When did the defined TOFC/Intermodal plans (I, II, III, IV, V) fade away in the US?

[chutton01]

This thread, and a few other threads, caused me to recall that there used to be a well defined set of intermodal (TOFC) plans available in the US (probably Canada too), always denoted by roman numerals

From a  book "Supply Chain Management: Concepts and Cases" by Rahul V. Allekar that I found on Google-books:

Since it is deregulated, piggyback service  mostly moves under contract.
Generally five basic piggyback plans are available. The groups able to use each
plan are restricted as follows:

Plan I: All motor carrier
Plan II: All rail
Plan III: Shipper provides trailer
Plan IV: Shipper provides trailer and rail flatcar
Plan V: Joint railroad and motor carrier

The vast majority of piggyback shipments move under Plan II. Since Plans III and IV require an investment in or lease of equipment, shippers do not use these plans to any great extent. Motor carriers use Plan I to reduce load pattern imbalances. Plan V generates very little volume since it requires the joint effort of a railroad carrier and a motor carrier. If the shipment does not require this coordination it will occur only when both parties benefit.

The puzzling part - that book is from 2005[!] - I thought these type of plans, at least in a ICC-regulated legal sense, were history by then (the ICC certainly was)?  Are the plans still used simplly as contract defintions with no official regulatory meaning?

So back in the day, If I understand this, a PRR trailer moving on a PRR Truc-train flat (I guess Trailer-Train would be considered a rail company), hauled from originator to destination via a PRR contracted truck-tractor would be under Plan II, while for Plan IV, I can't think of anything until you get to the 1980s and Maesrk containers riding in Maesrk well-cars from/to Maesrk leased terminals. Plan I doesn't seem to even involve rail at all, unless companies like PIE, G.O.D and Yellow Freight owned their own flatcars (never heard of that)?

I also thought there was some sort of plan IVa, but Google and Wiki are failing me right now.

[greyhounds]

Well, the old traditional intermodal "Plans" began to fade on March 23, 1981 - the day intermodal was deregulated.  They were creatures of regulation.  Government economic regulation of rail intermodal from 1931 through regulation's end in 1981 can best be described as inane.  This regulation did great harm to the US economy.

I'm not convinced your source has a good handle on the topic.  He left out the "Plan" that moved the greatest volume, Plan II 1/2.

Plan I was a motor carrier substituting rail movement for over the road movement.  The motor carrier had to have highway use authority (another regulatory absurdity) from origin to destination.  Instead of driving the trailer to destination they brought it to a rail terminal.  The railroad then moved the trailer to a destination terminal where the motor carrier picked it up for further movement.  Trailers could be owned by either the motor carrier or the railroad.  This is how UPS (and some other motor freight) business moved on the rail.  The freight was billed to the shipper by the motor carrier and the railroad took a "division" of the revenue.  This division was usually a flat per vehicle charge.

Plan II was when the railroad provided the origin and destination trucking in railroad controlled trailers.  It was greatly limited because the government morons greatly restricted railroad trucking operations for no good reason.  (For example, the Santa Fe couldn't truck a load down from Milwuakee to the Chicago terminal and then take it to L.A.  on a train.  Such a thing just wasn't allowed.)

Plan II 1/2 came to become the dominate plan by volume.  (except for transcontinental loads) It was an intermodal terminal to intermodal terminal rate in railroad controlled trailers.  It was a result of the malignant regulation and it had a lot of bad features, but it was the best possible solution under regulation.  One very bad feature was that it was a terminal to terminal rate.  Any terminal to terminal intermodal rate is automatically wrong in that it underprices some freight while overpricing other freight.  But, since the railroads could only do very limited pickup and delivery, it was the best they were allowed to do.  (I could go on in great detail about the limitations of Plan II 1/2, but I'll keep this somewhat short.)

Plan III was a terminal to terminal service for shipper owned trailers/containers.  It was primarily used for ocean containers.  Because the railroads didn't have to provide the trailers/containers, Plan III charges were lower than Plan II 1/2 charges.

Plan IV was supposidly a terminal to terminal service and rate where the customer owned everything.  Trailers, flatcar, everything.  It was the primary method of moving intermodal between eastern points, such as Chicago and the west coast.  In reality the customers owned no equipment.  They simply trip leased the rail trialers and the flatcars in addition to paying the published movement rate.  Plan IV rates were all "equalized".  That is the rate from Chicago to Seattle was the same as the rate from Chicago to San Diego and all coast point between Seattle and San Diego.  Other Plan IV eastern points such as Danville, IL, St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans had the same rates as Chicago to/from all points on the west coast.  A lot of games were played with Plan IV. 

Plan V was an interline joint rate between a railroad and a regulated motor carrier.  With an exception, they were fairly hard to establish because there was a four way negotiation.  1) origin motor carrier, 2) railroad, 3) destination motor carrier, 4) customer.  I did establish some Plan V rates and our accounting department hated me for that.  It took months to get one established.  After dereg, we could do our own trucking and I could do in 10 minutes what took months under regulation.

The Southern made great use of Plan V north of Cincinnati.  They set up with one trucker who handled the loads into and out of Ohio and MIchigan.  This was that turcker's primary business.

Today, JB Hunt uses an off shoot of the old Plan I system.  They do the retail and work with the customer.  Rates are door to door, not terminal to terminal.  The rail division now slides instead of being a fixed terminal to terminal amount.  It Hunt has greater trucking cost, the rail gets less.  If Hunt has lower trucking cost, the rail gets more.  It works just fine.

It would have worked just fine in 1931 if the government would have stayed out instead of screwing things up for 50 years.