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1. Adopt my invention, Greenbrier's "stack n' half" intermodal car. This design would increase the load factor for moving containers by up to 30%. This translates into 30% more TEU equivalents per given train length, and would take care of much of the congestion at ports and intermodal terminals. 2. Return to the "Rail Whales", the mega cars from the 1960's that were effectively banned by the FRA. These railcars had six and eight axles, and allowed gross weights of over 400,000 lbs, another 30% increase in load factor. On the issue of track maintenance, these cars effectively spread the weight of the car over more axles, reducing wear and tear on trackage (except for the rigid three axle trucks. With the advent of radial steering a flex trucks, that potential problem has been eliminated). In conjuction with a return of six and eight axle freight cars, we can then..... 3. ....limit per axle loads to under 65,000 lbs per axle for these cars. This would obviously reduce wear and tear on track. This means less track being taken out of service for repair, and thus less delays. Current four axle cars would still be allowed at the 286k max (71,500 lbs per axle) to allow them to run out their life expectancy, and prevent any needless distruption in current car supply. 4. Allow container ships to carry a certain amout of U.S. spec domestic containers. Currently, much of the import cargo into the U.S. is being transloaded from 40' ISO containers into the 53' domestic containers and dry vans at U.S. ports before the cargo is transported into the interior. It has occured to more than one freight manager how much cheaper it would be if these domestic containers could be filled at the foreign port by lower cost labor and then shipped to the U.S. This would increase the load factor for container ships and reduce the number of lifts from ship to chassis to well cars. This would really help reduce congestion at ports such as LA and Long Beach. 5. Reroute Amtrak off high density corridors onto lower traffic lines. There are examples of routes where Amtrak runs over heavily used freight lines while parrellel lines with less traffic are available. Take Amtrak off BNSF's High Line and put it on the ex-NP (nee MRL) line through central Monana and North Dakota. Take Amrak off the ex-Santa Fe LA to Chicago line and reroute it to the ex-RI/SSW/SP line. This may increase the travel time for Amtrak passengers and deprive some towns of rail passenger service, but Harve and Minot's loss is Bozeman and Bismark's gain. It would certainly help clear up the heaviest used freight lines. 6. Last but not least, institute some form of open access. We are all aware of paper barriers, bottleneck price gouging, needlessly circuitous routing of freights to keep it all on the "home rails", e.g. examples of inefficient monopolistic practices that keep railroads from performing as they should in theory. Elimination of these practices and caveats would improve the fluidity of rail transit, and greater fluidity equals less congestion. You are welcome to add or comment on this list, as it is a work in progress.....
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