Ulrich A transportation company (as opposed to a railroad or trucking company) could handle all aspects of the LCL. A truck would be used for pickup and delivery purposes while the train would be used for the linehaul. That's in fact, how it works now. Only change I propose is to bring the whole operation under one roof. If a railroad owned a freight forwarder then all the profits that had previously accrued to an independent freight forwarder would now go to the railroad. Moreover, the railroad turned transportation company would be able to offer door to door transportation services to shippers directly. Its a huge opportunity, I don't understand why they don't go for it. Retail is always much more profitable than wholesale.
A transportation company (as opposed to a railroad or trucking company) could handle all aspects of the LCL. A truck would be used for pickup and delivery purposes while the train would be used for the linehaul. That's in fact, how it works now. Only change I propose is to bring the whole operation under one roof. If a railroad owned a freight forwarder then all the profits that had previously accrued to an independent freight forwarder would now go to the railroad. Moreover, the railroad turned transportation company would be able to offer door to door transportation services to shippers directly. Its a huge opportunity, I don't understand why they don't go for it. Retail is always much more profitable than wholesale.
Integrated transportation companies, using both trains and trucks to their respective best purpose and efficiency, began to develop in the US almost as soon as trucks that could carry a decent load were developed. (around 1920) Things were moving along well in that direction until the economic regulators of the US Government put a stop to the integration of train and truck transportation. ("In the Matter of Container Service"; 173 ICC 377 - handed down from fools in 1931.) This literally halted the benefical integration for 50 years. (No, the government did not have a valid reason for doing this. They just had power without knowledge or understanding.)
A major development, after deregulation, was the adoption of a shipper-to-consignee (as opposed to an intermodal terminal-to-terminal) pricing structure. (Kind of what Ulrich is proposing) The train/truck integration isn't complete until through pricing is included in the integration. Shipper-to-consignee pricing had been one of the things blocked by the government fools.
In the shipper-to-consignee pricing structure the rail revenue for the terminal-to-terminal portion of the intermodal movement is not fixed. It is adjusted, for each load, based on the amount of trucking involved. If there are a lot of truck miles involved the rail revenue is less. If there are few truck miles involved the rail revenue is increased. But the charge to the customer is always on a through shipper-to-consignee basis.
This adjustable terminal to terminal revenue component, not allowed under regulation, is a very important key element in intermodal profitability and growth. It really doesn't matter if the trucker bills the customer and pays the railroad instead of the railroad billing the customer and paying the trucker. What matters is that it's a through charge from origin to destination with a sliding split of the revenue between rail and truck.
It is going on now. Big time.
As to LCL/LTL specifically - I don't know. Nobody here has quantified the market. LTL used to be a gold mine for the regular route truckers (The LTL focused carriers). Competition was greatly limited by the government - competition on price was flat out prohibited. When LTL was deregulated the regular route carriers died like flies. I don't see it as a major profit opportunity for the railroads.
Railroads were driven from the retail LCL/LTL market by the government foos. They can handle LTL just fine and they do so currently on a daily basis in significant volumes. But they do so as line haul carriers for LTL specialist truckers. I don't think there's all that much more to be gained by bypassing those specialist. The money just isn't there.
tree68 I would opine that once OTR became feasible (decent roads, big enough trucks), LCL was doomed. Like the spiderweb of passenger service that once existed, LCL is a product whose time has passed.
I would opine that once OTR became feasible (decent roads, big enough trucks), LCL was doomed.
Like the spiderweb of passenger service that once existed, LCL is a product whose time has passed.
As a perhaps unknown parallel, consider the effect that an expanded service of Pickwick Nite Coaches and others 'of that ilk' would have had on a vast number of poorly-patronized sleeper runs in the late Twenties forward.
The thing that shut the door on Pickwick was state regulation (effectively state banning) of large or heavy vehicles on the roads -- not dissimilar to what happened in England over the proliferation of 'steam carriages' in the 1820s that led fairly directly to the infamous Red Flag Law that was the torment of so many early motorists... once Missouri, for example, had restrictions in place, the logical routes for Pickwick service from Chicago to many West Coast points were impaired. A good conspiracy argument could be made for governments helping out passenger railroads already hurt by the evolving Depression during the early 1930s -- but I also think that railroads would have jumped at this approach (indeed, Santa Fe did, in a different context) if they had been allowed to take off lightly-patronized (expensive, full-crew, high-tare-weight) passenger service. A different approach the railroads did take, of course, was the evolution of lightweight streamlined trains ...
One of the things that effectively 'doomed' LCL service, in addition to the factors you mention, was the number of times the LCL freight had to be shifted, and the facilities needed to accomplish that. With an OTR truck, you load it once and proceed either to destination or to a terminal where freight will be placed on a truck going directly to destination. With the railroad LCL, you have a pickup, then warehousing and transfer to an appropriate train, then perhaps some enroute yarding or even carrier changes, and at the end of the rail segment, you need another truck (with all the capital expenses involved) for the last-mile delivery. As mentioned, the 'come and get it at the terminal' approach isn't going to fly as well as the dock-to-dock approach -- especially if the terminal you need to go to is in a congested or even unsafe part of town.
One reason I think REA failed (in the days before its brief attempt at renaissance in the early '70s) was that its distribution model was almost the anti-Federal Express. It depended on a very large network of individual stations, each with its own truck access for local delivery, and a nearly equally large number of (relatively) fast scheduled trains serving each of those stations regularly. That amounts to a rather substantial subsidy of the express business by passenger operations (yes, there's a parallel for Amtrak's recent use of 'material handling cars'). Now, the express business 'might' partially cover the cost of service that is unprofitable for its stated purpose, moving passengers -- but there is little question that the express business, on that scale and following that model, would not 'pay' for the required level of service by itself...
Why get back into the labor-intensive LCL business when truckers and forwarders are already taking care of the expensive part of the business? It might provide an additional revenue stream but it would also provide additional costs.
I remember reading that Chicago & North Western's LCL business dried up pretty quickly when they got rid of free pickup and delivery.
I agree with you, Ulrich.
I suspect our railroads ignore LCL business because of their culture. The business they have is both profitable and easy. They just don't want to be bothered with the more difficult LCL business.
But if they did it would provide an additional revenue stream.
John
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Ulrich:The railroads do not have the abilities to make LTL pickups and deliveries. They can handle the line haul. They in effect are giving you the $500 per container for handling the assembly/distribution.
Check out the ROEs for LTL trucking companies vs railroads. The board of directors would not allow them to invest in low margin business. Gotta clear the hurdle of cost of capital and exceed their ROE.
Ed
They should bring back the freight salesmen then ...Don't get me wrong, I'm in the biz and do quite well with the status quo. Every time I move a container by rail at least $500.00 goes directly into my pocket. I love it. It makes me wonder why I even bother with trucks..
Ulrich, the major roads have "been there, done that" with freight consolidation beginning sixty plus years ago. They currently have marketing specialists rather than the freight salesmen of sixty years ago and they now know the profitability of whatever business they seek.
How can their current profitibility be questioned? The stockholders see the value of stocks continuing to increase because today's railroads have become very sofisticated with their business modeling.
The railroads still leave too much money on the table in the form of LCL revenues going to intermediaries who consolidate shipments and then sell them off to the railroads in carload/container volumes. They have the wherewithal to do that themselves and to market those services directly to shippers if they wanted to. They should focus more on improving existing margins by doing more (i.e. in house freight consolidation and distribution) and less on volume. In transportation volume is vanity, profitability is virtue.
Here is some food for thought. Look at what types of new cars are being ordered and built for the rail industry. Only cars that earn adequate returns on investments are the kinds of traffic that the rail industry believes it is worthwhile to reinvest in. When I worked in Car Management one of my managers explained it to me this way. The reason you see railroads investing in new Grain and Open top hoppers compared to new boxcars are due to the fact that the average amount of trips per year made by boxcars hasn't increased in over half a century compared to hoppers in unit train service which can make many more trips per year, thus a much better return on investment.
Tim
Mac:Excellent review of pricing, railroad style. I dont quite follow that the fixed costs are only for debt, as there are leasing agreements which must be covered, but the STB costing model no doubt goes into much more detail.
My career is sales and my compensation is based primarily on profitability of each sale (commission based on margin, with higher commission rate for high margin business). It is fascinating to develop your own book of business and understand the pricing in a market. I look at the rail industry today and see enormous profits being made (based on history) and applaud the current managers in place that understand this.
I was talking to an employee of one of the Eastern Class 1s this week and the crude oil moving is really increasing. It is hard to get info on the pricing of this, but needless to say, the rails understand the market very well. The Bakkaan and Western Canadian oil now offers great opportunities. I have mentioned this in the past, but the daily RBN Energy blog covers railroad/oil quite well. These bloggers really understand not only the oil side, but also the rail side. Their take is that oil will be moving by rail for quite some time. The pipelines are much too rigid, while rails offer flexibility.
Getting back to the Eastern Class 1....they are moving a specific unit train of oil "almost daily now". Look at the perishable "Apple Trains" from the UP to Albany area. These were running 1x week, but are now up to 3x week, sometimes 4.
I am not sure there is a specific cash cow in today's industry. The railroads are finding ways to be nimble and work the costing spreads. Determine the value of a commodity and then price it accordingly.
Imagine what would have occurred had DME started building into PRB for coal. That market has changed pretty dramatically over the past 5 years. Yet, railroads still find a way to make money moving products for the drilling.
MP173 Mac:Thanks for the explanation. Can you define SRVC in a little detail? Also, how are the costs for hump yard operations, local crew pickup & delivery determined? Are these generalizations based on system performance, or isolated to the history of the specific operation (costs per specific yard, costs of a local, etc)? Years ago I was in the LTL Trucking industry and one of my responsibilities was pricing. This was in the early days of deregulation of the trucking industry and it was very interesting, particularly for small carriers without the resources. We leaned on tariff bureaus for costing. Obviously the costing/performance for the grain movement would include total SRVC including the return of the empties....correct? Or if those covered hoppers are cycled into a move closer to SD, then how are those costs allocated? In my analysis of CN's 2012 revenue per commodity, I was surprized with the overall balance they had. They dont have the "big commodity" such as coal. NW had a great cash cow...hauling coal downhill for export. Now that was a cash cow. Take a look a old financials for NW. Ed Ed, As a general statement railroads are said to have three kinds of costs, Fixed Costs, Long Run Variable Costs, and Short Run Variable costs. Formal definitions are buried in STB documents and the details of railroad costing systems but in general Fixed Costs are the interest on debt. Given a level of debt they are fixed. Until more investment is needed they bear no relation to traffic volume. Long run variable costs are costs that vary with volume but tend to be "lumpy". The classic example is the President's salary. It will continue as long as the company is in business. Examples would be superintendence and dispatchers. Short run variable costs are those that vary directly with traffic, that is with increasing or decreasing output. Fuel and direct labor are examples. In the long run the railroad must cover all of these costs and earn a competitive Return on Investment. In the short run any traffic that does not at least cover its SRVC must not be accepted or be run off. Internal costing models can attach costs to activity centers. Consider a yard. It consumes fuel, locomotive hours, supervisor's time, and a host of other costs. It output is cars received, cars dispatched, cars placed, cars pulled. These costs can all be captured and divided by a reasonable measure of output to yield an average cost per activity, say $75 for putting a car through the yard. That figure then goes into the costing model and every car that goes through the yard gets a $75 charge for using the yard. Because of the relatively high proportion of LRVC and FC, railroad costing involves a lot of allocation. Allocations can be complex. Consider rail. The STB now requires that rail be depreciated and most carriers do it on a unit of production basis. Assume new rail costs $400,000 per mile installed. While on straight track it should last for 1 Billion Gross Ton Miles, curved track is less, and in some case much less. STB will be happy with a system average, say 800 million GTM which my calculator says is .00005 cents per GTM, or .$05 per thousand GTM. A 15,000 ton train thus costs $.75 per mile, or about .075 cents per car mile based on 142 ton cars. The last figure is rounded for simplicity. The actual rail may be 20 or 30 or 40 years old and have a historical cost (book value) much lower. STB doubtless requires calculations be based on historic cost which will be lower than current replacement. This suits the STB organizational imperative to regulate everything it can The carrier may well use current costs to evaluate the attractiveness of traffic and to figure the marketing guy's bonus since the current cost will have to be incurred when the existing rail wears out. Yes costing includes return of the empty cars. If there is some level of reload potential that should be captured. That is why a low backhaul rate may be a good decision. The railroad has to haul the car back and built that cost into the head haul rate. If empty is going back to where it needs to be the only SRVC associated with the move is additional fuel, additional car hire for two additional spots and pulls, and cost of additional switch engine time to do the spots and pulls. Additional GTM costs may or may not be included in carrier's costing system. Getting a backhaul load can have a big impact on the bottom line. As you know the motor carriers are hugely sensitive to backhaul and balance issues. Railroads not so much because so many types of traffic have 100% empty return ratios. While I agree that the historic N&W did well hauling export coal to tidewater over a route with generally favorable grades, it is possible that the key to their success was a shorter haul than higher cost competitors. Those high cost competitors needed a higher rate to survive than did N&W. N&W could price under the competitor's high cost umbrella and bank the spread between its costs and the competitors costs. Mac
Mac:Thanks for the explanation. Can you define SRVC in a little detail?
Also, how are the costs for hump yard operations, local crew pickup & delivery determined? Are these generalizations based on system performance, or isolated to the history of the specific operation (costs per specific yard, costs of a local, etc)?
Years ago I was in the LTL Trucking industry and one of my responsibilities was pricing. This was in the early days of deregulation of the trucking industry and it was very interesting, particularly for small carriers without the resources. We leaned on tariff bureaus for costing.
Obviously the costing/performance for the grain movement would include total SRVC including the return of the empties....correct? Or if those covered hoppers are cycled into a move closer to SD, then how are those costs allocated?
In my analysis of CN's 2012 revenue per commodity, I was surprized with the overall balance they had. They dont have the "big commodity" such as coal. NW had a great cash cow...hauling coal downhill for export. Now that was a cash cow. Take a look a old financials for NW.
Ed,
As a general statement railroads are said to have three kinds of costs, Fixed Costs, Long Run Variable Costs, and Short Run Variable costs. Formal definitions are buried in STB documents and the details of railroad costing systems but in general Fixed Costs are the interest on debt. Given a level of debt they are fixed. Until more investment is needed they bear no relation to traffic volume.
Long run variable costs are costs that vary with volume but tend to be "lumpy". The classic example is the President's salary. It will continue as long as the company is in business. Examples would be superintendence and dispatchers.
Short run variable costs are those that vary directly with traffic, that is with increasing or decreasing output. Fuel and direct labor are examples.
In the long run the railroad must cover all of these costs and earn a competitive Return on Investment. In the short run any traffic that does not at least cover its SRVC must not be accepted or be run off.
Internal costing models can attach costs to activity centers. Consider a yard. It consumes fuel, locomotive hours, supervisor's time, and a host of other costs. It output is cars received, cars dispatched, cars placed, cars pulled. These costs can all be captured and divided by a reasonable measure of output to yield an average cost per activity, say $75 for putting a car through the yard. That figure then goes into the costing model and every car that goes through the yard gets a $75 charge for using the yard.
Because of the relatively high proportion of LRVC and FC, railroad costing involves a lot of allocation. Allocations can be complex. Consider rail. The STB now requires that rail be depreciated and most carriers do it on a unit of production basis. Assume new rail costs $400,000 per mile installed. While on straight track it should last for 1 Billion Gross Ton Miles, curved track is less, and in some case much less. STB will be happy with a system average, say 800 million GTM which my calculator says is .00005 cents per GTM, or .$05 per thousand GTM. A 15,000 ton train thus costs $.75 per mile, or about .075 cents per car mile based on 142 ton cars. The last figure is rounded for simplicity. The actual rail may be 20 or 30 or 40 years old and have a historical cost (book value) much lower. STB doubtless requires calculations be based on historic cost which will be lower than current replacement. This suits the STB organizational imperative to regulate everything it can The carrier may well use current costs to evaluate the attractiveness of traffic and to figure the marketing guy's bonus since the current cost will have to be incurred when the existing rail wears out.
Yes costing includes return of the empty cars. If there is some level of reload potential that should be captured. That is why a low backhaul rate may be a good decision. The railroad has to haul the car back and built that cost into the head haul rate. If empty is going back to where it needs to be the only SRVC associated with the move is additional fuel, additional car hire for two additional spots and pulls, and cost of additional switch engine time to do the spots and pulls. Additional GTM costs may or may not be included in carrier's costing system. Getting a backhaul load can have a big impact on the bottom line. As you know the motor carriers are hugely sensitive to backhaul and balance issues. Railroads not so much because so many types of traffic have 100% empty return ratios.
While I agree that the historic N&W did well hauling export coal to tidewater over a route with generally favorable grades, it is possible that the key to their success was a shorter haul than higher cost competitors. Those high cost competitors needed a higher rate to survive than did N&W. N&W could price under the competitor's high cost umbrella and bank the spread between its costs and the competitors costs.
Mac
tree68 In simplest terms a cash cow, then, would be something that generates considerable return on minimal outlay. Perhaps frac sand might come close - unit trains, possibly using existing equipment. Granted, it's not a premium service calling for premium prices, but if the RRs are able to handle the traffic with existing resources, I think it could be considered a cash cow. All cash cows come to an end, though, as either the market peters out, the players find other/better ways to handle the product, or improvements are needed in infrastructure or equipment.
In simplest terms a cash cow, then, would be something that generates considerable return on minimal outlay.
Perhaps frac sand might come close - unit trains, possibly using existing equipment. Granted, it's not a premium service calling for premium prices, but if the RRs are able to handle the traffic with existing resources, I think it could be considered a cash cow.
All cash cows come to an end, though, as either the market peters out, the players find other/better ways to handle the product, or improvements are needed in infrastructure or equipment.
.
I went looking for a simple definition of "cash cow," to see if it means what I thought it did. I found one (many, some more detailed than others) and chose one from Merriam-Webster. They had the following:
1. A consistently profitable business, property or product whose profits are used to finance a company's investments in other areas.
2. One regarded or exploited as a reliable source of money.
To me, Mac is using the first definition, while Don Phillips is using the second. I think the second is more of an informal usage and probably the one most people think of. I know I think of the second one when I hear something described as a cash cow.
I think frac sand fits the second definition, at least on some railroads. We've been told that the money made on one sand train equals three coal trains.
Jeff
Murphy SidingMr. [Don] Phillips says that "intermodal is a cash cow for railroads".
Murphy,
You made me go back and re-read Don Phillips' column. Thanks. I think he's right. Railroads are very good at moving heavy, bulky loads very cheaply. When Santa Fe President Mike Haverty and J. B. Hunt shook hands back in 1989 they took what had been goods requiring a lot of handling and changed them to heavy bulky loads by putting the whole truck trailer on a rail car. Certainly there were start up costs but those costs have long been paid. And the Santa Fe still moves J. B. Hunt's trailers. And since 1989 they've learned to do it a lot better. The profit per car load is slim but repeat that profit many many times over and it adds us. Don Phillips recognizes a cash cow when he sees one.
Overmod Just to put this on a sensible footing: look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth-share_matrix (for a pretty good 'take' on the BCG matrix)
Just to put this on a sensible footing: look here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth-share_matrix
(for a pretty good 'take' on the BCG matrix)
From that source: " They are to be "milked" continuously with as little investment as possible, since such investment would be wasted in an industry with low growth.
Thank you!!
zardoz cashcow1 by Jim53171, on Flickr
cashcow1 by Jim53171, on Flickr
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
I think the comment was made with the general-public kind of semantics regarding what 'cash cow' means, although there are some implicit assumptions in there that have to be spelled out more clearly, such as the assumption that intermodal equipment is largely capitalized and perhaps already depreciated, so its marginal cost can be taken as vanishingly low even though its MTTF and availability remain high.
I'm sure he's comparing container trains to ordinary loose-car railroading (much more time and work for railroaders, and generally less of a premium for service) and mineral trains (very low rate per ton-mile for the amount of work and fuel required to move it). In that sense, I think he is justified ... I cannot, for example, think of a railroad operation that qualifies more to go in the 'cash cow' corner of the matrix ... but I worry that he is not using either the term or the concept with the right amount of rigor.
I understood your metaphor just fine.
To answer your question with any confidence would have to know Rev./SRVC ratio and something about segment specific investment demands. The carriers have or can generate that information in house but I doubt that they do.
Market managers, I am told, get a bonus based on "Contribution Margin" of the products they are responsible for. Margin equals revenue less SRVC. A $2500 carload of corn from Sioux Falls to Kalama in unit train service with a ratio of 130 would generate a contribution of $577. The carrier would calculate the margin directly rather than fussing with the ratio. That is roughly a 2000 mile trip.
Now consider a carload of refrigerators that moves 1500 miles and generates $3,000 in revenue. Which is the better business? I have no clue until I know SRVC. This is carload traffic so I have to pay for yards, switch crews, switch engines, and lots of hours of car hire. Lets assume my contribution is $750 per car. At first blush I like this contribution better, but I only get 100 cars a year so my total contribution is $75,000 per year.
How many 110 car unit trains of PNW corn leave SD in a year? Lets say one a week, or 50 per year. My total contribution is $577 x 110 x 50, or $3,173,500 on the corn traffic. I like this better than $75,000. The higher margin per car is overwhelmed by the greater volume of export corn, but neither is a cash cow. Neither generates a high margin, so they both fail the first test.
I stand by my original answer, I do not know because to my knowledge the data to support any analysis is not publically available.
Mac- In general, which market segment would you say is considered the pick of the litter** for railroads right now? As in, of all the market segments, which do the railroads, in general, wish they had more of?** I've got to polish up on my metaphors a bit
So far none of you have come close. To be a cash cow a segment would require a high Revenue/Short Run Variable Cost ratio and low investment demand specific to the traffic or line of business, and was big enough to throw off a substantial cash flow.
My opinion is that I would not consider any segment for cash cow status unless it had a revenue/SRVC ratio of at least 200%. A nearly accurate alternative way to say it is an operating ratio of about 50%. The two are calculated a bit differently, so OR would be a bit higher than the inverse of the R/SRVC ratio.
The STB, acting under statutory mandate assumes any move with a R/SRVC ratio of less than 180% to be subject to sufficient competition that regulatory intervention to force the rate down to protect the shipper from an evil, price gouging railroad is not required.
I do not know of a source of this R/SRVC, either at seven digit STCC level or at some higher degree of product aggregation, so I will make no claim as to what, if any traffic deserves cash cow status.
I am confident it is NOT intermodal since it is all truck competitive, the railroads must price at a discount on a door to door basis to offset longer elapsed time and to "buy the business", and rail has to absorb the cost of drays on both ends, typically by offering sufficiently low enough terminal to terminal rates that the customer or IM retailer can pay the drays and still offer a low enough price to get the business. In addition the traffic demands large and ongoing investment in terminals specific to the traffic. IM fails two of the three tests.
Murphy Siding In the article, Mr. Phillips says that "intermodal is a cash cow for railroads". I've always understood intermodal was run on a very thin profit margin
I've always understood intermodal was run on a very thin profit margin
I notice that he did not say that intermodal was railroading's "golden goose" or "horn of plenty" so perhaps there is no intent to convey a concept of abundance?
Perhaps he just meant that the business form was '"always there to be milked"?
Maybe he meant "sacred cow"?
And who/ which entity or function bears the terminal costs of loading and unloading the containers, especially at a large port such as Long Beach - Los Angeles ? Not sure who actually owns and operates the terminal, but it's certainly not the line-haul Class I railroads - they perform just a 'hook-and-haul' service from one of their yards.
Hence, the terminal costs to the railroads for hauling containers may be little to none - whereas switching is a significant cost for loose carload traffic - so much more of the revenue from containers goes to the bottom line, perhaps.
- Paul North.
Does anyone know the standard for "$/carload" for intermodal? Is it per TEU? Per container regardless of size? Per stacked container? Or per "car" which can be up to five units long?
Editor Emeritus, This Week at Amtrak
Darn good analysis Ed ! Thanks for your time and effort in typing it all up !
I'm on my way to an appointment, so I will quickly comment on two items ValpoEd mentioned.
The increase in coal revenue is related to greater mileage hauled. CN now take a number of trains a month from CP at Edmonton out to Prince Rupert, BC. These are PRB coal trains loaded by Arch Coal. It gets to Edmonton via BNSF to the border at Coutts, AB/Sweetgrass, MT, and from there on CP via Lethbridge, Calgary, and on to Edmonton. Also new contracts have started from coal fields east of Jasper, AB (for ease of reference to US readers) west to both Vancouver and Prince Rupert..
The dimensional loads are over clearance items requiring special handling. Right now windmill parts are a popular item.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
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