The Perfect Railroad

[Anonymous]

From a railfan's standpoint, I hope it never gets this far. BUT...

Some day, what if ALL traffic that went by both road and rail was shipped on RoadRailers, or their equivalent? That is, a single common container with integral rubber tires, and a set of freight car trucks just lined up waiting in the intermodal yard. The key here is that ANY and ALL freight meant to go by road and rail could be shipped entirely by this means. Whatever other commodities that couldn't be adapted to RoadRailers (i.e., coal) could be shipped entirely by unit trains. Any freight that doesn't fit into the scheme either way may be retained, where still deemed necessary or profitable.

Furthermore, a highly standardized set of locomotives could be developed (possibly running off fuel cells?), with just a few flexible classes - a high and low horsepower six-axle unit, and maybe their four-axle equivalents, and a standard switcher. Maybe, eight types of locomotive, at most, all using a very standardized set of parts.

And passenger service? Non-commuter service (which still proves uniquely useful, and profitable) could be retained, but all other passenger service could be entirely dispensed with. Let the airlines have it, all it's going to do is get in the way of the much more profitable freight trains.

I know they're headed in this direction already, but what if someday they reached this perfect synthesis of operation? Any input?

[daveklepper]

Aain, I doubt you will ever see fuel cell's practical for transportation. There is an excellent study available which you can get from the Physics Department of the City College of the City University of New York. (Don't have the email or mailing address at the moment but they should be easy to find.) How about electrication? How about a serieis of "compatibles". These would be diesels and electrics of about the same tractive effort, with the electrics somewhat higher horsepower, but they could not only be mu'd together, but receplaces and high-current jumper cables provided so the electric could be slug for the diesel in non-electrified territory and the diesel a slug for the electric in the electric territory. Some non-profitable long distance trains may be necessary to keep certain communities in touch with the rest of the world and at the same time take care of some company business. These could be subsidized possibly if the communities needed them badly enough.

The railroad must be scheduled so trains don't ever wait out on the main line to enter a yard.

Which signal aspect system is your favorite? What paint scheme delights you?

[Overmod]

Terrible waste of tare capacity, capital, and fleet/third-party opportunity if you compel any OTR trucker wanting to use rail to go to the expense of converting/purchasing his vans to RoadRailer specs.

Many commodities aren't particularly amenable to intermodal vehicles -- lumber, for example -- but don't adapt well to integral trains.

Many businesses that patronize rail intend to use the railcars as temporary storage. If you do this with containers you'll have to provide some end-user solution to push and pop them, as nobody's capital model allows for expensive rail-compatible infrastructure to sit idle. I do not think there's a road-going alternative to an 86' high-cube, even if you put plenty of highway axles on there to handle the max loading and weight distribution profile...

There may be a case to run some lanes, and perhaps some whole mainlines, exclusively with bimodal. NS, for example, appears to be giving this both the care and detail attention it requires. But to run a whole railroad this way? Not particularly 'perfect' from a fairly wide range of perspectives...

What's this stuff about switchers? You don't use separate dedicated locomotives for this with bi-modal (about the closest you'd get would be 'flat slugs' made from otherwise roadable power for long, repeated cuts being transferred or classed). Normal bimode cutting and "switching" would be done either with truck tractors or with modified 'hy-rail' vehicles akin to tractors. There isn't any sensible range between the road power and the rubber-tired vehicles that a 'switch engine' would fit... and it isn't flexible enough to get to the 'middle' of standing cuts to extract vehicles, at which hy-rail or BladeRunner vehicles would excel.

One point about the possibility of low-tare-weight solid trains: They cost less to run at high speed, and might allow some segregation (by daypart) to run in faster corridors with 'one-speed' efficiencies. Cripe's original thinking about RoadRailers included this concept. Interesting to speculate on what the power for such trains might be...

[Junctionfan]

I would suggest P-42s for railroads that want to focus primarily on the roadrailer and other multi-modal trains.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input - I see now the error of my ways [;)]

Daveklepper, my favorite signal aspect system is the old standard - "Red is a Signal of Danger and signifies Stop; Green is a Signal of Caution; White is a Signal of Safety and signifies Proceed" - naturally displayed by mechanical lower-quadrant semaphores and Hall Disk signals!

However, my favorite signal aspect system ever is Santa Fe's upper quadrant semaphore aspects. They only had five aspects: Clear, Approach, Restricting, Stop & Proceed, and Stop. Block signals displayed Clear, Approach and Stop & Proceed; interlocking signals displayed Clear, Restricting, and Stop. The Restricting aspect not only served the same purpose as an Approach aspect, but also signaled diverging routes as well - meaning that any given signal on the line, no matter its function, would require only ONE arm! The arms, incidentally, were not painted the traditional colors, but solid black or white, for maximum visibility against their background. They were all the same shape, too - the number plate (or lack thereof) being the distinguishing factor. Truly simple and economical, if not aesthetic.

My favorite current paint scheme is BNSF's Great Pumpkin; it's nice to see a traditional American splash of color on the rails again.

[mudchicken]

Perfect railroad? Never will happen [like life] and that's what makes 'em so very interesting and unique.[;)][;)][;)]

[TH&B]

How about a hi-rail adapted tracter trailer pulling roadrailers, why hasn't that been tryed... or has it?

One night on a transcontinental road trip in my car i stopped at a place called Coteuax Jct in Quebec or something like that and woke up to a train comin' through fast and it looked kind of like some sort of super size truck tracter on rails pulling roadrailers and I could swear there were more in the middle of the train. Never ever seen this monster before and I'm not even sure if I was realy awake but there did seem like there was a concept in there. This was maybe 15 years ago.

The perfect railroad is shipping everything that is shipped by containers instead shipped in 40' boxcars and also all inter city trucking into 40' boxcars, even all unit trains into 40' boxcars. That would be more boxcar traffic then ever before!

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Many years ago (1968 or 1969), an article in TRAINS described the Reserve Mining Company operation as the perfect railroad. It hauled one commodity, loads ran downhill and empties ran uphill, it was beyond the jurisdiction of the ICC, crews were paid on an hourly basis, no interchange was handled, and it was phenomenally productive. In the context of the era, it was indeed the perfect railroad.

[daveklepper]

Hey, Captain Clack! You are darn right about the old SF semaphores. I had dreams about Israel Railways buying them and replacing the "staff system" that was in use on the Lod - Jerusalem original 1892 (converted from narrow gauge by the British) railroad line with the old Semaphores for nostalgia. It would be a perfect environment for them, scenery very much like Antonito - Chama, no snow, mild climate, single track. But probably BNSf has scrapped the bunch. And if they were available I would question whether IR's signal department would want to maintain them. But I loved riding the Chief's dome and seeing them in action a long time ago.