dehusmanI have always thought that the shortline road haul scenario was pretty rare in the greater scheme of things.
Dave, I have studied short lines and visited short line since the 60s and you are correct..
I think many modelers confused short line and regional railroads as the same when there are not. The regional railroad may span one or more states with local and line haul trains with several interchange points whareas a shortline offers local freight industrial switching which is their bread and butter and may have two interchanges with no bridge traffic..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
What you are talking about is every short line operator's nightmare to many miles with few customers.
What to do.
1.Offer transload and warehouse services for off line customers.
2.Through aggressive marketing seek former rail served industries and new customers..Your plywood mill could be a former rail customer or a new customer since you are freelancing.
3.Seek State and Federal money for upgrading the track.
Freelancing a short line.
I would use two 4 axle Geeps such as GP7/9s or GP20s. Six axle would be SD7/9s. ExBN locomotives would work..
My traffic formula is simple and rather easy to understand and comes close some real short lines and terminal switching roads.
A example.
I will use 3,600 cars a year,that's works out to be 300 cars a month,75 cars a week 15 cars a day based on a short lines 5 day work week...
Operation.
I would offer Monday through Friday service. Saturday would be as needed with a surcharge.
There's a lot of shortlines that have a certain amount of line-haul or bridge traffic, but I'm not too sure many that exist off line haul alone.
My railroad of choice, the Algoma Central, handled a certain amount of overhead traffic for CN and CP between different interchanges, but its primary existence was to handle pulpwood, lumber, paper, iron ore and steel loads originated on-line. The iron ore traffic and some of the pulpwood was handled entirely between on-line points, the rest interchanged out to CN, CP and SOO Line to ship across the continent.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
wjstixToo, if a shortline is mainly hauling cars from one end of it's line to the other, it usually is bridge traffic - running cars from Big Railroad A to Big Railroad B. You might see if there were (in 1986 or in the past) a connection near Pine River with another railroad. Then your railroad could haul cars to and from BN and the other railroad (Soo Line for example.)
Can anybody point to an actual shortline that makes its money by providing a bridge line between two class 1's (other than a terminal line). Railroad A delivers trains or large numbers of cars to the shortline, the shortline carries those cars 50-100 miles and interchanges them to railroad B. Not talking about a shortline that has interchanges with multiple class 1's but that actually provides line haul, overhead business.
The only one I can think of off hand, was the Montreal Maine and Atlantic (of Lac Megantic infamy).
I have always thought that the shortline road haul scenario was pretty rare in the greater scheme of things.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Good info Stix, I like the part about the NP. I think that is worth checking into.
Mike.
My You Tube
Remember that one reason why lines like these were sold off to shortlines was that the shortlines had less costs. Union contracts allow (allowed?) small railroads to pay employees less than the large Class 1 railroads. So a branch line that's unprofitable when operated by BN might be able to eke out a small profit if operated by a shortline railroad.
As far as adding an industry, easiest way would be to reseach the NP an dfind out whan industries NP served on the line back in say the 1950's that are now closed, and say that in your world one or more of them stayed open.
Too, if a shortline is mainly hauling cars from one end of it's line to the other, it usually is bridge traffic - running cars from Big Railroad A to Big Railroad B. You might see if there were (in 1986 or in the past) a connection near Pine River with another railroad. Then your railroad could haul cars to and from BN and the other railroad (Soo Line for example.)
I would say if GOD is going to put down a plywood mill, I think he will also provide more industries along the way, or even another branch line to more industries.
GOD is good!
EDIT: OOOPS! was that a religious statement?
Get the state to subsidize you.
A couple of the short lines in Ohio and Michigan that I'm familiar with got grants and subsidies from both the shipper and the state
http://www.ontracknorthamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/Regional-and-Short-Line-RRs-in-the-US-OnTrackNorthAmerica.pdf
Cheers, Ed
Interesting stuff.
At 20mph instead of 10mph, the costs should go down considerably. Maybe 20 to 25 car loads a day just for the plywood shop. And if there are other industries on the line, perhaps there is more revenue, but not really a similar increase in costs.
- Douglas
Figure it costs a couple hundred dollars an hour to run a train. I am more familiar with class 1 costs, which involve larger trains and better track, so I am guessing down. You will probably need two or 3 crews to run the railroad. 40 miles at 10 mph is an 8 hour round trip (assuming it has no delays and operates at max speed 100% of the trip). That leaves only 4 hours to get the train together at origin, do the switching at the plant and put the train away when it gets back. You would probably need 2 crews. One gets the train together and departs origin with the train and switches the plant. The other goes on duty when the train is about done with the switching at the mill, gets in a van, drives to the mill, gets on the train, takes it back to the origin, switches the train and delivers it to interchange. Meanwhile the first crew gets in the van and drives back to the origin. Might even be able to get both crews on straight time.
16 hours at $200 an hour = $3200 per day to run the trains (crew, engines, fuel, car hire). Lets say you can make $100 a load (the total revenue on a load might be $4000, but you only get a fraction of that since you are only 40 miles of a 1500 mile trip), and logs/pulpwood is waaaaaaaaaaaay lower revenue, maybe $100-$500 a car totalfor the entire move (your revenue would be part of that unless the pulpwood/logging operations were on your line). If your line is only 40 miles long, most logging operations would just truck the inbound wood directly to the mill, if it was sources close enough to load it on your line. You would have to haul 32 LOADS a day to break even on the costs to run a train. That might not cover capital costs (track maintenance, expansion, bridge replacement, car leasing, etc).
In 1985, the BN abanonded the former NP branch from Brainerd, Minnesota to International Falls. I’m thinking of building a model of the first 40-ish miles, between Brainerd and Pine River, MN. In reality there was very little traffic on the line.
If I a going to have a plausible railroad, I am going to have to play God and plop down a fairly sizable industry in Pine River—a plywood mill or something originating a decent number of cars.
My question is this: if you had a 40 mile railroad in 1986 where most of the traffic traveled the entire length of the line, about how many carloads a year would be needed to keep a 10 mph railroad in business? I know the variables and nuances of pricing vary widely, but is there a rule of thumb that says “x cars anually per mile of RR” or some such thing?