carnej1they {auto trains} tend to be exclusive to {European} areas where there are poor or non-existant highway,bridge or road tunnel options
I can't think of any place in the USA except, perhaps, Alaska where there are poor highway options.
John WR Europeans railroads certainly show what can be done by railroads to move private vehicles.
Europeans railroads certainly show what can be done by railroads to move private vehicles.
That's true for certain operations but I note that they tend to be exclusive to areas where there are poor or non-existant highway,bridge or road tunnel options i,e throught the Chunnel (the trains compete with ferries and not roads) and over/under the Alps...
I am not aware of a significant network of intercity "autotrain" type service in Europe..
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
John WR When Auto Train was a private company they tried a second Auto Train between Chicago and Florida. It didn't pay. Amtrak never tried it. While carrying private vehicles would probably not work between every station there could be cities where it would not be impossible.
When Auto Train was a private company they tried a second Auto Train between Chicago and Florida. It didn't pay. Amtrak never tried it. While carrying private vehicles would probably not work between every station there could be cities where it would not be impossible.
The poor condition of L&N was what sank the operation. Amtrak has not ventured back into this because they have never had the money. I would think today it might work today as the railroads are in much better condition.
Rgds IGN
Every winter Detroit and some of the other automobile manufacturers have new cars transported to Arizona to the test tracks manitained in that state. The special double deck auto carriers have a special loading elevator on these trailers for lifting the cars to what ever level they are going to be tied down on. I don't know about now but in past years when there was additional space on the transport trucks you could transport a car to Phoenix pretty cheap in the winter time when the next years new cars were being transported there for testing. I don't know if it can still be done but many snowbirds sure liked the idea of flying to Arizona and there car would arrive in a few days. In those pre Amtrak days you could even take the train from Detroit to Phoenix changing trains in Chicago and your car would arrive a day or two after your arrival in Phoenix.
Al - in - Stockton
No. I am of course wrong...sorry. Chunnel trumps my arrogance.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
The only reason to mention "Lionel" in the context of a discussion of real-world transportation policy is to be demeaning or belittling of what someone is proposing.
Once derided as "toy" or "child's" trains by serious scale model train enthusiasts, Lionel and other brands of large scale, toy, or "hi-rail" model trains are enjoying a resurgence, among collectors of the older trains as well as hobbyists operating for recreation the current Lionel and other large scale offerings.
Someone proposes a drive-on drive-off railway auto ferry as a service, someone else responds to that proposal with ridicule, I point to the Chunnel Shuttle doing the just the thing being proposed (along with side loading to avoid expensive switching moves), and I am missing a point?
And while we are on a model-railroading-as-not-real-railroading metaphor, did I mention that the Chunnel Shuttle turns its trains with a reversing loop?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
You miss my point...and I do know Lionel no longer makes HO. And anything can happen and be on some railroad at some time. Yes.
henry6 You can probably pull such loading and unloading on Lionel Lines and Basement HO RR...but reality of geography and technicalities and practicalities of time make the idea unreliable and unusable at this time.
You can probably pull such loading and unloading on Lionel Lines and Basement HO RR...but reality of geography and technicalities and practicalities of time make the idea unreliable and unusable at this time.
Those of us who are active in model railroading know 1) Lionel does not make HO scale, and 2) there is a "prototype" for everything -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurotunnel_Shuttle
In the movie "The Italian Job" they load a number of cars in just seconds. Pie in the sky Hollywood treatment but if there is a will and it is profitable, there would be a way. Even one station in every state, the driving time would be more acceptable than driving hundreds, thousands of miles to get to a destination. Restrictions like 14 day advanced reservation or next day or two delivery to your destination city where the auto transport freight car would be moved by freight train consist and to a nearby siding. Has anyone like AAA or travel agents asked the question, done a survey, about taking your car with you on vacation?
What about something like the drive-on drive-off Chunnel trains? Is there a potential market somewhere in the US or Canada?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chargement_voiture_Eurotunnel.jpg
Back in the late sixties or possibly the early seventies the CN ran cars on the rear of the Super Continental between Toronto and Edmonton that one could travel with there auto. The problem with the experiment was you had to serender your car to CN the day before your trip and pick it up the day after arrival. They used the same double deck enclosed auto carriers that were used on the original Auto-Train as they were purchased from CN anyway. It was my understanding that only a single auto carrier was carried on the rear of the Super Continental and that it was booked solid even with the timeline involving the car. I don't know why CN limited the service to just a single car per train as from what I have been able to learn they could have filled two or three or even more on many days. I do not remember what the charge was for a car but that was when they were promoting Red-White-Bllue fares for passengers. I know of another attempt that was made for passengers to take a train from Toronto to Florida changing trains in Chicago and for passengers wanting to take there car to Florida there was a car carrier that would load your car in Toronto and and deliver it to you in Florida in time for your trains arrival. This was before Amtrak and the US and Canadian customs did not look kindly on this operation for whatever reason. To bad it might have been successful. A Rail-Truck operation that held much promise in the beginning.
The trick isn't to switch the cars, it's figuring out how to do "live" roll - on, roll - off.
The time wouldn't be terrible. They used to do 5 minute engine changes in NH. A head-end pick up or set off is no different by rule (as long as the pick up block had an air test ahead of time)
But, then, a certain freight RR I know has trouble doing step-on, step-off intermediate crew changes in 15 minutes.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Jim200I was trying to figure out why it would take so long to disconnect one set of autoracks and reconnect another set. With two yard locomotives could this be done in 5 minutes? With one yard locomotive in 8 minutes? With only the train locomotive and a reverse to setout, and a forward & reverse to connect to the second set of autoracks - in 5 minutes? This probably depends on rules (of which I am unfamiliar), air brake system, and number of autoracks. At www.railway-technical.com/brake2.shtml , Al Krug does a good job of explaining air brake systems and their pitfalls. Getting brake pipe pressure up to 80 - 100 psi and checking for leaks and release wouldn't take too long for just 2 autoracks, but 20 would be another story. Would you be allowed to retain the brake pipe pressure from the yard locomotive and use the End Of Train device for pressure verification? This would speed things up. //Keeping track of autorack destination for 3 cities is not a problem, but after that you are going to need special autoracks and side loading looks interesting. Added complexity, however, increases your modes of failure. Finally there is the money angle, new more expensive autoracks, new terminal facilities, more personnel, more marketing, and empty backhaul logistics. I say lets do it.
5 minutes!!! Two switchers!!! Maybe on the Lionel Lines but on two rails 4 ft 8 1/2 inches apart, no.
The first hole in your argument is that all the cars on the autorack would have to be going from the same city to the same city. The second is that it would add AT LEAST ten minutes to each stop. Multiply that by the number of stops. Then there is the purchase cost and crew cost for the yard engine at each stop. Last but not least, not every stop has a place to store the two autoracks, the one being dropped and the one being picked up.
Transporting autos must be limited to end points or at least crew change / refueling stops. Any other plan would be too complicated to be practical.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Another factor to consider in regard to a Midwest to Florida auto-train is that many snowbirds in the Midwest go to Arizona. Also the routes from Louisville south would not permit a schedule as quick as the east coast route. From Chicago to L'ville, the route is very slow.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
oltmannd I've always thought there was money to be made moving snowbird RVs between the NE and midwest and Florida and the SW. These things consume mass quantities of fuel and would do a lot better by rail, so there should be a real edge in fuel cost. Better, if you could figure out a way to have the people live in their RV's during the trip. Lots and lots of safety and equipment issues to work through. I'm not sure is solvable, but would be interesting to try... Some sort of reinforced and FRA glazed, ventilated uni-level with electric "hook up"? People would not be allowed out of their RV while the train was moving? Fire suppression? Tie downs? Ride quality?
I've always thought there was money to be made moving snowbird RVs between the NE and midwest and Florida and the SW. These things consume mass quantities of fuel and would do a lot better by rail, so there should be a real edge in fuel cost. Better, if you could figure out a way to have the people live in their RV's during the trip. Lots and lots of safety and equipment issues to work through. I'm not sure is solvable, but would be interesting to try...
Some sort of reinforced and FRA glazed, ventilated uni-level with electric "hook up"? People would not be allowed out of their RV while the train was moving? Fire suppression? Tie downs? Ride quality?
I wonder if that is part of the thing with a Kentucky Auto Train. There are "snow birds" in the Upper Midwest, but there seems to be more volume of this kind of thing between the Northeast and Florida owing to population density and history of where people from one region looked to vacation in another region.
FRA glazed, ventilated, fire suppression, you got it pegged in terms of the problem of any kind of ride-in-your-car-or-SUV-or-RV Auto Train -- the sort of thing that take a 50 thousand dollar freight car and turn it into a 5 million dollar passenger train car. The other thing is that the auto carrier is a kind of garage -- suppose some wise guy turns on their motor -- is there enough ventilation that people don't choke?
With respect to ride-the-train let-your-car-ride-too, truckers do quite the business transporting cars to and from Florida, for the snow birds, for folks wanting to buy a Florida car that hasn't seen a Northern winter, and so on. Maybe not same-day-service, but I heard there are "Auto Train" like deals of get your car shipped and take a bus?
Forget about the mixed passenger and auto carrier train. Is there a market for a kind of fast "intermodal speed" train giving overnight delivery of your car, serving the snowbirds and serious vacationers, and the customers takes the train, bus, plane, or even just a car if they are shipping a trailer or an RV? Yeah, you have to worry about scratching a person's car, but truckers who do this tally up the dents and scratches on your shipped car (I did this once to buy a family member's vehicle for a second car -- the trucker joked that people usually use his service to ship newer cars with many fewer scratches and dents).
Cars, SUV's, small trucks, RV's and even camping trailers? The trucker who delivered my car said a customer used his service to ship a power chair. So yes, power chairs!
Paul Milenkovic henry6 The most important successful part of Auto Train was the marketing decision that people would drive so far and take the overnight portion aboard the train. Amtrak has been smart enough to keep that intact as Lorton VA is 5-10 hour drive from Maine to NY to Buffalo. A mid west train would have to be at a central location with a 10 hour population pattern similar to Lorton. Missing from this equation are the Alleghenies and the Smokies and whatever mountain ranges need to be crossed, going from the general direction of the Upper Midwest to Florida. The thing about an automobile ferry is that you are moving a lot of tonnage -- not only the passengers but their automobiles plus the tare weight of the auto carrier plus the weight of railroad coaches, sleeping cars, and related amenities for overnight train travel. The Midwest is at a disadvantage of (more) of a mountain range to carry that weight. Jim Hediger, Senior Editor of Model Railroader, wrote (maybe more years ago than he or I want to remember) one of the definitive articles on the original private-company Auto Train, "This Highway is not on any Oil Company Map", dating the article as to what oil company or gas station gives out maps anymore? In it, he reported on Auto Train's claim that their operation achieves substantial fuel savings over driving. Whether a rail auto ferry service can ever get enough market share to make a dent in the national fuel consumption picture is disputable, but were the Auto Train to be comparable to auto fuel usage at especially today's oil prices, that would be a major contributor to cost. On the other hand, cars have gotten more fuel efficient since the inception of Auto Train and the Amtrak Auto Train service. By the way, the RRollway proposal as well as the stillborn auto train service proposed as part of the Metroliner and TurboTrain projects that preceded Auto Train, those services would have people ride in their own automobiles, where the passengers would be permitted to "get up and walk around" to visit cafe cars and other on-train amenities. That plan saves on the weight and fuel and cost of providing coaches and sleepers for the passengers, but I imagine that an airconditioned autocarrier with smooth-riding trucks would be heavier and more expensive than a bare autocarrier car, even with high-speed trucks. We can argue the merits of ride-in-your-car vs park-the-car-and-ride-in-a-coach-seat. I suppose many people here think that railroad cars that are somewhat roomier than many private autos and the conductor may seat you next to Don Oltmann's proverbial overweight person who in a perfect world would be accomodated by giving them the pair of seats, many of us think that a railroad car is the perfect mode of transportation and why would anyone want to sit for the whole distance in their car. But Auto Train corporation went with the park-the-car mode as the most pragmatic and easiest to implement. The type of enclosed, smooth riding, enclosed, airconditioned auto carrier rail car does not exist. Loading requires the passengers driving themselves into what are tight parking spaces, and I guess it was cheaper to pay workers to park customer autos in auto carriers (ex CN "boxcar" autocarriers, originally, when CN has the idea of the passenger auto as "excess baggage"). The other thing Auto Train did was buy those full-length dome cars and stuff them with coach seats, and there was no sleeping cars originally. The idea was that the trip was a single overnight, and their plan was to keep the passengers entertained with movies and cabaret musicians and the like. Trains Magazine's John Kneiling claimed that the only successful passenger operations were "selling entertainment", and he used Auto Train and the steam-powered Cumbres and Toltec, both being "start up" enterprises in the day, as examples. Again, Auto Train "underpowered" the consist, using only a pair of "U-boats" on the longish passenger consist (did they switch in and out a 3rd locomotive unit on a more hilly portion of the route?), stopping only for crew changes and locomotive service (fuel, steam generator water), maybe running the train at "intermodal" speeds instead of full "passenger train" speeds, partly because of the long train and the auto carriers, partly to save the cost of fuel. It seems the Kentucky Auto Train required more locomotive units.
henry6 The most important successful part of Auto Train was the marketing decision that people would drive so far and take the overnight portion aboard the train. Amtrak has been smart enough to keep that intact as Lorton VA is 5-10 hour drive from Maine to NY to Buffalo. A mid west train would have to be at a central location with a 10 hour population pattern similar to Lorton.
The most important successful part of Auto Train was the marketing decision that people would drive so far and take the overnight portion aboard the train. Amtrak has been smart enough to keep that intact as Lorton VA is 5-10 hour drive from Maine to NY to Buffalo. A mid west train would have to be at a central location with a 10 hour population pattern similar to Lorton.
Missing from this equation are the Alleghenies and the Smokies and whatever mountain ranges need to be crossed, going from the general direction of the Upper Midwest to Florida.
The thing about an automobile ferry is that you are moving a lot of tonnage -- not only the passengers but their automobiles plus the tare weight of the auto carrier plus the weight of railroad coaches, sleeping cars, and related amenities for overnight train travel. The Midwest is at a disadvantage of (more) of a mountain range to carry that weight.
Jim Hediger, Senior Editor of Model Railroader, wrote (maybe more years ago than he or I want to remember) one of the definitive articles on the original private-company Auto Train, "This Highway is not on any Oil Company Map", dating the article as to what oil company or gas station gives out maps anymore? In it, he reported on Auto Train's claim that their operation achieves substantial fuel savings over driving. Whether a rail auto ferry service can ever get enough market share to make a dent in the national fuel consumption picture is disputable, but were the Auto Train to be comparable to auto fuel usage at especially today's oil prices, that would be a major contributor to cost. On the other hand, cars have gotten more fuel efficient since the inception of Auto Train and the Amtrak Auto Train service.
By the way, the RRollway proposal as well as the stillborn auto train service proposed as part of the Metroliner and TurboTrain projects that preceded Auto Train, those services would have people ride in their own automobiles, where the passengers would be permitted to "get up and walk around" to visit cafe cars and other on-train amenities. That plan saves on the weight and fuel and cost of providing coaches and sleepers for the passengers, but I imagine that an airconditioned autocarrier with smooth-riding trucks would be heavier and more expensive than a bare autocarrier car, even with high-speed trucks.
We can argue the merits of ride-in-your-car vs park-the-car-and-ride-in-a-coach-seat. I suppose many people here think that railroad cars that are somewhat roomier than many private autos and the conductor may seat you next to Don Oltmann's proverbial overweight person who in a perfect world would be accomodated by giving them the pair of seats, many of us think that a railroad car is the perfect mode of transportation and why would anyone want to sit for the whole distance in their car.
But Auto Train corporation went with the park-the-car mode as the most pragmatic and easiest to implement. The type of enclosed, smooth riding, enclosed, airconditioned auto carrier rail car does not exist. Loading requires the passengers driving themselves into what are tight parking spaces, and I guess it was cheaper to pay workers to park customer autos in auto carriers (ex CN "boxcar" autocarriers, originally, when CN has the idea of the passenger auto as "excess baggage").
The other thing Auto Train did was buy those full-length dome cars and stuff them with coach seats, and there was no sleeping cars originally. The idea was that the trip was a single overnight, and their plan was to keep the passengers entertained with movies and cabaret musicians and the like. Trains Magazine's John Kneiling claimed that the only successful passenger operations were "selling entertainment", and he used Auto Train and the steam-powered Cumbres and Toltec, both being "start up" enterprises in the day, as examples.
Again, Auto Train "underpowered" the consist, using only a pair of "U-boats" on the longish passenger consist (did they switch in and out a 3rd locomotive unit on a more hilly portion of the route?), stopping only for crew changes and locomotive service (fuel, steam generator water), maybe running the train at "intermodal" speeds instead of full "passenger train" speeds, partly because of the long train and the auto carriers, partly to save the cost of fuel. It seems the Kentucky Auto Train required more locomotive units.
The whole "bring your car with you" deal involves where the break-even point is vs. renting for the consumer. Florida works because people often take extended trips there - snowbirds, family vacations, etc. or those in FL have roots back in the northeast.
Rental cars are fairly cheap so you'd have to stay for more than several days for the $$ to work out.
John WR n012944Auto Train's second train was from Louisville to Florida, not Chicago. Right. But on the current Auto Train does not draw its riders from the greater Lorton metropolitan area; many come from the greater New York metropolitan area. Louisville is a 5 hour drive from Chicago and Chicago is a large city. I understand that Chicago was considered and important source of riders.
n012944Auto Train's second train was from Louisville to Florida, not Chicago.
Right. But on the current Auto Train does not draw its riders from the greater Lorton metropolitan area; many come from the greater New York metropolitan area. Louisville is a 5 hour drive from Chicago and Chicago is a large city. I understand that Chicago was considered and important source of riders.
The existing Auto-Train does not draw it's business from a single area but the entirety of the cities in the Northeast - New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and all their surrounding suburbs.
Likewise the Louisville terminal was positioned to draw from Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati as well as Louisville and probably St. Louis. Have no idea of the cause for the end of this service, however, I suspect that the precarious financial position of the original Auto-Train company didn't permit adequate promotion of the service. There is also the fact that even when there was through Chicago-Florida passenger service there wasn't enough business to support the three premiere trains 'The City of Miami, The South Wind and The Dixie Flagler' on more than a alternating day basis so that the three ended up providing daily end point to end point service. On the East Coast, there was sufficient business for the legacy carriers to have multiple daily schedules to both coasts of Florida from New York.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Auto Train's second train was from Louisville to Florida, not Chicago.
An "expensive model collector"
That is pretty neat that you have that connection. I remember seeing some of your dad's designs in a Google search, neat ideas. I agree that you need to let the passengers load their own cars to make shorter distances possible. I also like this design, check out the tail fins! http://www.google.com/patents/US3149583?pg=PA10&dq=Rail+automobile+car+carrier&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VajCUL6zLojYywHG54CIAg&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAg
I have some corresponce from IRM where people were writing in to Pullman back in the 1950's asking for the service.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.