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[quote user="oltmannd"][quote user="futuremodal"][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]. BTW - yes, domestic double stack is growing, but at the expense of TOFC, not at the expense of OTR.  [/quote] I think we gave them Oklahoma or a old battleship or something in trade. As far as truckload traffic conversion, check out NS's quarterly analyst presentations on the web.  They show double digit growth in truckload traffic - trailer and containers combined, but broken out, the TOFC component is shinking (you can't see this in the presentation, but you already know this.  The "domestic" traffic shown is the old, traditional IMC, RR controlled trailer business).  This growth is in spite of fuel cost adjustments and rate hike that are attempting to keep the growth barely managable.  The first slide in the presentation also shows NS traffic growth exceeding intercity truckload growth and industrial production.  If not highway conversions, then where is the new traffic coming from?   Imports don't explain all of the gap. I don't know of any TOFC ranps that are closing or have recently closed on NS.... [/quote] Most of the ramp closings I know of are out west, e.g. Shelby MT, Nampa  ID, etc.  This is consistent with the trend toward consolidation. Two things regarding the NS slide show:  First, this is an NS slide show, so it's going to be favorable to NS's side of the story, right?  (insert cynical smilie here)  Secondly, if the NS *growth* was coming from the highways, wouldn't the trucking stats show a decrease in growth, not an increase? What it amounts to is what we all know from internal railroad trends - growth in railroad domestic containerization may be indicative of a shift from boxcar to container, not OTR truck to rail.  If I'm right, then what we're seeing is an ironic decrease in load factor/productivity for the railroads, as the more efficient boxcar capacity is being replaced by the less efficient double stack capacity.  Remember my comments on the "restuffing" thread?  I contend that it is nothing short of idiocy to restuff import goods from an ISO container into a domestic container at the inbound port - if indeed the labor costs and theft allowances are low enough to justify such actions, then it's better to restuff from the ISO into boxcars, and then unstuff back directly into dry vans or at a distribution warehouse on the destination end. Seems to me that this restuffing concept from ISO into domestic containers is another way for the railroads to tout the *benefits* of domestic double stack service, when in fact it represents a reduction in actual productivity.
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