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[quote user="oltmannd"]     I understand what you're saying but the vast majority of traffic I see moving on the highways, at least in the east, is in std 53' 102" vans.  Doubles are very rare and triples are verboten. There will always be a niche for TOFC, particularly for UPS and LTL guys. The "railroads internal efficiency obsession" is an economically driven integral part of the supply chain.  As long as optimizing RR costs don't sub-optimized the whole supply chain, then it's in everyone's best interest to do it.  The RRs don't dream this stuff up on their own.  In fact, they tend to fight change because they can't afford the capital.  APL was the on that drove the change and is responsible for creating the domestic stack service. RR margins on domestic stack are better than on TOFC.  Domestic stack is growing.  TOFC is shrinking.  Both services are still offered.  Nobody is coercing anyone.  The market has spoken.  Draw your own conclusions. And, Tijuana is neither in Korea nor China.[;)][;)] [/quote] So, when was Tijuana and Baja California admitted to the Union as the 51st State?  Must of happened during the Lewinsky scandal![:P] What you're missing is that "efficiency obsession" is not an outgrowth of normal free market forces but of monopoly market skewing ("Omigosh, there he goes again!").  What the railroads are doing in my opinion is using their monopoly power to engage in social engineering over the supply chain by pushing domestic double stack at the expense of TOFC, simply because double stack pleases the bean counters at the Class I's, and despite the desires of the customers who wish to utilize a flexible, adaptable intermodal concept to improve their lot.  TOFC is the logical choice of the supply chain if all things were equal in a free market sense - I believe you would see very little domestic double stack but a whole bunch more of TOFC if we had an open access rail system or some variation thereof, e.g. we'd actually see a dramatic shift off highways to rail with OA.  I know, folks here are tired of OA being brought into the fray time and again by yours truly, but you can't discuss railroad market anomolies without addressing the lack of intramodal competition. BTW - yes, domestic double stack is growing, but at the expense of TOFC, not at the expense of OTR.  Despite high diesel fuel prices and the artificial restrictions placed on OTR outfits, very little traffic is shifting from the highways to rail.  The trucking companies still control 80% of the revenue share of intercity freight.  If you look at the number of TOFC ramps that have been shut down in the last few decades, you'd have to conclude that railroads are only taking money out of one pocket, sticking it another pocket, and convincing themselves they're making inroads into getting "trucks off the highways" with domestic double stack.  If they really wanted to get trucks off the highways, they'd be opening new TOFC ramps instead of shutting them down.
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