466lex Driverless vehicles are much in the news now, including trucks. Platooning a series of 18-wheelers (perhaps with a driver/attendant in the first cab) has to be railroad intermodal's worst nightmare. LCVs multiplied. So why not explore self propelled freight cars seriously? Traditional "loose car" railroading is eroding rapidly anyway. Consider the enormous weight-carrying advantage of rail: 5 to 1. And the large cubic capacity advantage: 2 to 1. Platoon the freight cars on an isolated right-of-way, and provide truck-like service (instant dispatch, no terminal delays, etc., etc.) with railroad productivity and safety advantages. With PTC now inevitable, leverage all of the IT and communications investment by re-imagining the entire concept of railroading. The age of the unit train is closing (look at all of the pressures on coal, CBR, etc.), while demassification is in its infancy. Think about the competiton's possibilities and the shipper's requirements 20-30 years out. Start the serious R&D at Pueblo tomorrow morning.
Driverless vehicles are much in the news now, including trucks. Platooning a series of 18-wheelers (perhaps with a driver/attendant in the first cab) has to be railroad intermodal's worst nightmare. LCVs multiplied. So why not explore self propelled freight cars seriously? Traditional "loose car" railroading is eroding rapidly anyway.
Consider the enormous weight-carrying advantage of rail: 5 to 1. And the large cubic capacity advantage: 2 to 1. Platoon the freight cars on an isolated right-of-way, and provide truck-like service (instant dispatch, no terminal delays, etc., etc.) with railroad productivity and safety advantages.
With PTC now inevitable, leverage all of the IT and communications investment by re-imagining the entire concept of railroading. The age of the unit train is closing (look at all of the pressures on coal, CBR, etc.), while demassification is in its infancy.
Think about the competiton's possibilities and the shipper's requirements 20-30 years out. Start the serious R&D at Pueblo tomorrow morning.
How many trucks are you platooning with the single driver? Is it 280 53 foot trailers or more (that's how many containers are carried on the averege BNSF stack train)?
How much fuel are you using per ton/mile given that each vehicle has a tractor with an engine burning diesel in it?
I love how some on this forum try to portray the current system of double stack intermodal trains as somehow inefficient vs. long distance OTR trucking. It's not and that's why the Class 1's continue to increase their market share.
That certainly doesn't mean that automated trucks might not be on the horizon but the idea that merely reducing the labor costs in the trucking industries would bury the railroads is not born out by the trends in the industry..
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
BaltACD Again, the box cars may not have been self-propelled, but they moved along down the main line, nevertheless.
We actually had one place where we were allowed to drop cars by the engine, per special instruction. Place has since been torn down, so that was that.
May not have even been a drop NKP guy saw. Could have just been riding the car to teh other end of a yard track. Old school railroading - all but dead on any of the major railroads. A shame.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
NKP guy Now, I'll grant you this isn't quite the same thing as a self propelled boxcar, but when I was a lad in the 1950's I saw something that to my eyes looked exactly like it. Our house in East Cleveland, O. was immediately next to the embankment on which the Nickel Plate Railroad had its double-track main line. I well recall that for several years there would be a few evenings each summer when one could look up at the tracks and see, not a train, nor a switcher with a few cars, but a lone box car moving silently along the track by itself at about 15 mph (I'm guessing). At first glance it looked as if it had gotten away from a yard or a train and was out of control, but sure enough, on the back or on the front of the box car was a brakeman going along for the unusual ride. I only saw this on the eastbound main, so I assume the car was given a shove a mile or so west around Mayfield Road. There must have been a combination of a good nudge and a long downward slope towards the east to the small NKP yard at Chardon Road, a distance I'll guess is about two or so miles. I suppose cold weather discouraged this practice except in the summer. Has anyone else heard of this practice on other railroads? Also, what on earth could have been the reason this was done? Again, the box cars may not have been self-propelled, but they moved along down the main line, nevertheless.
Now, I'll grant you this isn't quite the same thing as a self propelled boxcar, but when I was a lad in the 1950's I saw something that to my eyes looked exactly like it.
Our house in East Cleveland, O. was immediately next to the embankment on which the Nickel Plate Railroad had its double-track main line. I well recall that for several years there would be a few evenings each summer when one could look up at the tracks and see, not a train, nor a switcher with a few cars, but a lone box car moving silently along the track by itself at about 15 mph (I'm guessing). At first glance it looked as if it had gotten away from a yard or a train and was out of control, but sure enough, on the back or on the front of the box car was a brakeman going along for the unusual ride. I only saw this on the eastbound main, so I assume the car was given a shove a mile or so west around Mayfield Road. There must have been a combination of a good nudge and a long downward slope towards the east to the small NKP yard at Chardon Road, a distance I'll guess is about two or so miles. I suppose cold weather discouraged this practice except in the summer.
Has anyone else heard of this practice on other railroads? Also, what on earth could have been the reason this was done? Again, the box cars may not have been self-propelled, but they moved along down the main line, nevertheless.
The switch at location where the car was to placed faced the 'wrong' way for the direction the local was traveling. Car(s) would be dropped past the engine - with the car(s) now being ahead of the engine they could be placed into the track with a facing point switch.
A train with a string of cars behind the engine, can only place cars into tracks that have trailing point switches in relation to the direction of movement of the train. Today's safety rules effectively prohibit the dropping of cars past the engine.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
To further highlight the differences between the "Cargosprinter" type freight multiple unit with the system described in the O.P's post..
The 'Sprinter was a short (manned) C.O.F.C freight train with powered cars on either end:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoSprinter
The system is similiar in concept to the partially built and tested CSX/CP "Iron Highway" integral train set:
http://www.railmotive.net/23theironhighwayinter.html
The concept in the first post is for individual autonomous freight cars which can operate singly or in consists.
At one point in the early 2000's Alstom (IIRC)was testing a driverless (correct terminology in Europe) diesel propelled container flat car. They only operated it on a closed test track.
Even with PTC I imagine integrating individual self propelled freight cars with existing passenger and freight operations would pose some major safety and operational issues, at least for the forseeable future.
spikejones52002 I have one thought. Spacing! you have a mile and a half train. Then two blocks back you have another mile and half train. Your system, you have a single car going somewhere. Two Blocks back you have another single car following. Then every two blocks back you have another single car following.
I have one thought. Spacing! you have a mile and a half train. Then two blocks back you have another mile and half train.
Your system, you have a single car going somewhere. Two Blocks back you have another single car following. Then every two blocks back you have another single car following.
His system is for sidings, leads, and track inside warehouses or plants, where individual cars or short cuts of cars are moved around. In a pinch small cuts of cars could be moved longer distances where it wouldn't pay to provide a switcher or 'hire' a crew to move the cars.
Even on branchline trains, these cars would move in an otherwise normal train, be switched by otherwise normal means at yards and over regular railroad traffic, and would be mixed, more or less indiscriminately, with ordinary cars.
This is emphatically NOT a system like the Adtranz Sprinter (or whatever it was called) or one of Kneiling's integral train modules, where the distributed self-propulsion is intended for train handling or to achieve higher speed or acceleration. It is even less a variant of PRT (It might be possible to use the powered cars as 'boosters' with an adaptation of DPU, rather than use a remote-control 'pack' as he does, but the performance gains would be small, the safety concerns large, for the required investment.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken.
I was under the impression that the explosive growth of containerized shipments was fueled, in part, by the ability to separate the box from the (far more expensive) carrying device, whether well car, skeleton trailer or oceangoing ship. It seems to me that this concept, as floated, flies in the face of that proven financial success.
Part of the original planning for the Shinkansen, back in the early '60's, was the idea of MU container trains (using the same small containers standardized by the JNR) to run at high speed during the overnight hours when there were no passenger trains to be delayed. Some form of MU double-stack MIGHT be practical on an electrified line. Running individual cars on a modern high-capacity main strikes me as reinventing the square wheel. After all, over-the-road trucks already do this pretty well.
Chuck
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:This concept sounds like a solution in search of a problem. It appears to be the equivalent of a truck on rails.
Or something the electric railroads USED to have
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
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...
New Slogan for this concept: "Always Expect a Freight Car"
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Now for something completely different..makes sense in a theoretical rather than practical manner but is interesting as an example of thinking outside the box.....bear in mind, I am still waiting for my flying car..
http://www.railway-energy.org/static/Self_propelled_freight_cars_84.php
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
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