Bi-modal update

[Anonymous]

A new container on bi-modal chassis service is starting up between Fort Wayne, Indiana and Jacksonville, Florida. The news story is at this link:

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/9414058.htm

It will be interesting to see if container-oriented bi-modal systems such as RailRunner will trump dry van-oriented bi-modal systems like RoadRailer. The logistics certainly favor COBM over TOBM.

DWS

[DSchmitt]

The basic components of the RailRunner system are a tractor-trailer chassis designed to hold a standardized container and a set of intermodal rail vehicles or bogies, which are sets of railroad wheels that fit under the chassis, front and back, transforming it into a rail vehicle.

How do they make sure they have the chassis and the bogies where they need them, when they need them?



There was a system in the 1960's (?) or 70's (?) that put rubber tired bogies under specially designed containers. Part of the reason for its demise was not having bogies where they needed them. Although the fact they used a special flat cars with a turntable on them to move the containers on the railroad didn't help either.

Perhaps the problem of availability of the equipment is potentially no worse than having existing container chassis available where needed now.

[Overmod]

The problem with equipment balancing of container underframes can be much less critical... especially if the underframes are safe to operate 'light'... than is the case with RoadRailers. There can also be much less required 'dead time' for the revenue portion of the equipment -- note that RailRunner isn't maintaining a large dedicated pool of their own shipping containers. It's relatively easy to swap containers as compared to loading and unloading van trailers (although some of this advantage is presently minimized when originating and terminating facilities can't strip or stuff containers while 'parked' without the underframe present).

A moment's reflection will show the difference between this system and Flexi-Van. In the latter's system, there was no practical way to transfer the road bogies between locations (other than under vans). In particular, you couldn't 'la***hem up' and transfer them easily. Ironically, the bogies were too short to transport the way you often see trailers delivered... you essentially had to flatbed 'em, and this was neither time nor resource conservative (and requires special equipment such as heavy forklifts, and skilled people to run it). I won't go into the special Flexi-Van yard trailers with integrated 'poles', or the reason for the special pivots on the flatcars. History clearly indicates that TOFC, complete with its higher center of gravity, increased tare weight, and greater requirements even on spine cars, won out over Flexi. For reasons definitely related to, well, overall flexibility.

It isn't difficult to design "RoadRailer"-style bogies so they can be run in 'multiple' and transferred on trains, much as locomotive power is presently balanced. The key is to make the transfer possible with minimum aggravation and minimum manpower... this hasn't been done yet, but there's no purely technical reason it wouldn't be easy. (A piece of equipment similar to the device used to tow light aircraft on the ground, for example, is all that's practically required to move the bogies when 'yarding' trains)

Note, reading between the lines, what the initial 'service' is going to be. Traffic to Caribbean areas is not provided by container lines that are huffy about using only their own dedicated underframes to move the containers on the road. Major long-term success of RailRunner in many areas, including mini-bridge, is going to hinge on arrangements with container lines to permit use of 'standardized' pool RailRunner underframes in lieu of each company's. And that is going to require trust, and in all probability a high level of bonding, in the absence of substantial ownership of the franchise by the container lines themselves... or an effective standards organization with clout. Presumably RailRunner's legal counsel (which has prominent representation on their board) is already well in negotiations with ISO and other relevant agencies on getting this accomplished.


To address the last point: The problem with balancing RailRunners (like the problem of light and triangle moves with current RoadRailers) is different from underframe availability for normal COFC. Each container owner is presently responsible for ensuring that the necessary road underframes are available and kept in good repair. If you visit an intermodal facility, you may note the relatively large numbers of underframes -- often stacked vertically on their 'back ends' to save space -- that are usually kept segregated by owning carrier. If there isn't an underframe available, the container can be parked or stacked, e.g. on the ground, until a chassis is available (thus allowing rapid turnaround of the railroad underframe equipment)

With a RailRunner, part of the system economics is that the rail underframe IS the road chassis (eliminating the time and overhead associated with intermodal transfer, and the need to 'stock' large numbers of road underframes at terminals). This reduces to the same availability IF there are substantial numbers of the special RailRunner-capable underframes at intermodal facilities (not just terminals) AND it is possible to stack 'em as above to save space without damage... the latter being an area that I suspect RailRunner's 'patented' technology may have some problems with.

Part of RailRunner's business model is that it should be possible to accomplish 'loaded' road moves, with container aboard, to get underframes from one rail load point to another for triangle moves. Sure, this is a bit 'heretical' because it doesn't use the rail mode for all line hauls. But it is a solution to balancing the *underframes* -- which is the other half of what's required to run RailRunner trains -- with revenue freight carried in standardized, transferrable modules with short turnaround time using costed-down transfer equipment.

These guys seem to understand the nuts and bolts of running a startup transportation operation (again not really surprising considering their management's experience). Be interesting to see how well they handle the weird bounces that reality throws at them!

[Overmod]

1) Not exactly. If we had a large pool of 'compatible' bogies, there would still have to be some (separate) system for managing, dispatching, maintaining, and deploying bogies to locations that need them. There might be a larger standing reserve of bogies available to satisfy demand, but there would still need to be moves of equipment away from places receiving more traffic than they dispatch, and vice versa.

You might think of this as akin to the situation with U-Haul trucks -- people tend to move from some places, and to other places, with different frequency, and this governs what kind of truck you're likely to get, and the rate you'll be charged. One might easily recognize that trips between points that 'need' bogies at a particular time might be given a lower rate, better terms, etc. -- and that good salesmanship in developing workable triangle traffic and scheduling might augment such efforts. But still, sooner or later, you're going to have bogies going somewhere there aren't any underframes going.

Leading into the second question: since the 1970s I've been developing collapsible grain containers (originally for conventional unit-train underframes) which would allow the 'return' moves of empty containers to be run at much higher effective density (and storage of empties to be made in a smaller space or with greater relative ease).

The catch, for the Japanese market, is that the containers used in the trade would have to be ocean-going. Even with guarantees they wouldn't be 'deck cargo', it's quite unlikely that collapsible containers of any cost-effective design would stand up to ship service.

Now, ask yourself what's necessary to make ocean-capable containers suited for grain service? You're not going to build special containers just for grain handling (lining and fittings like covered hoppers) -- the volume is too small, the trip too long, the 'season' too short (and not enough traffic even accounting for 'worldwide' growing seasons to justify loaded-all-ways moves for the container 'fleet'. Imho what this comes down to is special liners and fittings that go inside conventional or near-conventional ISO containers to allow them to work in grain service. (The liners would probably be provided by the Japanese to 'ensure quality' or whatever the excuse-of-the-week about American production quality might be ;-})

Now, the 'catch' with doing this via RailRunner is who's providing the "$55-60K" underframes for the service. You can be assured that 'family farms' aren't going to like to tie up this kind of capital in equipment that has only a one-way loaded trip... there are strong opportunities for backhaul revenue using privately-owned underframes, but the infrastructure to do this isn't there yet, and probably won't be for some time. This indicates, to me, that the 'target market' is companies like Cargill and ADM -- who could achieve the putative Japanese 'guarantees' via seals on covered hoppers, monitored transfers to ship containers *at the point of embarkation*, and other measures that use existing facilities, know-how, etc.

That's not to say it won't happen, or could be made to pay well. Consider the developing market in organic growing (which is a good potential target market for this equipment anyway). Assuming you have an established infrastructure of 'food-grade' containers that can circulate inbound, there might be advantages in being able to make up trains without 'distributed' cranes or sideloaders, etc. However, the economics will always be dictated by the alternative of conventional road underframes moving to intermodal transfer points (e.g., the local elevator now has a Letroporter parked next door), with the 'grain trains' now being made up of appropriate underframe equipment, stack or otherwise. (Note that stack grain trains increase the useful traffic density by a factor of two for equivalent train length and frequency, a consideration that might make their adoption in place of covered-hopper unit trains even more attractive).

Seems to me that the RailRunner grain approach is assuming that much of the light granger trackage would be used: farmers would only need to drive as far as the nearest branch, just like in the 1920s, and each separate truck would just be coupled onto a building consist as it was passed. The assembled 'strings' of loaded underframes are then further assembled into trains as they reach heavier track, and then dispatched as 'grain-bridge' trains to their terminal destinations (presumably in the Pacific Northwest for Japan, but backhaul considerations will probably GREATLY predominate over mere ocean shipping distance/time for grain traffic!).

The 'catch' with this idea would be how stable the RailRunners turn out to be on this kind of trackage. Much of the branch-line traffic that presently requires only older, lighter locomotives and cars might be nicely handled with this... assuming the axle load of what is essentially a set of articulated 4-wheel 40-foot cars is low enough, and the suspension dynamics and couplings capable of accommodating the doubtless wacky track "geometry". These aren't insoluble problems, of course, but R&D had better be perfected before substantial numbers of underframes for this service are actually built...

Seems to me that even this approach comes down largely to selling Cargill, ADM et al. on the idea of buying large numbers of these underframes (and contracting for the larger number of containers to run on them). Local cooperatives just won't have the free access to capital to make the trick work (imho). If there were a 'nationwide rental pool' of RailRunner underframes, a grain rush would probably bid up their actual price (and probably the cost of underframes for other services as well, economics working as it does).

In short: beware publicity by companies with patented technology, and be sure to exercise their models and run their numbers for yourself... makes it all that much sweeter when things actually work out as claimed.

[Anonymous]

Another interesting variable is the concept of speed productivity, which is one of the benchmarks used by the STB to determine railroads' profitability. It is assumed that a bi-modal container move will provide for a quicker dock to dock (or in this case dock to port and vis versa) transit time than traditional double stack service. Speed productivity is one of the avenues in which Class I's give miserable performance. If they can significantly improve on this characteristic, it could translate into better productivity, thus RailRunner could be the "vehicle" by which this is achieved.

Double stack may be more "efficient" in theory, but with premiums being paid by shippers for quicker transit time, RailRunner technology is probably more efficient in speed productivity, which may translate into better "actual" efficiency.

Dave