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[quote user="greyhounds"][quote user="Safety Valve"][quote user="greyhounds"] You know, there's not a damn reason in the world that this train can't pick up potatoes in Idaho along the way or carry Container/TOFC shipments of produce.   [/quote] Hmm. I think it's time that kills such flexibility. But.. if you could have area railroads GET the loads and set it out for pickup along the way.... [/quote] Well, my idea would be to have an Idaho "assembly center", kind of a distribution center in reverse.  That's what they're doing in Washington state.  Use the trucks for what they do best.   Pick up and aggregate the loads.  Then load the carboxes at the assembly center. Ideally, you'd do it at a crew change point where a switch or local crew would be on duty to put the potato loads on the back of the train.  That way you wouldn't add an extra stop and would have more people than just the conductor to work on the ground. My guess - about 15 minutes extra time. I think this could and should be expanded to move beef from Amarillo and western Kansas, chicken from Arkansas, etc.  This is one of the most exciting developments in railroading since the advent of stack trains.   [/quote]   Do it from Liberal, Dumas, Garden City, Fort Collins and have regional truckers take it to ... perhaps Salinas Kansas or Emporia and reload onto the train. That way they dont have to endure the long waits or really critical shipping. Part of the problem is the Meat Triangle is both East bound and Westbound. (Sound and North too) Chicken from Arkansas wont merit the additional rail traffic. Fayetteville and Russelville is already "Maxed out" on trucks and there are other processing plants in the Ozarks that will be faced with REALLY steep terrain that matches or bests Saluda in engineering problems. Now if we can get the Produce out of Salinas, Nursery out of Portland, Perishables out of Yuma, Nogales and Eagle Pass then we will have the beginnings of a good rail network. A bonus would be loading railcars in secure areas with Customs right inside the facility to pre-screen the trains for contrabrand, illegals and other problems that routinely get put on the unwary truckers. Unloading these trains in places like Scranton, Harrisburg, Baltimore, Binghampton and points close to the major metro areas like what is happening in Albany will support trucking in high intensity. Maybe this will cool it on the tight scheduling and problems with long haul burn out and make the drivers more useful in time-producting loaded and rolling with less critical items across the USA.
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