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Schneider Charters Trains - this is a WOW!
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[quote user="samfp1943"] <p>[quote user="Safety Valve"]Heh.<br /><br />**Rubs rag with a happy face....<br /><br />Roight. Put the box to the dock. Load box. Arrange the transport, catch the train get to the train at the other end get box to customer or onto ship and it's done.<br /><br />You cannot do that below a certain distance because it is literally unweildy due to the time consumed getting the load run.<br /><br />The word "Over the Road" trucking to me is dead. That is not intermodal.<br /><br />Reaching back to my early days I see a Intermodal train carrying 300 Boxes give or take a few to a place several states away and a old driver said:<br /><br />"Yep, no need to buy 300 sleeper trucks, hire 300 long haul drivers or pay all that desiel and payroll as well as the excrucitating paperwork on each load."<br /><br />Stick it all on the train and have a bunch of daycab locals at the yard with dispatchers hollaring "Fetch!" everytime a train came in with it's burden.<br /><br />Who knew?<br /><br />I suppose a company willing to be flexible to use all modes availible to get a load of widgets there first, cheaper and faster than the competition will get the hire.<br /><br />Maybe the Orange Fleet finally used all 4 sides to a box that can break the company speed limit. =)<br /><br />(Sorry, had to put that in to amuse the old truckers who knows the game)<br /><br />The midwest is a tough tough game to play in from a trucker's point of view.[/quote]</p><p>The intermodal market is tough in any market;, a key to operating success is having a semblence of balance between inbound and outbound traffic, this assures work for your driver pool. Another issue that plays into this picture is troublesome to many companies, and it is driver satisfaction. Young drivers who do not have the work ethic of an industry that grew up on the backs of drivers who were willing to wink at the law, throw their 'funny book' in the bunk and haul butt. The drivers nowadays want, and deserve to run 'legal'; they want to be home far too often. They do not understand the natural 'currents' in the flow of traffic in this country and how very cyclical it is. They fail to understand that getting home often costs them money, the best resolution for them is a regional style operation; ie, Intermodal, that will keep them in their home area. Which gets us back to a balance of volume for a regional, and a large enough driver pool to cover the loads. Swift used to operate a Triple Crown type operation out on the West Coast [ called it the I-5 Corridor...., something or other]; it worked for them for some time, their own dedicated train on their schedule. Schneider and JB [Hunt] are both large enough to pull off point to point regional operations. Some time back there were attempts to run intermodal trains from the Mid-South area, Memphis, Tn. up into New Jersey and have loads delivered by a regional fleet [I think it was to be a JB Hunt Operation, but do not know if it ever got off the ground, the partner carrier was CSX,or ??? and CSX at the time]. As some of you are aware, the upper East Coast is not an area that many drivers want to be-anytime. So it would have been a pretty good sell in the trucking business, but the problem was finding enough non-union drivers to support the balance up there. </p><p>[/quote]</p><p>Whew, old thread.</p><p>J.B. Hunt did get it rolling. I think there is a little yellow company book sitting somewhere that shows the 200 some railroad yards that we can get a box to and from at will as long we have the right trailer and chassis for it. Sometimes we drop off a load have it on a train going east and collect another valuable load also heading east.</p><p>Regarding the Driver work ethic, that is finished here. Too many young drivers who want everything and never go anywhere long enough to get it. Work local, stay close to home for those with families or homesickness, let the rest run long haul.</p><p>It is becoming my humble opinion that the railroads ripped and tore up WAY TOO MUCH industrial trackage and only want everything shipped to 5 major cities to be set 2000 miles somewhere on a train.</p>
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