Overmod BaltACD You tend to think Chicago was built on some form of master plan. In your dreams! Well, it's not as if they didn't try! https://burnhamplan100.lib.uchicago.edu/history_future/plan_of_chicago/ One of the troubles is that Chicago is built around the corner of a lake and most of the railroads come to its environs rather than interconnecting through or closely around it. Granted there were some instances where passenger trains into Chicago had easy and convenient transfer -- but far more often there was an enforced layover (no matter how pleasant places like the Pump Room could be!) and far more use for Parmelee Transfer than for steel-rail connections between the stations or ongoing trains... as the post-hog-across-America experiments would rather conclusively prove.
BaltACD You tend to think Chicago was built on some form of master plan. In your dreams!
Well, it's not as if they didn't try!
https://burnhamplan100.lib.uchicago.edu/history_future/plan_of_chicago/
One of the troubles is that Chicago is built around the corner of a lake and most of the railroads come to its environs rather than interconnecting through or closely around it. Granted there were some instances where passenger trains into Chicago had easy and convenient transfer -- but far more often there was an enforced layover (no matter how pleasant places like the Pump Room could be!) and far more use for Parmelee Transfer than for steel-rail connections between the stations or ongoing trains... as the post-hog-across-America experiments would rather conclusively prove.
One hundred years ago was much to late to formulate such a plan - It should have been done after Mrs. O'Leary's cow did its thing.
On the passenger front, where would you locate a station that could handle the trains of all, repeat ALL of the Class 1 carriers trains and be able to handle them in a expeditious manner and how would it be configured and controlled to get to their home roads without delay?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACDYou tend to think Chicago was built on some form of master plan. In your dreams!
Convicted One BaltACD You tend to think Chicago was built on some form of master plan. In your dreams! I tend to see it in a spirit similar to leading a steer to slaughter. It's unrealistic to expect the steer all on his own, to make all the correct turns, walk through all the right doors, and then walk up to the block and lay his head on it. So instead, you take a prod and jolt him with a few hundred volts whenever he takes a wrong turn. The end result is the same.
I tend to see it in a spirit similar to leading a steer to slaughter. It's unrealistic to expect the steer all on his own, to make all the correct turns, walk through all the right doors, and then walk up to the block and lay his head on it. So instead, you take a prod and jolt him with a few hundred volts whenever he takes a wrong turn. The end result is the same.
Yep! One railroad couldn't even get all their passenger trains to terminate in one station. Yep, that is prime planning.
(NYC had most trains use LaSalle Street Station, however their Big4 route trains terminated at the IC Central Station along the Lakefront)
Economic centers grow where they grow and not for master planned reasons. Yes, the local politicians once they saw the seeds of economics growing in their locations would take actions to enhance the economic growth with the 'current day' being their frame of reference - not the view of what would happen 50 years, 100 years in the future.
When it comes to technology - we can BARELY see 20 years into the future, let alone 50 or 100 years; and we have the benefit of having personally experienced the technological growth that has happened since the end of WW II.
Reading the original link, it sounds like the problem wasn't with boxes drayed across towns, but with boxes destined to the receivers served out of the Chicago terminal.
When I'm able to handle an eastbound intermodal, boxes for NS or CSX are all together on the cars with the cars blocked by destination carrier. They could be steel wheeled across town. Whether they are or not, I couldn't say. I currently don't go east of IA hwy 17 now, and when I did go east of there it wasn't past IL Route 84.
Jeff
Convicted One Overmod How in the name of all that is holy would you propose this could work? Well, now that the cat is out of the bag, it might be too late. I was thinking more along the lines that something (could/should) have been done back when the masterplan was being devised. Something that would have encouraged the major players to do their sorting all inside a single perimeter? (instead of cross-town). Or even (shudder) build blocks at the originating port, based upon destination, that could pass from railroad to railroad in Chicago, and avoid the asphalt for all but local delivery.. We've got a local ordinance even way out here in the middle of the soybean patch, prohibiting trucks inside city limits except for local delivery. It's seldom enforced out around the fringe, but once you start heading in towards the core there is enforcement. Perhaps something fine tuned to fit the circumstances could be tailored for Chicago?
Overmod How in the name of all that is holy would you propose this could work?
Well, now that the cat is out of the bag, it might be too late. I was thinking more along the lines that something (could/should) have been done back when the masterplan was being devised. Something that would have encouraged the major players to do their sorting all inside a single perimeter? (instead of cross-town).
Or even (shudder) build blocks at the originating port, based upon destination, that could pass from railroad to railroad in Chicago, and avoid the asphalt for all but local delivery..
We've got a local ordinance even way out here in the middle of the soybean patch, prohibiting trucks inside city limits except for local delivery. It's seldom enforced out around the fringe, but once you start heading in towards the core there is enforcement. Perhaps something fine tuned to fit the circumstances could be tailored for Chicago?
You tend to think Chicago was built on some form of master plan. In your dreams!
Chicago was built by happenstance and continued to grow by happenstance.
While today we only have 4 East West Class 1's and nominally only 1 North South Class 1 operating through Chicago. In the times before Penn-Central you had a multitude of Class 1's operating in every direction from Chicago. Freight traffic between all these carriers was moved by 'Interchange' runs that moved a carriers cars that were destined to another carrier to that carriers yard. Interchange runs were not high speed and did not operate on high speed routings. Since 2003 the existing Class 1 carriers in Chicago have undertaken the CREATE plan https://www.aar.org/article/chicago-region-environmental-transportation-efficiency-program to enhance movement among carriers.
I don't know enough about port terminal operations to know what a 'proper' classification of arriving ocean boxes into destination city/carrier kinds of rail car loading would add in time to port terminal handlings. I believe there are multiple container cranes working on a vessel on a concurrent basis on different holds of the vessels. How would the loading of the vessels be handled from their multiple ports of call to have rail efficient unloading at US Ports?
Never know, something along those lines might rejuvenate interest in forsaken bypass routes such as TP&W, The Streator Branch, and my beloved Wabash?
Think of the potential for relief of congestion on Chicago streets?
OvermodHow in the name of all that is holy would you propose this could work?
Convicted OnePerhaps that might benefit from a little government supervision? ("intrusion", you know... the evil "R" word)
I think a somewhat more practical answer might be pool ownership of underframes along some of the TTX models, with an agreed framework of costs and charges for a given last-mile move that includes any 'preparation' drayage and positioning when an on-site underframe wouldn't be easily available.
Over the years there have been many, many ideas for minimizing specialized-truck-infrastructure dwell, including some of the sideloading equipment I worked out. We've had threads about the sometimes fascinating contrivances that are supposed to 'drop' containers in unprepared locations, or pick them up for subsequently 'normal' intermodal handling with minimal dwell and marginal costs. I don't see any of these replacing skeleton underframes in widespread intermodal drayage to 'truck-compatible' docks, either for crossdock LCL handling or stripping/stuffing at non-rail 'inland ports' and the like.
Sorry, but I strongly believe that it was a mistake to allow the railroads to use Chicago surface streets as a sorting platform,.. to begin with.[/quote]
OvermodEven today balancing container arrival with suitable underframe capacity is a bit of a negotiation where underframe owners aren't arriving-container owners.
Perhaps that might benefit from a little government supervision? ("intrusion", you know... the evil "R" word)
Sorry, but I strongly believe that it was a mistake to allow the railroads to use Chicago surface streets as a sorting platform,.. to begin with.
The biggest issues with in my opinion with the OTR industry and this comes from someone involved daily in it. First off is the HOS regulation combined with the ELD mandate. The HOS regulation with the clock timer was the stupidest thing the Obama administration ever came up with.
2nd is law enforcement and injury lawyers seeing OTR trucking as their own piggybanks. The fines for some of the most trival equipment issues like a light being out or a air line rubbing on something in some states can be over a grand. Let alone the moving violation fines hell a seat belt ticket in CA for an OTR is 800 bucks but in a car is 100 see the difference.
3rd is shippers and receivers refusing to treat drivers like they're even human beings. Some places won't even allow drivers access to a bathroom and expect them to relieve themselves outside on the ground. Then after those places use up a drivers clock they refuse to provide a safe place for them to park to comply with the law.
4th is the media and how they report on the industry. Never-ending stories when there is an accident involving a truck. Nothing about how multiple carriers have trained their drivers to spot human trafficking and the victims of it and stop it. Or how during the height of the pandemic it was the OTR driver doing a superhuman effort getting vital needed supplies to where they were needed. No it's always blame the trucking industry for the jammed up roads the traffic problems road conditions.
Much of the early problem was that the specialized skeleton underframes were owned by shipping lines (that was when they owned all the boxes) and many of them were designed more for moving around in port yards than long OTR to-last-mile delivery away from intensive terminal utilization. (We might remember the 'hunchbacked' appearance of many container drays where it looked like the cargo was going uphill!)
Even today balancing container arrival with suitable underframe capacity is a bit of a negotiation where underframe owners aren't arriving-container owners. There is a bit of built-in trouble when 'the low low price' for bulk moves like some of the Hunt blocks I see will require hundreds of commodity-priced underframe provisions that the J.B.Hunt company might not want to pay for and then 'rent out' to other intermodal drays when not immediately in use...
All the original RoadRailer premise was to get around the Flexi-Van problem of needing specialized tractors and road bogies -- you could use perfectly ordinary OTR tractors, and the inner road wheels were the van suspension on the rails. This did fine in tests (I remember speeds over 100mph at Pueblo) but in practice there were issues (self-guarding frogs figuring very, very prominently) and so we got to the system with three-piece bogies between units... and bridge-frame strength and weight and cost to match... with all the lane and logistic concerns that have marked Triple Crown-style operation ever since.
I'm sure someone is about to bring up RailRunners of some kind, in some context. They remain, as far as I know, where they have always been in the market for rail and truck compatible underframes -- really overpriced and really heavy.
I don't disagree with a thing that you say, Balt. But just to be clear, my quip about "bogies" was pointed at the steel wheeled component that made the roadrailers rail compatible.
I think about the west coast backlog, with all the container ships said to be "stranded" waiting to come to port, each time I go grocery shopping only to see entire sections that have been sold out and barren for 5+ weeks. And I ponder "I never realized those were sourced off shore too"
Incrementally, I guess if Triple crown was still what it once was, that would free up more (container) chassis to use with the import boxes.
Convicted OneI know, I was just amused with how one of the touted advantages of containerized freight (in discussion of TCS here, in years past), seems to be the achilles heel right now. Never remember hearing TCS complaining about any shortage of bogies.
Never remember hearing TCS complaining about any shortage of bogies.
Personally - I think there is a two fold problem in the US. Bogies are tight coupled with a shortage of drivers to put them where they need to be when they need to be there.
Driver shortage may also be two fold. Elogs actually enforcing the HOS for truck drivers. Drivers realizing they are being underpaid and over worked coupled with shipper/consignees/terminals eating up there HOS time without the drivers having adequate recourse - and then seeking other lines of work.
They've scaled these facilities to the point they can't move enough trucks in and out to meet lift capacity. The gate capacity - last road mile, gate credentialling, drop/hook, and then back out, seems a hard constraint.
Same problem in Mombossa Kenya - https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/increase-in-cargo-at-mombasa-port-prompts-use-of-double-stack-trains
They're trying double stacks from the wharf, but that just pushed the problem to the next hop.
I know, I was just amused with how one of the touted advantages of containerized freight (in discussion of TCS here, in years past), seems to be the achilles heel right now.
Convicted One BaltACD When there are more boxes to move than there are chassis to mount them on there will be issues. Well, I believe we can say with certainty, *that* would not be a problem with Triple Crown!!
BaltACD When there are more boxes to move than there are chassis to mount them on there will be issues.
Well, I believe we can say with certainty, *that* would not be a problem with Triple Crown!!
That may be true but RoadRailers are non-standard equipment and never that common to begin with.
BaltACDWhen there are more boxes to move than there are chassis to mount them on there will be issues.
Will CSX run the UPS train Q001 tonight via Gary/Berea then back to CSX?ed
n012944Something the railroads have been reducing. http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/shipping-tools/shipping-news-and-alerts/reminder--elimination-of-rubber-crosstown-service-for-ocean-cont.html
Thanks! Yeah, that looks like the way it should be. Too bad the Western roads can't seem to build "thru" stack trains effectively.
tree68CSX dumped an intermodal train in Indiana this morning. That can't help...
Now, how much of their non-priority traffic gets detoured vs. held until at least one of the mains is open remains to be seen, but I'd suspect it won't be *that* long...
CSX dumped an intermodal train in Indiana this morning. That can't help...
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...
charlie hebdoOcean boxes on UP still coming into Chicago on rail.
That's everywhere on NS, not just in Chicago. Prior notification was May 14/15.
Ocean boxes on UP still coming into Chicago on rail.
n012944 Convicted One So they are also saying that a good deal of the problem is due to a scarcity of wheeled chassis. Looks like we are once again back to consideration of the wisdom of wheeled drayage of containers headed for eastern railroads? Something the railroads have been reducing. http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/shipping-tools/shipping-news-and-alerts/reminder--elimination-of-rubber-crosstown-service-for-ocean-cont.html
Convicted One So they are also saying that a good deal of the problem is due to a scarcity of wheeled chassis. Looks like we are once again back to consideration of the wisdom of wheeled drayage of containers headed for eastern railroads?
So they are also saying that a good deal of the problem is due to a scarcity of wheeled chassis.
Looks like we are once again back to consideration of the wisdom of wheeled drayage of containers headed for eastern railroads?
Something the railroads have been reducing.
http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/shipping-tools/shipping-news-and-alerts/reminder--elimination-of-rubber-crosstown-service-for-ocean-cont.html
Ocean boxes not being afforded rubber tire interchange through Chicago. Domestic boxes and trailers still getting rubber tire interchange.
Short term contracts at spot rates for owner operators willing to run team and also running it with their own drivers in relaying runs terminal to terminal. The same thing they've done in the past during the holiday rush.
MP173 Just to add a little more complexity....CSX train Q10, the hot Chicago - New Jersey intermodal derailed near Auburn, In. this morning, both mains blocked. Q10 at one time was primarily a UPS and priority intermodal train, but has become two trains...an international block, typically 100-125 containers and then the domestic doublestack and TOFC train after the distributed power. Now...what is UPS backup plan? No FedX on the train usually. Ed
Just to add a little more complexity....CSX train Q10, the hot Chicago - New Jersey intermodal derailed near Auburn, In. this morning, both mains blocked.
Q10 at one time was primarily a UPS and priority intermodal train, but has become two trains...an international block, typically 100-125 containers and then the domestic doublestack and TOFC train after the distributed power.
Now...what is UPS backup plan? No FedX on the train usually.
Ed
It will detour over the NS from Gary to Cleveland.
An "expensive model collector"
This is what happens when the JIT inventory system breaks apart. The stress marks where there long before it blew up this year. Now that people are seeing just how dumb it is to have no real inventory in warehouses or in the backrooms. It makes the bottom line look good if you don't have any inventory however if that delivery is late or never happens you're going to want it.
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