Thank you Johnny.
This is a small package service between 100 stations, obviously beyond NEC. It seems consistent with historical express service and looks to involve less than a baggage car per train, two reasons the freight carriers do not care.
It is very different than the original proposal.
Mac
PNWRMNM Solar, Where and with what equipment is ATK operating "pallet load express"? I did not find it mentioned on ATK's web site, which proves nothing. I did find they have only 64 baggage cars and zero express or freight cars. If they are offering this service on the NEC of course the freight carriers would not object, that is ATK's railroad and they can do anything they please on it. The freight carrier's problem with the original proposal is; they have less than zero desire to get back into the tar pit of passenger service, and they do not want their physical capacity used by ATK to compete with their freight service. Mac McCulloch
Solar,
Where and with what equipment is ATK operating "pallet load express"?
I did not find it mentioned on ATK's web site, which proves nothing. I did find they have only 64 baggage cars and zero express or freight cars.
If they are offering this service on the NEC of course the freight carriers would not object, that is ATK's railroad and they can do anything they please on it.
The freight carrier's problem with the original proposal is; they have less than zero desire to get back into the tar pit of passenger service, and they do not want their physical capacity used by ATK to compete with their freight service.
Mac McCulloch
It took me a little searching to find the web address.
Johnny
daveklepper I AGREE Again, the only way that Amtrak could offer the service would be if Amtrak is owned by the railroads, and this would be possible only if All Aboard Florida is successful AND if its lessons are applicable elsewhere. And that All Aboard Florida does develop the idea. Three big ifs.
I AGREE Again, the only way that Amtrak could offer the service would be if Amtrak is owned by the railroads, and this would be possible only if All Aboard Florida is successful AND if its lessons are applicable elsewhere. And that All Aboard Florida does develop the idea. Three big ifs.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Mac: Thanks for the refreshing words of reality.
Again, I must stress I am not suggesting this program for Amtrak. I have suggested it to All Aboard Florida and notified them where to find this Forum thread. If they are intersted, they will pursue the idea in their own way. Then, if they ae successful, and if the lessons they apply can be applied to the national passenger network, Amtrak may end up owned by the railroads and not by the Government. With or without the program I have suggested. A lot of ifs!
Can't see baggage cars on NEC trains, most have very short dwell time at stations. Even during the height of private passenger operations most mail and express was handled on secondary or dedicated mail trains. You did not see much head end business with an exception of RPO on the premier trains. At the end neither what was left of the mail contracts or the rea saved the day.
If the post office goes back to mail on trains it will be some form of intermodal service with the freight carriers.
Let Amtrak concentrate on people not freight. In the end it will not affect the bottom line much
Dixie FlyerSince the federal government is not going to put capital into passenger service I think you have to look to outside sources if the long distance service is going to survive. I like the concept pasted above to make Amtrak be a clearing house to run passenger service and let the details be bid on by private companies. That opens the doors to express services, sleeper services, auto carriers, tour operators etc. Nothing I have not said in posts before.
Not so sure the federal government as currently elected is going to want to subsidize operations either. Most running of LD passenger and many shorter corridor trains is not an attractive, profit-making enterprise. It requires a subsidy, whether direct or indirect, such as AAF with land developments.
Perhaps the way to go about LD train in general is for Amtrak to become the middle man between the frt RRs and some contract operators. Amtrak provides the route, schedule slot, and maybe has locomotives and some equipment available. Operators bid on the rest. Bids might "negative", that is, smallest subsidy wins.
I appreciate Dave getting the conversation going. Since the federal government is not going to put capital into passenger service I think you have to look to outside sources if the long distance service is going to survive. I like the concept pasted above to make Amtrak be a clearing house to run passenger service and let the details be bid on by private companies. That opens the doors to express services, sleeper services, auto carriers, tour operators etc. Nothing I have not said in posts before.
i have no quarrel with the previous several posts, but am hoping, admittadly just a hope, that in Americans' priorities, advanced technology, crowded highways, flying hassles, and good managemen can make All Aboard Florida a success. My idea might contribute to that success. Its success might, again just a hope, lead to interest by the Big Six or Seven.
solarPallet load is not competing with the railroads either.
Yes, it does compete with the railroads' freight operations. The railroads do handle a whole lot of small shipments that have been consolidated by organizations such as UPS, FedEx, ABF, YRC, etc.
Doing that was the way I started out in civilian transportation. Working on a freight dock as an intern in Chicago.
I think pallet load express in the new baggage cars would be worthwhile. especially if it pays for forklifts etc to speed up the loading of baggage as well. There was talk of a pallet load of Express been add to the Southwest Chief, i would think it has been put off till the introduction of the new baggage cars. Pallet load is not competing with the railroads either.
daveklepper I am not about to hire a lobyist. It is an alternative. There were ways of getting of getting extremely fast package delivery service in the days of RPO cars, such as handing the 1st-class stamped package directly to the car's mail clerk, that cannot be duplicated today, even with the best the FedEx and UPS offer. It is an idea, an alternative, and might best be tried out on All Aboard Florida. If it helps their for-profit passenger service really work, then possibly the freight railroads might want to consider it. And the last paragraph of the previous post is possibly the best technology, with the FedEx and/or UPS office at the railroad station, and the truck delivering directly from train-side to the receivers.
I am not about to hire a lobyist. It is an alternative. There were ways of getting of getting extremely fast package delivery service in the days of RPO cars, such as handing the 1st-class stamped package directly to the car's mail clerk, that cannot be duplicated today, even with the best the FedEx and UPS offer. It is an idea, an alternative, and might best be tried out on All Aboard Florida. If it helps their for-profit passenger service really work, then possibly the freight railroads might want to consider it.
And the last paragraph of the previous post is possibly the best technology, with the FedEx and/or UPS office at the railroad station, and the truck delivering directly from train-side to the receivers.
Sounds like you are trying to recreate the Railway Express Agency (jointly owned with offices at the station). That organization didn't fare well at the end. Why would this be different?
daveklepper In the days of RPO cars plus many storage mail routes, if one subtracted the commuter trains and runs obviously kept on as social services, probably overall the passenger trains broke even. What slight losses there were could be tolerated for the good public rellations value of meeting people first hand. When the P.O. stopped using rail, only then did the massive train-offs of the best trainis begin as losses multiplied. So perhaps free enterprise can help rehabilitate what I truly do believe is a most valuable part of North American civilization. I think with the right technoilogy, it can be done.
In the days of RPO cars plus many storage mail routes, if one subtracted the commuter trains and runs obviously kept on as social services, probably overall the passenger trains broke even. What slight losses there were could be tolerated for the good public rellations value of meeting people first hand. When the P.O. stopped using rail, only then did the massive train-offs of the best trainis begin as losses multiplied. So perhaps free enterprise can help rehabilitate what I truly do believe is a most valuable part of North American civilization. I think with the right technoilogy, it can be done.
On another thread we could see how Wm. Vanderbilt of the NYC in 1882 told how even his limiteds lost money, and that was back when the rails had a monopoly on passenger services. If you think "free enterprise" is going to support money-losing passenger services now, think again. The only way you can get some sort of passenger service is through the government, and that looks like a forlorn prospect for the foreseeable future.
RPO's and HYPO's were discontinued because they were obsolete in an era of mechanized mail sorting. Storage mail was moved into trailers or containers and was moved on intermodal freight trains. This left the passenger service standing on its own, and the losses skyrocketed. With that past, I don't see any of the existing freight carriers reinstating passenger service on their own dime and attaching it to priority intermodal runs.
daveklepper Certainly seems that lots of people comment without reading the thread through. Again, my proposal is that the freight railroads run this service, and if it is Amtrak, then it is Amtrak owned by the six or seven major railroads.
Certainly seems that lots of people comment without reading the thread through. Again, my proposal is that the freight railroads run this service, and if it is Amtrak, then it is Amtrak owned by the six or seven major railroads.
"It should be railroad operated to coordinate with the regular freight business of that railroads have with these two customers", is what you said.
People frequently don't read for comprehension what is put before them. Moreover, because of their prejudices - we all have them, they draw conclusions about the message without taking the time to evaluate and try to understand it.
"Have to be careful putting light-weight intermodal cars between 2 engines, though. There's a risk of popping them off the rail." I went back and did some resisting moment calculations. For a 1000' radius curve, the lateral force is less than 6% of the buff/draft force. With one unit on the point pulling, the starting tractive force would be about 120kips, 7.2 kips lateral. With a standard draft/buff height of 34.5" and a lightweight articulated container only car, I figured the overturning moment would only be 33% of the restraining moment, so safe.
One of the design differences that forced the Roadrailer trailers to the rear (and prevented shoving from the rear or excessive backing speed) was the relatively high buff/draft height of 42-45" or so above TOR (exact figure would be great), so it's tendency to overturn was about 30% higher relative to a standard buff/draft height. I could see custon built container cars being a relatively efficient means to move a domestic container a long distance.
-In the marketplace, the question still is how are overhead costs for the transloading operation covered?
The container car could be configured so that it was in essence something like a self-container MiJack Thruport/Pathfinder Flipping Station portal, where the drayage truck pulls up alongside the container car, then the load is lifted similar to the portal idea, with a twist that it is shifted over to the railcar. Plenty of examples of this side transfer scheme occure in the patent records, but recent gains in automation have made it possible.
But a side track would have to be dedicated for this work and ultimately there would have to be a switcher involved or the road crew/origination hostler would have to pick up the cuts from a remote location. At the way points (intermediate stations) the road crew could set out the cuts from the front end into a side track, as many stations are on embankment or generally innacessible to trucks immediately adjacent to the rails. However, as long as the cut is between engines you have the ability for the power (now double ended) and intermodal freight to be worked separately, then come to the station to attach to the passenger cars at the origination terminal as was done in the old days when head end freight was so handled.
May I suggest that all might be better served if containers are to be used if the loading was done by crane at the existing dedicated intermodal terminals and a switcher brought a cut of cars, pre-blocked for various way point cut-off locations that are not served in the Origin-Destination matrix of conventional intermodal offerings from the Class-1 railroads as there is not enough volume. In this way the service would augment the existing book of business by offering missed cutoff makeup service and additional way points to get around driver shortages, for the utility of the existing base intermodal customers, with mail and express serving as the backbone of the volume.
Obviously, at most this arrangement might be able to set out cuts of cars at the quarter-points and mid-point of the route, or maybe every 300 miles or so. If you are talking about every station work (back to true express that will never be offered, without major market condition changes, by Class-1's), then some type of pallet system is needed. May I suggest that cutting out the transloading time for a container by using pallet systems is the way to make the product move faster, however, there could be a market for container (truck size) movements as long as they are longer hauls, that serve some midpoints the Class-1's don't catch as Amtrak is stopping there anyway.
#1 I doubt if many of the daily mail and express trains ran end to end faster then the named limiteds, especially making many stops.
#2 The is nothing legally that prevents the freight rails from running night express trains right now, except small matters like interfering with profitable freight services (which do run at night), higher costs and making a profit.
There is money to be made in the express business. Whole trains of mail and express with a few passenger cars tacked on the rear used to be common. These trains were not given illustration and glowing commentary in the passenger timetables.
Many of these were numerous stops locals. It took more time to work the packages than passengers. Some mail trains with a coach as an afterthought ran faster end to end than the promoted luxury limiteds.
Different trains were geared to cover express and passengers.
True high speed rail may help cover its cost carrying time sensitive shipments at a high fare. If that happens, look for separate trains providing the service at night when passenger traffic is light. Those trains would likely run between major end points. If such trains stop to work freight at all,those stops will be fewer than stops for passengers.
Well, I have read your proposal. You are basically calling for the repeal of the legislation (NRPA) and substituting a plan in which freight railroads would own an Amtrak v 2.0 (how? coercion? mandated by fiat?) and then would happily run an expanded passenger rail network. Sounds like Fantasyland to me, but if you think it could happen, I suggest you hire a lobbyist.
Freight railroads running passenger has been a non-starter since the formation of Amtrak. Bad premise to start with.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Dave,
The freight carriers absorbed huge oerating losses for many years but the government would not let them pull the trains off.
Now they are subsidizing congress's trains to the tune of a few hundred million per year due to noncompensatory rates for "hosting" ATK. ATK admits to losses of about $1B per year, even after the freight subsidy.
The freight carriers want ATK gone. Period. Why ever would they want to get back into to obviously loosing business of passenger service? That is a less reasonable idea than your proposal to return to mixed train service.
I agree the railroads are not going to give Amtrak any of thier high dollar freight business and why should they. When Amtrak did run those mail cars it created logistics and on time performence issue at major terminals. It did not enhance its primary mission of serving its customers.
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