When Conrail was around Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo had one piggyback terminal. When Conrail was split both CSX and NS built seperate intermodal yards wasting huge amounts of space. It would be like after United Airlines was split into two that each airline built its own airport. If a public port authority would site a single open access terminal to eliminate cross town drayage and the wear and tear on the roads that would be great. I think part of what we are seeing with the former routes that Hunter Harrison's CSX and NS is overlap the Conrail Split. Of course this would require CSX and NS to play nice with each other.
I think your idea is excellent. Conrail Shared Assets could operate it. I think UP and BNSF should do the same in the West.
And then there is Chicago!
I'm not sure that a joint intermodal terminal would necessarily work as well as a joint terminal railroad such as BRC or TRRA. Swapping trailers or containers within a joint terminal would require a lot more space and labor (you can't push trailers over a hump) and wouldn't be all that different from separate terminals. It might eliminate over the road drayage between the various terminals but not too much else.
This seems to be a solution in search of a problem.
Just remember about this idea for every container or trailer that comes in or out of there your going to have an OTR tractor pulling it. So sure combine all the IM terminals in the major cities just be aware of the girdlock your going to have with over 10K trucks a day trying to get in and out of there.
Not if roads and siting and planning were done well. It would be important to have a road system where all trucks do not enter and leave at one location, but both separate entrances and exists for all four directions, with the appropriate road connections. It would be quite a planning effort, also the access of the various railroad lines. But really just scaling up the largest of existing single-railroad facilities.
A modification of the idea is separate facilities but directly adjacent, with some novel way of efficiently transferring containers between the adjacent intermodal terminals. Possibly a dedicated undergroud container railroad "container mover." All movement thus far in container terminals has been at ground level or in the air. Maybe a third level underground should be added.
Trouble is there are only so many roads leading to the interstates around the major yard points. The traffic jams around the old Joliet Arsenal are becoming legandary anymore. Why there is 1 road in and out for all the traffic into and out of that area. The exit and on ramps have been widened to 2 lanes in each direction however the Interstate itself is still only 2 lanes wide due to having to cross the Dupage River just past the old Arsenal and replacement of the bridge and widening of the road to 3 lanes that it needs is blocked by NIMBY and BANANA resistance.
daveklepper Not if roads and siting and planning were done well. It would be important to have a road system where all trucks do not enter and leave at one location, but both separate entrances and exists for all four directions, with the appropriate road connections. It would be quite a planning effort, also the access of the various railroad lines. But really just scaling up the largest of existing single-railroad facilities. A modification of the idea is separate facilities but directly adjacent, with some novel way of efficiently transferring containers between the adjacent intermodal terminals. Possibly a dedicated undergroud container railroad "container mover." All movement thus far in container terminals has been at ground level or in the air. Maybe a third level underground should be added.
(2) Railroads pay to own and operate most of these intermodal hubs. (and they maintain them proportional to their value) ... Who pays for all the extra switching and double handling once away from the ramp/hub? Smells every bit as bad as open access quackery.
(3) Agree with CSS. A solution out searching for a problem. (and the short haul follies have not even oozed to the top yet)
On the face of it, it sounds like a good idea. As usual, though (and as pointed out already) the devil is in the details.
In addition to dealing with the highway issues, there's finding a site that all of the involved railroads can access easily. CSX's North Baltimore facility isn't too far off an Interstate, although 10,000 trucks a day would definitely tax the roads between the two. But CSX is the only game in town, at least until you get to Fostoria.
Probably more important (and the very thing that makes this a solution in search of a problem) is determining just how much use such a facility would get - ie, how much such interchange currently happens in existing facilities.
I would suppose one could find more business that could be routed through such a facility, but that involves projections and cooperative marketing...
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...
Agree with MC. Getting public agencies inolved will evolve into all claiming they are being discriminated against (See Amtrak). This ship left long ago.
Shadow the Cats ownerTrouble is there are only so many roads leading to the interstates around the major yard points.
The issue is not so much that proper grade-separated roadways in and out of the facility or 'leading to the interstates' can't be arranged as it is that stops and turns for the trucks have to be minimized, and they require their own acceleration lanes and perhaps 'preferential' merge authority to be reliably up to traffic speed (for the merge lane and probably some distance thereafter) when they reach the point of entering traffic.
In the case of the Memphis BNSF facility part of the necessary 'enhancement' would be to build an overhead viaduct carrying 'automobile' and perhaps through-truck lanes of through Rt. 78 traffic over some or all the 'valley', with the truck traffic occupying the existing roadway and given a preferential road without turn lights or stops at 'corners' both in and out of the facility from east and west. The existing situation with traffic is almost all driven by through trucks stopping, or container trucks entering, at lights and then having to go up a substantial grade out of the 'valley' in either direction while maintaining reasonable following distance; the situation is greatly complicated by trucks to and from other distribution centers and facilities in that area.
When 'platooning' is introduced, it may help somewhat if properly designed, but none of the existing schemes for it are optimized for that kind of operation. Regular platooning is like 'drafting': the trucks maintain a reasonable common gear speed, at relatively high and continuous road speed, and any gear changes to handle hills or wind can be made with little worry about matching powerband. That is most particularly not so for acceleration! The situation might be made to work with intelligent 'fly-by-wire' control over mechanical shifting and engine control, but it would be next to impossible for even a skilled and aware driver to maintain short headway under all conditions even with all the 'driving aids' possible outside full autonomous control.
However, if trucks accelerate to merge and can be given their own lanes to get to speed before entering faster traffic flow, I suspect a very great deal of the required 'additional truck traffic' can be conveniently accommodated even on an Interstate that goes quickly to two lanes each direction. Perhaps less noise from repeated accelerations through the powerband or Jacobs braking, too, with a minimum of stopping and restarting.
To paraphrase 'mudchicken' - the only thing the highway bubba know how to do is create a mess, and they do it very well.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Here in Buffalo we have a truck only road that serves some industies. My plan would have a off ramp for trucks only directly to and from the Inland Port.
I understand the objections posted thus far, and they are reasonable. But since drayage between terminals would be eliminated for the specific metropolitan area, the amount of additional truck traffic might not be so prohibitive. Does Conrail Shared Assetts have one or more intermodal terminals? That might be an existingi example, since it handles freight for both NS and CSX.
If the idea does make sense in a particular situation, the specific railroads will implement it. But only if it makes sense in a particular situtation.
daveklepperBut since drayage between terminals would be eliminated for the specific metropolitan area, the amount of additional truck traffic might not be so prohibitive.
You’re still concentrating all the delivery traffic from the several railroads onto the roads adjacent to the ‘union terminal’. That includes all the drayage going to logical final destinations in the facility service ‘radius’ which might easily be several hundred road miles, so only the interline container-swap or block switching activities would reduce road traffic, and the former likely involves internal chassis and yard-tractor use and the latter breaking loaded consists with all the lags that implies and both perhaps exacerbating internal congestion in the single facility arrangement so perhaps not directly part of traffic “in” the part of an intermodal facility actually concerned with quick rail/road transfer for reliable through time...
tree68 ........ isn't too far off an Interstate, although 10,000 trucks a day would definitely tax the roads between the two............
........ isn't too far off an Interstate, although 10,000 trucks a day would definitely tax the roads between the two............
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding tree68 ........ isn't too far off an Interstate, although 10,000 trucks a day would definitely tax the roads between the two............ 10,000 trucks a day would be a truck entering and a truck exiting the yard about every 18 seconds, 24 hours a day. What highway can handle that?
10,000 trucks a day would be a truck entering and a truck exiting the yard about every 18 seconds, 24 hours a day. What highway can handle that?
With maximum utilization - what terminal could handle 20K trailers, containers a day from the 10K trucks.
BNSF Hobart in LA would be lucky to handle a third of that with that kind of frequency (and it is fed by multiple freeways, and they still queue up massively around the checkpoints) ... but I would be asking for a breakdown on that 10000 figure to see what demands that has on traffic.
10K a day is the total moved between all the Chicago area yards for all the Class 1's those figures come from the railroads own websites. LA area would be right around 7K a day including San Bernadino. The Bay area is only 4k a day. These are drayage for final customers only. Willow Springs IM yard UPS only is right at 1K movements a day and those trailers move 1 mile to the UPS sorting facilty next door. They never hit the road and are not included in the Chicago figures. You better figure out how to get UPS happy as Willow Springs was built just for them.
UPS tends to build the major sorting centers near railroad intermodal terminals. Most UPS shipments still move on the ground.
CandOforprogress2 It would be like after United Airlines was split into two that each airline built its own airport.
It would be like after United Airlines was split into two that each airline built its own airport.
Uh, you know they do things like that, right? If demand merits it, they build more airports. Why do you think NYC has JFK, LGA, and EWR or DC has DCA, IAD, and BWI? They don't just make bigger airports for a variety of reasons. Its also entirely possible that a terminal might be built at an aiport specifically because of a merger or spinoff.
Also, what waste of space? There's no shortage of brownfield laying around Pittsburgh that's literally a waste of space. At least paving it over and putting a few container cranes there gives someone a job.
Um, St Louis Lambert vs. Mid America (What if they built an airport and nobody came? / Boondoggle vs. change in marketplace with Illinois politics added to the mix)
NittanyLion CandOforprogress2 It would be like after United Airlines was split into two that each airline built its own airport. Uh, you know they do things like that, right? If demand merits it, they build more airports. Why do you think NYC has JFK, LGA, and EWR or DC has DCA, IAD, and BWI? They don't just make bigger airports for a variety of reasons. Its also entirely possible that a terminal might be built at an aiport specifically because of a merger or spinoff. Also, what waste of space? There's no shortage of brownfield laying around Pittsburgh that's literally a waste of space. At least paving it over and putting a few container cranes there gives someone a job.
CSX's Pittsburgh Ramp was constructed on land that was far from brownfield - it was the P&LE's former McKees Rocks Shop facility. Land that CSX already owned and knew it would never be used for it's original purpose again.
NS - being on the other side of the river has it's own issues and markets. To my knowledge there is no drayage between NS and CSX terminals.
Railroads coexisting in some intermodal hippie space sounds nice, but it just wouldn't be practical. If it was possible, Chicago wouldn't be a mess, plain and simple.
Because why would you share your assets with somebody else?
Conrail Shared Assets work because they originate traffic, spreading it between CSX and NS depending on the rates, with it setup specifically so NS and CSX pretty much own but neither dictates, and they're happy each taking what they win.
Intermodal yards, unlike the CRSA, focus primarily on loading and unloading the trains - shocker I know. But the point is, they don't mix traffic with it. They don't "hump" intermodal boxes. That's what North Baltimore tried to be, in an intraline sense. Intermodal yards only pay their way where customers ship or recieve their goods.
That's why North Baltimore is on the block: it just rearranged the boxes in the middle of a northwest Ohio cornfield. Good idea in theory, but it's a huge cost that doesn't make the railroad a dime, since it mixes traffic already online, accepting almost no tonnage itself. Heck nobody even drayed from Detroit to North Baltimore...so was CSX making money on the traffic from NB to DET, once you factor in the yard costs? I haven't seen the P/L statements, but I doubt they were a cash cow.
Honestly, it's trying to re-invent the wheel. The greatest efficiencies of intermodal are volume, just like everything else on the railroad. Sure it might look nice to have all of those smaller lanes, but those rarely make money. The key just like everything else is profit margin. If you've got the traffic great, but if you aren't making much money and that traffic is clogging up your lines in the face of more valuable (hello UPS!) traffic, well then you have a problem.
The key to intermodal is their hybrid nature between blocks and unit. Different strokes for different folks, at least in terms of traffic lanes. BNSF's routes from LA to more eastern points are cash cows, because it's one and done, as far as running the train.
This is why Harrison has been skeptical of, and is now dismantling CSX's hump yard for intermodal containers: North Baltimore. It was the novel idea, but in the end it just isn't panning out from a margin standpoint. The railroad isn't in the business of moving freight: it is in the business of making money. If you aren't making money from some of your services, you should cut them.
That's not what the happy hippie circle will tell you, but that's how the world works.
Quite frankly, it says a lot about the industry, that they're trying to reinvent the intermodal wheel. The best thing the industry could do is reduce delays and deliver their service when promised, for a competitive price.
Building shared intermodal "hump" yards just won't do that.
BaltACD ............CSX's Pittsburgh Ramp was constructed on land that was far from brownfield - it was the P&LE's former McKees Rocks Shop facility..............
............CSX's Pittsburgh Ramp was constructed on land that was far from brownfield - it was the P&LE's former McKees Rocks Shop facility..............
Murphy Siding BaltACD ............CSX's Pittsburgh Ramp was constructed on land that was far from brownfield - it was the P&LE's former McKees Rocks Shop facility.............. I dunno, our city's biggest brownfield was once the Milwaukee Road shop and roundhouse.Wouldn't that be the same thing?
I dunno, our city's biggest brownfield was once the Milwaukee Road shop and roundhouse.Wouldn't that be the same thing?
Shop areas are near 'black fields' - very near being EPA Super Fund sites.
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