THE ONE-SPEED SCHEDULED RAILROAD

[Anonymous]

I will add my two cents, years ago I was working for D.M. Bowman out of Williamsport which is a Trucking firm. As this really does not apply to railroads, I ask to state that we had to meet strict schedules for loads to Altoona and Babcok Ridge customers. To get there required us to climb "Town Hill" first near the state line PA on I-70 and then several others.

The 87 Freightliner with the 300 Cummins (Naturally breathing engine) only yeilded about 18 (Summer-26(Winter) mph on Town Hill, it was a 4 mile pull. So that took some time. We asked for and got the then new CH macks with the 350's (Fuel injected) and smaller gears (Shorter legs) then we could run the exact same load on Town Hill at about 46 mph. That saved us some time that could be used to pad our "arrival appointment" that must be met without fail.

Again I realize this was not really about trains, but when appoints must be met, you gotta have the horses to get that weight there in that time period. When in doubt, add more engines.

My two cents.

[Anonymous]

]

[Hugh Jampton]

The demise of the TPOs (Travelling Post Offices) was due to the railways inability to meet Royal Mail's requirement for nearly 100% reliability in arrival times. This is mainly due to the amount of trackwork that is going on and the lengthy detours the trains would have to take.
Shifting the traffic to road does not add that much to congestion because most of the traffic moves at night when the roads are generally free flowing.
Bringing back some TPOs for Christmas traffic is seen as a cost effective way to move the considerable number of Christmas cards that are sent at second class rates (so are not so time sensitive) without having to purchase/hire a huge number of trucks (each one which also requires a driver).

[rrnut282]

Junctionfan
The rule of thumb for air express couriers is put your hub in/near ohio to maximize the number of cities that are an 8hr truck run or less to save the planes for the longer runs. FYI FED EX main hub is in Memphis and a satelite hub in Indianapolis, DHL has their hub in Cincinnati (actually in KY across the Ohio River), Airbourne/Purelator has a private airport outside Dayton, Burlington Air Express had a hub in Fort Wayne and then moved to Toledo, and UPS still calls Louisville Ky home.

[Junctionfan]

The funny thing is that the former CEO said that they stopped it because it wasn't making any money because there was no demand-that's what he said when he was the CEO of Royal Mail. All of a sudden he says the complete opposite when his replacement reinstates the trains. Talk about dingbat and back-peddling.

I don't really think thease business folk know what the heck they are doing. If you can look through their thousands of dollar suits and their fancy terminology, they know as much as we railfans do. I think the forum could do just as good if not better. Consider who all is in this forum (Limitedclear, EdBlysard, M.W Hemphill, Overmod, Mudchicken, and many others), we could easily do a good job.

[TH&B]

Ya, but a couple of years ago they ran alot of Royal Mail Trains all over GB, then they stopped it all suddenly. So now maybe they will reinstate a token few again, they already have all the equipement and facilities. The fact that they even stopped running these trains and then only bring back a fraction of them is writing on the wall, why do they want to get rid of them?! They think trucking the mail is better but their roads are so congested.
So even a densly populated country with all the facilities in place can't figure it out and it is against the publics will, they don't want more big trucks on their crowded and often small roads. But the number crunchers don't want to use rail. They don't even want to send lower priority mail by train any more?!?!?! We'll see what happens.

[Junctionfan]

Interesting story on the BBC about Royal Mail (I think that's the name) is bringing back the mail train between England and Scotland. It uses regular passenger car style mail cars and goes rather fast too.

The trains were put out of service permanently for a while but since a new CEO was brought in, they are putting them back on for the holidays.

It would be interesting if Amtrak would run thease kind of as required trains.

[TH&B]

Coln, that's not too big a peice to chew on and pretty easy to swallow, but that train sounds like a what a sprint train is over here almost.
How often does this train run?
How many Briti***ruck loads does this train take off the hiway per trip?
The British "low slung" class 66 is because of tight clearances, not because there is some other advantage to that. A train of that size and distance could easily be run with one GP 40-2 over here but not with only one man I hope.
There are many intermodal freight trains in North America that average more then 30mph and are much bigger trains that require bigger locomotives.
This train sounds like small potatoes, the most impresive thing is that it is a short haul, a tough market area for railroads, so I hope it will do well.

[dehusman]

So lets see, that was less than 30 mph avg, 3.5 hp/tt.

There are lots of much larger US trains that do that over much longer distances on single track with other mixed freight.

Dave H.

[daveklepper]

One interesting question that might be applicable, since Triple Crown traisn do run on schedules: Is Chicago - Twin Cities possibly a pilot model for other Treiple Crown expansion over non-NS trackage?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kevarc

QUOTE: Originally posted by Sterling1

You do realize that North American railroading is so unlike Eupoean railroads who have the better and FASTer alignments?
Increased speed does put extra wear on the equipment and on the locos in fuel consumption and in maintenence.

Yes, and their average haul is less than 500 miles. That makes a huge difference.

When the UP and BNSF ran the UPS test trains, they were able to make it over the road . But the had to stick so many other trains in holes or hold them that they screwed things up and showed that the train, while by itself, was feasable, it messed things up so badm teh other costs for dead trains and delays, more than whiped out the profit margin for that train.

Here is something for you guys to chew on : I just been reading a British mag called "THE RAILWAY MAGAZINE" Oct. 2004 issue . Their cover story is a cabride on a Freightliner EMD built Class 66 loco, double cabbed,low slung by our standards, C-C, and I think 3800 HP.

The run was 248 miles for a scheduled time of 8.5 hours, DRIVER ONLY including two breaks . The train was a COFC train with approx 1600' in length and 1134 trailing US tons, about 76 of their standard car lengths. The locomotive weighs about 277,200 LBS. A little more than our GP40-2 but nowwhere near the 410,000 of our Dash9-44CW's!!

The max speed was 75 MPH. Most of the running was in the 60 to 65 MPH range. The train was only 20 MIN late. Which is good considering the "driver" had lot of temporary speed restrictions(Railtrack has screwed up the old British Rail infastructure BIG TIME) and alot of pssenger traffic to wade through.

[Junctionfan]

Where are some of the other courier marshalling facilities located? (UPS, Purolator, DHL, ICS)

[Overmod]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dldance

One thing that I have learned in my electronics experience is that while Fedex advertises their hub and spoke model, they really operate on a modified spine model - think of each spoke in the hub as a spine with multiple pick-up/drop-off points. I had a Fedex insider tell me that about 20% of the overnight packages never see the inside of a plane - only truck.

Not exactly -- you're mixing two things that most definitely aren't mixed in the operational model.

FedEx Express is very much a hub-and-spoke model, in the sense that the package marshalling is done in the central facility in Memphis. The moment you have satellite facilities start pulling and sorting packages, all kinds of operational inefficiencies start to build up.

Now, much of the Express feeder system IS ground-based. For example, although the main FedEx office in Shreveport, Louisiana is near the airport, most of the package traffic goes by truck. Reason: it's just as "fast", in terms of required time for overnight service, for the inbound leg to the Memphis facility, and (as mentioned) the truck can make comparatively easy stops en route (at MUCH less cost & delay than the same stops via an aircraft 'mail run'). The same applies to delivery in reverse.

But note: THE PACKAGE SORTING IS STILL DONE IN MEMPHIS. One implication: Outbound traffic sees little or no originating traffic en route, inbound traffic doesn't get packages to go to intervening stops. It's cheaper, overall, to send a package from Shreveport to Memphis, then turn around and drive it back on another truck to Little Rock, or Hope, Arkansas, than to tinker around trying to reserve packages for intermediate points and pull them off the truck when it stops for loading.

What I think you're describing is that some terminal pairs have high enough mutual volume that it pays to run ground service between them. Some services in the Northeast are clearly in that category -- New York-Washington and New York-Boston being two I can think of. Even there, it's not uncommon to see the economics of Philly-Memphis-New York being better overall than a direct service for many of the FedEx satellite locations... the problem being that you need trucks to realize the destination-to-destination benefits of the latter, almost all the time. (This is one of the services I see a clear advantage for bimodal FedEx operations, by the way, precisely because there are barriers to truck mobility between those cities that can be meaningfully reduced with a rail link.)

Note that single-speed service doesn't help this situation very much in any respect, except that speed gains somewhat extend the radius (usually from Memphis) where cost-effective ground carriage is a practical alternative to air. The key was, and is, that term "cost-effective"...

[kevarc]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Sterling1

You do realize that North American railroading is so unlike Eupoean railroads who have the better and FASTer alignments?
Increased speed does put extra wear on the equipment and on the locos in fuel consumption and in maintenence.

Yes, and their average haul is less than 500 miles. That makes a huge difference.

When the UP and BNSF ran the UPS test trains, they were able to make it over the road . But the had to stick so many other trains in holes or hold them that they screwed things up and showed that the train, while by itself, was feasable, it messed things up so badm teh other costs for dead trains and delays, more than whiped out the profit margin for that train.

[Sterling1]

Thanks for the reply, such an interesting reply to a weird question!!!!!!!!!

[TH&B]

Answer to Sterling1, .....no. Why bring bulk materials up to a high speed? you're only going to be pushing more air. I know in Europe some small coal trains and bulk trains go 75mph but it is realy only due to that the railway is built for that and to get out of the way of passenger train paths, and European freight trains have just as patheticaly low an AVERAGE speed as US freights, they loose alot of time waiting in sidings for passenger trains to clear often sitting all day so they can move again at night. The very heaviest trains in Europe are up to 6000tons and have a maximim speed of 80km/h ((50mph)) even when track speed is much higher.

Why doesn't the Japanese HSR Bullit trains lines have courier trains or high speed bulk trains? They could squeez a path in here and there some time during the day or at night. The Japanese have thought about it and planned it but have decided against it. Bulk materials can take the coastal slow boat, or where there is no coast the slow train.

[dldance]

One thing that I have learned in my electronics experience is that while Fedex advertises their hub and spoke model, they really operate on a modified spine model - think of each spoke in the hub as a spine with multiple pick-up/drop-off points. I had a Fedex insider tell me that about 20% of the overnight packages never see the inside of a plane - only truck.

by limiting the packages and services - they are able to manage the variability that raises havoc in a scheduled system. Unit trains are one method that the railroads have to reduce variability - further - unit trains bypass a big bottleneck - terminals and yards. But remember my rule #1 - unit trains also have a bottleneck and sometimes it's their speed.

dd

[rrnut282]

If I were going to set up a scheduled railroad, I would start with the premise of scheduling the locomotives and crews airline fashion. Every yard or junction point becomes a "hub" so to speak. Then I would set up the car routing computer to "sell" the "capacity" of each consist or trip, from point to point based upon the ability of the locomotives to get a load across that line. (I would treat cars like passengers, only so many can ride this flight, when it's time to go, couple-up, do the air test and away they go, maxed out or not.) I would schedule more than one trip per day between points whenever possible and traffic justifies it. On some routes there would be multiple trips, so if a car is delayed inbound, it gets rerouted on the next available, just like a passenger on an airline. The scheduling would allow the crews to plan their lives away from work (like they have any now). It would allow the power desk to set up what they need (like routing locomotives to the shop on a regular basis) and plan purchases better. It would give maintainence a known and predictable window every day to do their thing (because time would be built into the schedule). Meets on single track would be set up in advance. Dispatchers would direct where and when to refuel a consist (like they do at the airlines) and be there to revise the schedule when necessary, and find gaps in the schedules that would allow unit trains to run as well. The linchpin of scheduled railroading is the ability of the yards to get the trains ready on-time every time. How yards are laid out and run would have to change to make this workable.

OK, I know the vultures are already circling. There are too many vaiables that can't be constrained, and it will blow holes through this idea you could run a unit train through.
This will work IF there is a paradigm shift in how railroads are viewed and managed.

[Sterling1]

Sure scheduled railroading is nice, but what about bulk and merchandise trains, shouldn't those be high speed too??!

[Sterling1]

You do realize that North American railroading is so unlike Eupoean railroads who have the better and FASTer alignments?
Increased speed does put extra wear on the equipment and on the locos in fuel consumption and in maintenence.

[Overmod]

Ain't THAT the truth!

[TH&B]

If you want to run a high speed courier train, that's IF you do, then it should at least run on the high speed passenger line if you are trying to run a "one speed schedualed railroad".
I don't think a grain train or any other large mass freight train is going to operate economicaly at the speed a courier train needs to.

[Overmod]

Yeah, but faster HOW? You're comparing point-to-point speed, not destination-to-destination which is what custom-critical and courier services care about.

Trust me, I've worked some of the logistics out. To get the 'high speed' to work, you have to arrange for all the containers to converge on the train precisely in the 'time window' it takes to get them batch-loaded and locked down. Then at the destination you have to arrange similarly to have them picked up, transferred, and rolling in minimum ... or at the very least, precisely-regulated ... time. Any delay in this -- ANY delay -- counts against the destination-to-destination time, in a way that does not apply to single-mode movement.

Situation with RoadRailers/RailRunners is a bit faster, but still critical, and what is the likelihood of the intermodal facility you use for the transfer being convenient to the final destination -- considering you need to have a VERY limited number of potential terminals per 'lane' or your speed goes collectively into the toilet.

You cannot use the Federal Express hub model with vehicles moving a mere 110mph. That means you're using a modified spine model (which fortunately works well for typical FRA 'corridors') with the stops serving as de facto hubs -- or links to other modes than the rubber-tired bimode. Going to two-day service expands the universe somewhat, but also greatly increases the coordination responsibility for the end-connection carriers when you do so. More quickly than you'd expect, it converges on REA-like numbers of destination pairs -- which is bad enough when trying to coordinate truck pick-ups and drop-offs with leased tractors and drivers, but becomes vicious when balanced traffic in lanes vs. maximum loaded equipment utilization becomes discussed.

One 'drawback' of RoadRailer operation is that it is difficult to perform "class switching" of consists that are going from a trunk to disparate destinations. With a unit train, you can arrange for massive parallel transfers (in three axes at once!) when containers are used. Theoretically this applies to RailRunners as well -- but you're still paying for a whole bunch of heavier, slower, considerably more expensive underframes when you operate that way. RoadRailers require breaking the train whenever consist changes are made, and it can be fun to deal with all the hardware when you start to move the vans around...

Keep in mind that much of this doesn't apply strictly to high-speed containerized freight in general -- just to the kind of high-dollar, high-assurance courier service that people are 'willing to spend for "first-class" service'.

For fun, isolate the likely lanes for this kind of service (imho, Washington/Baltimore/Kearny/Manhattan/Garden City is a good and achievable one) and run some sample numbers to calculate the actual investment, and payback time, to run something like this. (P.S. -- I asked more or less this exact question a few months back; consider this a reminder...)

[Junctionfan]

True but if gas prices and security protocol get too much which is starting to happen, the next fastest mass bulk mode of transportation is rail / intermodal.

[dehusman]

If you want fast courier service, don't use a P42, use a B747.

Dave H.

[Junctionfan]

My idea of improved courier service is roadrailers leased to UPS, Purolator, DHL, FedEx, and ICS Courier. Load them all up and run them with a P-42 at top-speeds.

You wouldn't believe how much money people are willing to spend for "first class" service for courier service so maybe the railroads should attempt to use the demand better to their advantage.

I know that ICS has their own 40 foot containers BTW.

[Anonymous]

Fascinating topic :)

Imho american railroads are not really structured for high speed freight (like 60 mph across the board). The most important factor would be the shortage of power.

Diesel locos, while great luggers, are rather lacking in power department. Adding 2 sd70macs to a pair of these to achieve higher speed will add extra maintenance - that is extra shop crews, extra shops and higher investment in motive power (locomotive prices are roughly per unit, not per hp).

What is needed to increase power from 2 sd70mac is not 2 extra sd70mac, but a pair of sd140mac ;) to replace the current pair of sd70mac. Since 8000 hp diesels are not yet avalible (and I doubt if they will be in any forseeable future) this would mean what american railroads detest...

zap-zap - electrification...

With current technology 12000 hp 6 axle electric loco is standard equipment, or would be if anyone wanted such monster.

But that would mean a major capital investment, one that would pay off in lower energy costs, higher power of locos and possibility of regenerative braking. But none of the railroads has several billion to string the wire... So that is also impossible.

Another problem with higher speed is increased track wear - this would either mean increased maintenence or reduced track life. One of the reasons why TGV weigh just 37800 lb tons per axle is to keep track maintenance costs in check.

IMVHO the cheapest way to increase capacity of a railroad is not to increase speeds but to improve signalling and braking to reduce headways. For instance ABS like system for all cars would allow the train to stop at shorter distance (ahd would save a few $ because flat spots would happen much less often).

[Overmod]

Experts probably know for sure, but I think I do too. Not yet.

FedEx *has* considered both intermodal and bimodal for a number of runs and services, but has not embraced any of the technology yet to my knowledge. With respect to UPS-style high-speed block movements, they're waiting until UPS pays for the experimentation and finds all the teething troubles and logical inconsistencies. Once it works definitively, and some of the capital costs have come down with experience, volume production, and amortization/depreciation, they may participate. Certainly there is interest, both on the express side and the ex-Roadway ground side.

I don't know if you include Custom Critical as LTL, but their operational model there leaves very little advantage to any current form of intermodal/bimodal (except perhaps something like BladeRunner, which existing railroad arrangements would likely never tolerate at acceptable expense...)

[MP173]

FedEx running unit trains? Perhaps in a limited manner, but I what about the assembly and distribution aspects? Hardly unit train in manner.

The line haul aspect once the shipments get into the air could be thought of as unit train, but that is only a fraction of the entire transit time. Fedex kinda reminds me of the old REA business, except they handle complete movement.

Fedex also had various levels of service from NDA to ground, as does UPS, although Fedex has taken it to the next level with the LTL service.

Mark, do you know, does FedEx use intermodal in the manner UPS does for ground service?

ed