Freight car evolution

[shawnee]

Most of the new boxcars being built are for paper and forest products. The 60' excess height TBOX and FBOX cars, built a few years back are for general freight service and I have seen them loaded with just about everything from toys to beer to lumber. They are very popular with a variety of shippers. I remember a Conrail exec saying boxcars will be gone by the year 2000, I am glad he was wrong and that they are still being built and used. The reports of the boxcar being dead are pre-mature. The class 1 RR I work for has put a lot of effort into actually growing boxcar business. They are still a very efficient way to move freight. ( 3 to 5 truckloads per car has its advantages)

With the inevitable rise in fuel prices due to world supply and demand, I tend to think there will be some serious adjustments in the freight transportation paradigm in the future.  I think that's the wild card you have to think about.  The "golden era" of trucking may be waning, and more fuel/cost efficient rail will probably be a more and more attractive option.  As industries - especially smaller ones that abandoned rail decades ago - take another look at rail options, won't this have an effect on the type of freight cars utilized?  I agree that means that the impending death of boxcars might be a bit overstated. 

I also guess it's probably also a good time to be in the shortline business.  And that there might be plenty of places that regret the may rue the tearing up of their local lines.

[Murphy Siding]

    I'm not sure where anybody came up with the idea that it would improve capacity by 20%.  Would that be enough of an inducement to change?  I have a hard time believing the railroad industry would go for such a big, universal change, even if the investment capital could be found.

[Anonymous]

     In the brand new, June 2008 issue of Trains Magazine, Don Phillips' column mentions that those jolly fellows at TCI,  CSX's nemesis at the moment, favor re-equipping the entire U.S. freight fleet with ECP brakes; they claim this would increase rail capacity 20% (!)(?)

     I presume they would be in favor of re-equipping the freight fleets of Mexico and Canada as well.

I am curious about how this would be funded.  Is there a simple answer?  Is there enough willing private investment to get the job done?

The ECP concept offers a lot of advantages, and it is being strongly promoted, but I wonder if it will ever get beyond limited application in select types of service.  As I read the full report, and contemplate the bewildering complexity of the logisitcs and cost of a full conversion, my hunch is that it will never happen. 

[Murphy Siding]

     In the brand new, June 2008 issue of Trains Magazine, Don Phillips' column mentions that those jolly fellows at TCI,  CSX's nemesis at the moment, favor re-equipping the entire U.S. freight fleet with ECP brakes; they claim this would increase rail capacity 20% (!)(?)

     I presume they would be in favor of re-equipping the freight fleets of Mexico and Canada as well.

[CShaveRR]

UP just announced that it will be equipping two sets of double-stack cars with ECP brakes for test runs between LA and Dallas.  According to the report:

First runs are scheduled for mid-September between the ICTF container yard near Long Beach, Calif., and the Dallas Intermodal Terminal. The two ECP-equipped trains will evaluate different operating methods, including alternative ways of using ECP brakes and dynamic brakes, the impact of ECP brake technology on train-run times and locomotive fuel consumption. ECP training for TE&Y crews, mechanical employees and managers in this corridor will begin late summer.

[Anonymous]

These two statements are in the full report in different locations:

Real-time train status reporting is possible utilizing the ECP brake system's wire-based communications platform to transmit information from each car back to the locomotive. This could include such information as bearing condition or wheel problems, with resulting benefits for safety.

The key to monitoring all of the benefits (and costs) of ECP brake systems will be to design a data capture program as part of the initial installation process so that each potential benefit and cost can be addressed in terms of pre- and post-ECP measurement and comparison.

 

I assume that the data capture program will be dependent on the wire-based communications platform of the ECP brake system.  But if the data capture program is intended to enable the comparison of pre- and post-ECP performance, I wonder how the data will be captured from conventional, non-ECP trains.  Apparently, the data capture program would also include the wiring, monitoring, and testing of several conventional trains.  I would think they would have already done this testing of conventional trains. 

[Railway Man]

Yes and no.

First, there are ultimate caps to what the railroad can charge before the business goes away.  If the coal transportation rate is too high, the utility shuts down the coal plant and runs its natural gas units, or buys wheeled power from another utility.  If the utility is regulated, to some extent it can just pass the increase on to the ratepayers and comes out even.  And both the utility and the state regulators have ability to pressure the railroad politically as invariably the railroad is seeking something somewhere else from the state, and the railroad is very aware of the pain level that the utility and state have, because it has public-affairs representatives that talk with the politicians and big shippers in each state every day, attend every public hearing involving railroads, every public committee meeting for every agency, sit on shipper-transportation-agency advisory boards, etc.

Second, the railroad is going to charge a rate that will make the coal internally competitive (at the railroad) with all the other traffic potential on the routes that coal will travel over.  For example (very simplified), the railroad will calculate that the route will handle 30 trains per day as-is on an on-going basis covering all of its operating, maintenance, and renewal costs, and the traffic potential consists only of double-stacks and coal.  There's shippers out there who will pay $1500/train-mile and fill up 10 double-stack trains, another group of shippers who will pay $1000 per train/mile and fill up 10 more double-stack trains, and a third group of shippers who will pay $800 per train/mile and fill up 20 more double-stack trains.  If the railroad attempts to charge more than $800 per train/mile to the third group of container shippers, they'll switch to a different port.  That adds up to 40 trains, so the railroad takes all of group 1 at $1500, all of group 2 at $1000, and some of group 3 at $800.  Now, a utility comes along and wants to move 2 coal trains a day, and just to make it simple let's say that the operating and maintenance cost on the coal trains is identical to the double-stack trains.  The railroad under no circumstance will charge it less than $800/train because that's the minimum value of the train slot.  If the utility is willing to pay at least $800/train, two of those last ten slots will likely be made available because it's more reliable business than the double-stack business, and simpler to handle.  But before the railroad offers that rate, it will calculate what the threshold cost is for the utility to switch to gas or wheeled power.  If the threshold cost is $700/train, the coal probably won't move; neither the railroad nor the utility is incentived at that price.  If the threshold cost is $1000/train, the utility will probably pay somewhere around $900/train -- the utility and the railroad will share the market opportunity.

Third, your observation that the utility does not seem like it has a lot of bargaining power over the railroad because there's (usually) only one railroad that can provide it service.  But that's a red herring.  The utility bids for the track space like everyone else.  The railroad sets the strike price for each shipper to get the optimum revenue and profit.  There's a lot of people who feel that because there's only one railroad the railroad is not incentived to be efficient and has unlimited power to charge whatever it wants, but in fact the railroad is brutally efficient and will charge to fill up its plant 100% plus the market opportunity that people are willing to pay.  Emotionally, it drives a lot of people nuts because they're used to being able to threaten their vendors, and yell at them, and switch to another vendor at a whim.

RWM

[Murphy Siding]

     Given that thought, it makes me wonder how a utility handles price renegotiations with a railroad.  It seems they might not have much bargaining power, other than making a lot of noise.

     Is it conceivable, for a railroad to pay for the upgrades of captive carsets, knowing that the railroad is the one who will receive the benefits of the investment?  The examples given earlier, of Cartier, for example, are they of mining companies that own their own railroads, or of railroads hauling for a specific customer?

[Railway Man]

The utility is very familiar.  But there's not a large pool of data points to see where you fit, and you're not renegotiating the rate very often.  You can't just call up your neighbor and see what he's paying.  Railroad transportation is not a commodity like gasoline or milk or OSB, it's highly individualized by location, lane, and market conditions.

RWM

[Murphy Siding]

If you're the utility, how do you really know you got a discount, and that the railroad didn't just take the rate it was going to give you anyway and mark it up by the same percentage as the "discount" it is offering?  RWM[/Railway Man]

It seems like the utility should be somewhat familiar with the rates.  If the railorad could get away with marking up the rate and giving a discount, couldn't they get away with just raising the rate straight away?

[Railway Man]

ECP is well beyond the experimental stage and into the deployment stage, and is in everyday use on Spoornet (South Africa), BHP Billiton (Australia), Quebec Cartier Mining (Canada).  Those are all captive systems where ECP brakes have defined cost-benefit numbers and attractive return on investment, whereas U.S. railroads are network systems with free-running equipment, and ROIs are much harder to calculate, and realize.  I don't think it's a sea change by any means, but it is an improvement that is valuable.

RWM

Aren't there dedicated trainsets, that operate between mines and power plants, where this could be introduced fairly easily?

Yes.  The questions are, who will pay for it, what will be the value of the benefits, and who will reap the value of the benefits?  Coal trainsets are typically paid for by the utility, but the value of ECP brakes will mostly accrue to the operating railroad.  The utility might be interested in investing the capital if there's a return on investment for it.  This could be in the form of a discount on the freight rate compared to an unequipped trainset. 

That sounds attractive in theory but in practice it's ugly, because to amortize the investment it would require a long-term contract that the railroad is loath to provide unless it's at a rate level that protects the railroad against unforseen cost increases.  Who wants to predict what fuel, steel, labor and regulatory costs are 10 years from now? Or the value of the track capacity?  If you're the utility, do you want to sign a long-term contract that has escalation clauses that have huge potential downsides?  And explain it to your state PUC?  Or investors?

If you're the utility, how do you really know you got a discount, and that the railroad didn't just take the rate it was going to give you anyway and mark it up by the same percentage as the "discount" it is offering?  How do you decide what the true cash value of operating a train with ECP brakes is versus a train without?  There's not much baseline experience with them to know.  The value for a few trainsets here or there might be irrelevant.  It's very, very hard to break out operating costs and maintenance costs attributable to one train on a track shared by 40 trains because many of the costs of railroad operation are not incremental but shared, or influenced by all the other trains.  Adding the 40th train to a line with 39 trains might increase your costs by 1/40th.  Or it might be 1/39th, 1/38th, or 1/37th, or 1/36th because it delays all the other trains a little bit and causes some extra train meets you didn't have before.  It's much easier to cost all-or-nothing improvements on a line, but improvements that are only costed against one train or one customer make your head spin trying to decide if your assumptions are correct, or just wishful thinking.

Well anyway, as usual, the face-value evidence is the most valuable evidence.  If it was easy and simple, everyone would have already done it.

RWM

[Murphy Siding]

ECP is well beyond the experimental stage and into the deployment stage, and is in everyday use on Spoornet (South Africa), BHP Billiton (Australia), Quebec Cartier Mining (Canada).  Those are all captive systems where ECP brakes have defined cost-benefit numbers and attractive return on investment, whereas U.S. railroads are network systems with free-running equipment, and ROIs are much harder to calculate, and realize.  I don't think it's a sea change by any means, but it is an improvement that is valuable.

RWM

Aren't there dedicated trainsets, that operate between mines and power plants, where this could be introduced fairly easily?

[Anonymous]

It is my understanding that the long-range vision is to convert the entire North American railroad practice (1.4 million cars and 29,000 locomotives) to this ECP system.  The technology seems fairly easy to comprehend.  Air does the work, but the conventional control function of air is replaced by an electric control function.  So the pneumatic brain of the conventional system (i.e.: the triple valve) is replaced by an electronic brain.  Not so easy to comprehend is the logistics of the mass conversion.

Both the cost and the return savings are astoundingly high, but they also accrue in complex variables:  For the cost, the variables are which types of service are converted first, economies of scale in number of cars converted at one time, retrofitting versus new car construction, whether or not cars are equipped with overlay capability for dual system use.  For the return, the variables are fuel savings, wheel savings, brake shoe savings, and savings on brake inspections.   There are also cost savings associated with the safety benefits and reduced cost of crew training.

The fundamental drawback inertia in the conversion is that if you apply ECP brakes to one freight car at a cost of $4000, there is no benefit.  If you applied it to 1000 cars, and let those cars circulate as cars do, there would be no measurable benefit unless several or many of those cars happened to end up in one train one time.  So the conversion, which will be gradual, needs to be targeted initially to captive cars in unit train service, and then spread out to cars that frequently run on certain corridors.  And the more cars that are converted or introduced new with ECP, the less need there will be for the overlay capability and its extra cost.

[Anonymous]

     What would be the advantage of ECP brake systems?

Reduced fuel burn is the big one.  Also, better train dynamics, lower buff forces, lower risk of break-in-twos, less wear-and-tear on the track structure in curves -- all of which allows longer, heavier trains.

Wouldn't increased safety be another advantage? If my understanding is correct, ECP allows for  braking without reducing pressure in the brakeline. This would reduce the chance of a runaway, since you don't need to wait for the trainline pressure to build up after releasing the brakes.

That is true, the system allows graduated release, and so it eliminates the risk of losing your air by a series of sets and releases.  Another claimed benefit is lower cost of crew training.

[erikem]

     What would be the advantage of ECP brake systems?

Reduced fuel burn is the big one.  Also, better train dynamics, lower buff forces, lower risk of break-in-twos, less wear-and-tear on the track structure in curves -- all of which allows longer, heavier trains.

Wouldn't increased safety be another advantage? If my understanding is correct, ECP allows for  braking without reducing pressure in the brakeline. This would reduce the chance of a runaway, since you don't need to wait for the trainline pressure to build up after releasing the brakes.

[jsanchez]

Most of the new boxcars being built are for paper and forest products. The 60' excess height TBOX and FBOX cars, built a few years back are for general freight service and I have seen them loaded with just about everything from toys to beer to lumber. They are very popular with a variety of shippers. I remember a Conrail exec saying boxcars will be gone by the year 2000, I am glad he was wrong and that they are still being built and used. The reports of the boxcar being dead are pre-mature. The class 1 RR I work for has put a lot of effort into actually growing boxcar business. They are still a very efficient way to move freight. ( 3 to 5 truckloads per car has its advantages)

[Railway Man]

The difference is the brakes set and release simultaneously and the propagation time is eliminated.  This enables the engineer to control speed much more precisely, reducing the number and severity of speed overshoots and undershoots, eliminating any fuel spent dragging against brakes that are still releasing, enabling the engineer to begin decelerations later and accelerations earlier, and in undulating terrain reducing the slack run-ins and outs.

The less buff force and drawbar force placed into a train, the less lateral force it exerts in curves, reducing rail wear, forces on ties and fastener systems, ballast, etc.   It adds up.

RWM

[Murphy Siding]

     What would be the advantage of ECP brake systems?

Reduced fuel burn is the big one.  Also, better train dynamics, lower buff forces, lower risk of break-in-twos, less wear-and-tear on the track structure in curves -- all of which allows longer, heavier trains.

RWM

I'm not quite sure I follow how it saves fuel.  Since the train can slow down more efficiently, does that mean it can speed up more (fuel) efficiently?  How does it have less wear-and-tear on the track structure in curves?

     Thanks

[edblysard]

Murphy,

Not really...

Take the EOT or Fred...at first blush is seems little technical,

but then consider how it is attached, and how it operates.

Both quite simple, it is easy to use.

It clamps onto the knuckle, uses a standard glad hand and simple radio frequency.

It can withstand the abuse we conductor give it...being dropped from moving trains, laying around out in the weather weeks on end, lost in the yard...kinda like your old Timex, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

 

The electronic brakes, when they finally get it completely standardized, will use a few parts as possible, be as rugged as it can be, will be able to survive flat yard switching and the abuse.

 

From what I have read so far, it is currently being tested on unit trains where the consist is not broken up routinely, where the load/empty ratio is constant, but like the AEI tag system, once they get the final design down it will be very user friendly, it will not interfere with the shippers use of the car, and require as little human interface as an EOT.

[Railway Man]

I think the boldest change being seriously proposed in the evolution of freight cars is the ECP brake system. Presently, it is in the experimental stage, but if it becomes the universally applied standard brake system, that will surely be a sea change on par with the conversion to automatic couplers or the adoption of the air brake. 

 

ECP is well beyond the experimental stage and into the deployment stage, and is in everyday use on Spoornet (South Africa), BHP Billiton (Australia), Quebec Cartier Mining (Canada).  Those are all captive systems where ECP brakes have defined cost-benefit numbers and attractive return on investment, whereas U.S. railroads are network systems with free-running equipment, and ROIs are much harder to calculate, and realize.  I don't think it's a sea change by any means, but it is an improvement that is valuable.

RWM

[Railway Man]

     What would be the advantage of ECP brake systems?

Reduced fuel burn is the big one.  Also, better train dynamics, lower buff forces, lower risk of break-in-twos, less wear-and-tear on the track structure in curves -- all of which allows longer, heavier trains.

RWM

[Murphy Siding]

So you might see a few changes, but what you do see will be building on these concepts...keep in mind the shippers and receivers have fixed plants that they will be reluctant to alter to accommodate new designs, unless it also increases their profit accordingly.

I would guess that increasing the profits for both the railroad, shippers and receivers would be the only real incentive to improve the cars, or the system.

     In your experiences, have you run accross any railcar *improvements* that weren't an improvement over the existing types of equipment?

[Murphy Siding]

I think the boldest change being seriously proposed in the evolution of freight cars is the ECP brake system. Presently, it is in the experimental stage, but if it becomes the universally applied standard brake system, that will surely be a sea change on par with the conversion to automatic couplers or the adoption of the air brake. 

 

Here is the power point presentation:

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/ecp_overview3A.pdf

Here is the full report with lots of operational and engineering detail:

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/ecp_report_20060811.pdf

     Interesting concept, although I wonder if it would run counter to Ed's idea of k.i.s.s.  It seems there would be some hi-tech and/or hi-maintenance parts involved.

     What would be the advantage of ECP brake systems?

[TH&B]

Tha Americans used to be huge inovaters of railway equipement, inovations that were adopted all over the world. But not so much in the last 50 years especialy the box car.  The 85 foot hi-cube is realy the same as a 36 foot wooden box exept for the size realy, as far as a cotumer is concerned. 

 

Modern lumber cars are pretty good, a little top heavy when empty though. 

 

In other parts of the developed world the box car has been replaced by cars where each half of the car slides open for vastly superior loading.  They can be loaded faster and loaded from the side threwout, giving more flaxability with skids wich can't always be used efficeintly in US style center door box cars.  Many European cars are capable of very high speeds, some are used in 124mph freight trains.

 

In Australia and Europe they use coal car designs that control dust better. In general Europe has a bigger variety of inovative freight cars including 6 axle cars for 150,000 KG gross for ore and steel.

 

[Anonymous]

I think the boldest change being seriously proposed in the evolution of freight cars is the ECP brake system. Presently, it is in the experimental stage, but if it becomes the universally applied standard brake system, that will surely be a sea change on par with the conversion to automatic couplers or the adoption of the air brake. 

 

Here is the power point presentation:

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/ecp_overview3A.pdf

Here is the full report with lots of operational and engineering detail:

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/ecp_report_20060811.pdf

[erikem]

One of the most profoundly informative interesting books on that subject is The American Railroad Freight Car by John H. White Jr.  It is limited to the wood car era up to the beginning of the steel car ear.  What is amazing is the large variety of cars that were developed, including cars specialized for commodities that are no longer hauled by rail.  Also striking is the amount of intense mechanical engineering and clever inventions being created in what might seem, from today's perspective, to have been a very primitive time of railroading.  Mr. White's discussion of swing motion trucks with its school of advocates versus the anti-swing motion school is fascinating with its long list of pros and cons of the two designs. 

I also found the book to be profoundly informative and interesting. A very nice companion to his book(s) on passenger cars.

One of the less developed topics touched on in the book was the transition of making axles out of wrought iron to making them with steel in the mid-1800's.  The problems with wrought iron were much better discussed in Foecke & McCarty's recent book on the Titanic - which included many pages on the mmetallurgy of wrought iron.

[Andrew Falconer]

86' Hi-Cube Box Cars are mostly used for items like auto parts.

Most freight car builders are now building many types of 60' Excess Height Box Cars.

Is this what will replace the 86' Hi-Cube Box Cars built in the 1960's and 1970's?

Andrew

[Anonymous]

Besides the speculation of where freight cars might evolve to is the study of where they have evolved from.  One of the most profoundly informative interesting books on that subject is The American Railroad Freight Car by John H. White Jr.  It is limited to the wood car era up to the beginning of the steel car ear.  What is amazing is the large variety of cars that were developed, including cars specialized for commodities that are no longer hauled by rail.  Also striking is the amount of intense mechanical engineering and clever inventions being created in what might seem, from today's perspective, to have been a very primitive time of railroading.  Mr. White's discussion of swing motion trucks with its school of advocates versus the anti-swing motion school is fascinating with its long list of pros and cons of the two designs. 

Also interesting is his description of yard switching technique based on the use of an engine pushing a pole car on a track with a track of cars standing on each side.  The pole car picks off cars from the end of each standing cut and pole-kicks them into various tracks.  The advantage in picking the cars off the end of the cut was that you did not need to accelerate and brake the entire cut for each kick.  The Pennsy used this system.     

[Anonymous]

I'm not so sure about the idea of cars in a dedicated train having different strength characteristics though.  The odds of manmade failures lead me to believe that you'd have to have warnings 10' tall on the sides of the cars, and someone would still put one in the wrong order.

It would be physically impossible to change the order.

    Hmmm  I guess I was viewing this as being something like a 200 car train, that has 10 different types of cars, depending on where they ride in the train.  The first batch could ride anywhere from #1 to #20 position; the next batch from #21 to #40, etc.  If the car in spot #122 has to be taken out of service, it could go back anywhere from #121 to #140.

    If it would be physically impossible to change the order, that would mean they are built differently, from #1 to #200?  So, like my example above, #122 has to go back into the #122 spot after it's returned from the repair shop?

What you visualize regarding the grouping of cars in strength classes could be one version of the execution.  I only meant they could not be uncoupled in the traditional manner and inadvertently mixed up during train handling.  Some other measure might be needed to prevent a mix-up if cars are taken out of the set for repairs. 

Truck side frames are too long of a casting to hold the tolerance necessary for the axle centers to fall within the maximum range of difference allowed from one side frame to the other.  So they are sorted into size classes after they are produced.  The classes are indicated by that little row of nubbins cast on the side of the frame.  After casting, they measure the center distance, and knock off one or more of the nubbins to indicate the size class, and I believe the rule is that there can be no more than one nubbin difference from one side frame to the other in a truck.  So, in that case, they rely on a visual indicator to prevent mismatching truck frames.