious railroad-owned equipment. We already have shipper-owned hopper fleets, which ostensibly save on a few hassles. Of course, there's no guarantee that the railroad would knock off a few bucks from the rate if the shipper provided the motive power instead of the railroad, but you'd think so........ [quote]QUOTE: Oh, and as Mudchicken pointed out, you do not want the elevators "railoraders" touching your locomotive, unless you like having new dents and missing handrails, bent plows, by passed knuckles and flat spots on the wheels...[/quote] ....which of course never happens under the watchful care of the road crew! So how are all those flat spots and broken knuckles occuring?
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