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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding Dave, 25 years ago, my father drove truck for a company that hauled coal from the Wyodak mine, at Gillette, Wyoming to power plants in Deadwood and Rapid City, S.D. BN pulled up rail lines to Deadwood in the 80's. Unless DM&E hauls coal up to Rapid City (doubtfull), the trucks still haul the coal. In 2006, the lumberyard I work at receives about 50% of it's lumber via train, through wholesalers who ship by rail, then deliver by truck. The other 50% of the lumber, and 100% of shingles,siding, gypsum,cement, etc..., comes in directly on trucks from the source. It's not uncommon to get a product, studs for example, from the same mill in both traincars/trucked and truck direct. So yes, trucks do compete with trains. [/quote] A short haul is considered anything under 300 miles, and today railroads won't touch shorthauls unless there is a) sufficient volume to run a unit train operation, and b) there is sufficient capacity to handle a shorthaul train within the long haul network. Keep in mind these would be closed operations, aka all the rail traffic is via one company, so you're not going to get a unit train short haul by rail if it involves UP, BNSF, and DM&E all having to cooperate. Gillette to Deadwood is about 110 miles by highway. It was about 200 miles by rail - when the tracks were active all the way between Gillette and Deadwood. For a railroad to handle such a coal move right now, it would have to move by BNSF via Newcastle to the nearest active interchange with DM&E, then back up to Rapid City to Sturgis, then would still have to be transloaded to trucks for delivery to Deadwood. When and if DM&E's PRB gets built, BNSF can tranfer to DM&E near Edgewood, if an interchange track is built. Of course, if DM&E comes to fruition, the Rapid City power plant can then (and most likely will) revert back to rail, with DM&E getting the entire haul (e.g. there would be no need to have to get the coal from a Gillette mine, since the coal from the mines that DM&E will access will be just as good as any Gillette coal.) Since there is no, nor is it likely any rail access to Deadwood will come to fruition, it is likely that coal will continue to move by truck from Gillette to Deadwood, assuming that power plant continues operation. It is a cost to transload anything from rail car to truck, so trucking will still be the lowest cost option (as well as the shortest mileage for this particular corridor). So you see, trucks are not the competition in this example. They are, as I have stated many times, the tranport mode of last resort. If somehow there is built a direct rail connection between Gillette and Deadwood owned by a single entity (and of course such will never happen), you would see that traffic shift to rail, since it then would fit the short haul unit train characteristics. As for the lumber, again, I ask you, do the railroads even try to get the "shingles,siding, gypsum,cement, etc" and/or studs if indeed they might come from the same source as present rail traffic? The answer is probably no. In other words, if the trucks didn't bring it, nobody would. Keep in mind, Murphy, there are plenty of opportunities for railroads to move this type of stuff, but they choose not to for a variety of reasons. Maybe they require timing the railroads won't provide, maybe the railroads have no additional cars available to move such things, or the cars require some type of specificity that precludes current equipment, or....they just plain don't care (picture the bloated stomache of a diner as he turns down a free piece of pie...) Thus....(everyone repeat after me....)...."the product shifts to trucks as the last resort."
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