A FRIDAY DEPARTURE FROM BOTH TERMINALS AND MONDAY ARRIVAL, NY - LA SHOULD GET NEW BUSINESS WITH A 57 OR 58 HOUR RUNNING TIME. ANY COMBINATION THAT WORKS OF THE FOUR AVALABLE, BNSF-CSX, BNSF-NS, UP-CSX OR UP-NS. PROBABLY CONTAINER ONLY.
There is no market for premium train service. The Santa Fe experiment with Q-trains in the early 1990's proved that along with the ltl and perishables fail on Amtrak. The congestion in the east isn't helping matters much. (If you can get west of Chicago & Memphis, it moves well to the west coast - the problem is in the east 1/3 of the country.
What is the problem with the eastern 1/3 of the country, mudchicken?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
Chronic congestion, all the way back to the PRR/NYC days. Some can be bypassed, some can't. (too many terminals, junctions, interlockings ....average train speeds are not the same east vs. west.)
It would be a great idea....if the Erie Lackawanna ROW was still in place.
The UP is running multiple super fast perishable trains from Yakima, Wa and Delano, Ca to the east coast. They want to expand them to the south east. The Super C service could be reactivated if the BNSF wanted. the business.
caldreamer, methinks BNSF knows what they are doing and why as is reflected by their results.
Unless some of us here have inside info about what business is out there that will reward the start up costs and mitigate the disruption a "new Super C" would cause then I suggest we are speculating with nostalgia for the past.
caldreamer The UP is running multiple super fast perishable trains from Yakima, Wa and Delano, Ca to the east coast. They want to expand them to the south east. The Super C service could be reactivated if the BNSF wanted. the business.
Can't speak to what UPRR is doing, as their line through this part of South Central Kansas (old RI/now UPR OKT sub) seems to be primarily grain and occasionally gen merch trains).
BNSF runs a number of container trains both East and West through here,( South of Wichita, at Mulvane). Both domestic cans and export cans. Have not done any couts, but they seem to have plenty of traffic, recently; UPS and Fedex are easily recognizable traffic, dopuble stacks and some have a mix of both COFC and TOFC. Regular TOFC with many reefer trailers, mixed dry vans, not to mention Yellow-Roadway and Ellis, and other both regular freight lines and irregular freight operators. Lately, the tank trains seem to be mostly in the evening, and night(?) around here. There has been an import can train (eastbound) that usually has two or three units on head-end, with a couple of mid-train helper DPUs with one or two end of train DPUs. Makes for interesting train watching!
Point being, without seeing an employee timetable, I think they are alrerady running scheduled trains (without the publicity of a Super C, on a regular basis). There seems to be a regular appearance on a daily basis of the same types of consists about the same time frame each week (purely, an unscientific observation).
I dont think there is that much NYC - LA truckload business. Tell me what is manufactured in either SoCal or the Empire State? Sure, there is vegetables/fruit coming out of Ca, but what else?
As far as UPS/FedEx. They now offer 3rd day service, in addition to NDA and 2nd day. The manner in which distribution is set up these days, most stuff goes thru distribution centers which are regionally located.
the big business are the import containers.
Ed
A new Super C would just be a freight version of the 'Amtrak effect' - i.e., disruptions - to operations, if there are only 1 or 2 Main Tracks. More tracks than that, a Super C probably could be accomodated - but there isn't that much 3+ track mains.
- Paul North.
Is a "Super C" really necessary? Given UPS, FedEx, and other expedited movements already on the system, I get the impression that adding another special train isn't really necessary.
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Paul_D_North_Jr A new Super C would just be a freight version of the 'Amtrak effect' - i.e., disruptions - to operations, if there are only 1 or 2 Main Tracks. More tracks than that, a Super C probably could be accomodated - but there isn't that much 3+ track mains. - Paul North.
C'mon, Paul. If BNSF, on the old ATSF, can't do for one 'Super C,' with a double-track main, what it did with a whole passenger fleet on mostly single track in the old days, that's a pitiful comment, indeed. Especially with today's (hopefully temporary) reduced traffic.
dakotafredC'mon, Paul. If BNSF, on the old ATSF, can't do for one 'Super C,' with a double-track main, what it did with a whole passenger fleet on mostly single track in the old days, that's a pitiful comment, indeed. Especially with today's (hopefully temporary) reduced traffic.
Oh fred, don't be critical!
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
As i recall - back in the 'golden years' ATSF steam could hand 2500 ton trains. A 4 unit FT set could handle 3500 tons.
Todays trains are into 5 digits on both tonnage and length.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Just to throw another wrinkle in here: Later this year will see an enlarged Panama Canal. How this will affect or effect North American traffic patterns remains to be seen: either it changes everything, it changes nothing or something in between. More than likely there will be something and the potential big loser is the west coast and the railroads that serve it. The western railroads would be warry to invest in capex for west coast imports to the east.
On the other hand the east coast may see increased port traffic and thus the eastern railroads, with lower traffic and corresponding stock price, may be a bargin in the long run. Does this play into CP's interest in NS?
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A transcontinental Super C should be able to compete completely with an enhanced P. C. for domestic traffic and for certain types of freight for international traffic. With reduced traffic levels I don't see any capital investment necessary.
Keep in mind the so-called "Bullet Train" test schedules that were run several years ago by BNSF. I believe that the schedule was appreciably faster than existing intermodal schedules but proved to be too disruptive to other operations.
Butwere they not a bit faster than my proposal?
daveklepper Butwere they not a bit faster than my proposal?
Speed breeds priority - priority forces decisions upon trains that don't have priority and dictates decisions when and where priority trains meet. Priority decreases the throughput of line segments, when looking at the overall capacity of those line segments.
There is one other aspect here, which is that the 'old ATSF' did not have an ordinary CTC-style double-track main; it had a very large number of sidings that gave the effect of a 4-track main as far as overtake of slower traffic without compromising opposing traffic were concerned, as well as the nominal existence of a 'priority' traffic flow at 90+ mph, with appropriate ATC, relatively uncompromised by a high volume of profitable traffic at more restricted but still high speed.
In my opinion, the defining characteristic of any 'super-Z' service still revolves around overall cost that is billable to the customer, that the customer is willing to pay for on an ongoing basis, with enough customers to make regular scheduled operation of the service (not just the occasional train) possible.
And that is where any revived Super C proposal will, well, meet with the same fate the original Super C did, whether or not a modern implementation of '40s dispatch 'ingenuity' discovers a way to path the service into existing traffic.
I know of a number of technical proposals for accelerated container traffic in various lanes, some of which use energy storage techniques to reduce the cost of repeatedly slowing and accelerating the high-speed trains to reduce the 'energy agio' associated with practical operation. So far, none of them provides enough tangible benefit to shippers to make them a practical proposition ... without more effective subsidy from one place or another than anyone has figured out how to secure.
I still think there is enough prospective volume to run my father's old Northeast Corridor container service (at least some of which was going to be secured with overnight mail traffic to Harrison and New York City). But that is about the only place the thing makes sense, although it would still be 'technically' possible to perform parallel container transfer within the 'window' of trains in one of the Amtrak 110-mph corridors.
Get the business lined up, and the technical solutions can follow. But you need the business first. It's just not there yet.
Wizlish I still think there is enough prospective volume to run my father's old Northeast Corridor container service (at least some of which was going to be secured with overnight mail traffic to Harrison and New York City). But that is about the only place the thing makes sense, although it would still be 'technically' possible to perform parallel container transfer within the 'window' of trains in one of the Amtrak 110-mph corridors. Get the business lined up, and the technical solutions can follow. But you need the business first. It's just not there yet.
If what you are proposing for the NEC side loading/unloading containers by some sort of mechanical transfer system which requires modified railcars and highway chassis why not use a Railrunner type bi-modal system (intermodal road chassis with rail bogie connections)?
http://www.railrunner.com/
For the distances you're talking about it seems a better fit......
Back in the 80's and 90's both N.S and Conrail tried to get Amtrak interested in moving Triple Crown roadrailers on the NEC so there is a precedent. Amtrak itself also studied moving USPS traffic from Baltimore to New Haven using Amtrak Roadrailers.
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carnej1 If what you are proposing for the NEC side loading/unloading containers by some sort of mechanical transfer system which requires modified railcars and highway chassis why not use a Railrunner type bi-modal system (intermodal road chassis with rail bogie connections)? http://www.railrunner.com/ For the distances you're talking about it seems a better fit......
Two chief reasons: time and operations.
There are additional reasons: capital cost and tare weight for the RailRunners are both higher, and there are tracking and stability issues at the speeds that would be required, especially north of New Haven. These are part of the reason you have not seen any particular use of RailRunners in actual high-speed intermodal service.
Dwell time at a particular stop has to be restricted to no more than several minutes. It is technically possible to load and unload multiple containers nearly simultaneously (with some care as to where the loads and 'unloads' are spotted in the consist) and once the containers are moved they are fully clear of the operating track and 'locked down'. (They can then be accessed for intermodal transfer to chassis by any of the normal, comparatively slow and 'piecewise' methods, including if necessary gantry lift).
Remember that this is an electrified main with restrictions on cat height and relatively high voltage on what I expect to be an increasing percentage of the route. That compromises the 'best' alternative technology, the 'original' version of the old CargoSpeed approach that gang-lifts and rotates van trailers (or loaded RailRunner chassis), as opposed to containers in wells, so that an appropriate number of tractors can tie on and move them away.
If you try using RailRunners as Triple Crown ran RoadRailers, you encounter the fun involved in breaking the air and then handling all the intermediate 3-piece trucks that were supporting the chassis. I do not think it is easy to put the necessary switches into Class 8 or better track to divert the train to an 'alternate' loading track, especially with the risk that comes if a high-speed passenger train is 'accidentally' diverted into something with less than a Class 8 transition, which will take up quite a bit of non-foulable arrival and departure track distance...
All the RailRunner provides you is the ability to break the train and carry the loaded container to an end destination directly. Sure, you could equip these things for sideloading, but you then have higher ride height and worse stability, many more 'breakable' service connections, lots and lots of extra expen$ive structure, and higher tare weight... etc. And if you use them for end delivery at any point, you have the additional concerns about how to provide in-lane service when your expensive underframes are 'otherwise engaged' -- for example, acting as a very expensive container docking frame as lumpers strip or stuff the box riding on it...
daveklepper A transcontinental Super C should be able to compete completely with an enhanced P. C. for domestic traffic and for certain types of freight for international traffic. With reduced traffic levels I don't see any capital investment necessary.
Nevertheless, all focus in Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Worth and Omaha is fixated on the potential impending silence of the musical-chairs-merger game. This is our distraction for 2016, at least.
Demographics and the economic base have changed greatly in the last 40 years.
Honestly, if here is freight that has to be moved that fast from one coast to the other - wouldn't they just fly it?
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
zugmann Honestly, if here is freight that has to be moved that fast from one coast to the other - wouldn't they just fly it?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy SidingI had the same thought. How much faster would this be than currently used trains? Would the containers- or whatever- only pick up a day or two?
Pretty much my thought, as well, as I noted earlier.
Nailed it. The volumes needed to justify super-priority rail transit time just dont's exist with a cost of capital of less tha 8%. The market for speed is down to the individual package level today.The auto business was one of the few industries that could generate volumes of traffic sufficient for 700+ -mile moves that could produce volumes of traffic worth the expense of expedited handling - for example, centralized stamping plants that could belch forth 70 hi-cube box car loads of parts a day for a half-dozen assembly plants. In today's world, domestic parts manufacturing is assigned to several dozen associated companies usually within a hundred miles (read - trucking distance) of each assembly facility. Parts produced outside the US now move in containers, which is where the railroad place time-priority handling. Speed for speed's sake is seldom a logistics manager's concern. Consistency in transit time is the goal.
Wizlish carnej1 If what you are proposing for the NEC side loading/unloading containers by some sort of mechanical transfer system which requires modified railcars and highway chassis why not use a Railrunner type bi-modal system (intermodal road chassis with rail bogie connections)? http://www.railrunner.com/ For the distances you're talking about it seems a better fit...... All the RailRunner provides you is the ability to break the train and carry the loaded container to an end destination directly. Sure, you could equip these things for sideloading, but you then have higher ride height and worse stability, many more 'breakable' service connections, lots and lots of extra expen$ive structure, and higher tare weight... etc. And if you use them for end delivery at any point, you have the additional concerns about how to provide in-lane service when your expensive underframes are 'otherwise engaged' -- for example, acting as a very expensive container docking frame as lumpers strip or stuff the box riding on it...
I thought from what you wrote that you were proposing a network somewhat akin to what Triple Crown was doing before they downsized. In other words a 500 mile or so rail corridor(the whole NEC with maybe some secondary short diesel drawn hauls connecting) with drayage routes extending out a few hundred miles from the ramps. You could handle both ISO boxes from the ports (NY/NJ, Baltimore, Norfolk/Newport News) and domestic 53' foot containers.
That would fit the "break the train and haul the box to it's final destination" spec...
Or are you suggesting using the sideloading service as a feeder to and from conventional stack trains connecting with the rest of the North America network?
There's a lot of re-handling going on in that example...
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