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Amtrak Roadrailers Going Away
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by M.W. Hemphill</i> <br /><br />Amtrak #4 LA to Chicago, and #48 Chicago to NYC is scheduled for 65 hours 40 minutes -- with a four-hour connection in Chicago. The once-weekly "Bullet Train" that BNSF tested and UP ran was scheduled for 65 hours, 30 minutes, but it was dropped earlier this year. The current best coast-to-coast intermodal service is at least one day slower than that. <br /> <br />Most intermodal is not particularly time-sensitive; only certain premium-price trains, the principal customers for which are UPS and LTL truckers (which is practically the same thing as UPS). The preponderance of the double-stack trains you see are run on much slower schedules. Intermodal is very price sensitive, however. The difference in price between rail and truck is usually very small -- maybe $50 a box. <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />I'll admit, I am suprised, and on a number of fronts. On other posts here we've discussed the willingness of shippers to pay a premium to long haul truckers due to the assumption that they are the fastest dock to dock e.g. "when it absolutely positively has to be there yada yada yada....". When one thinks of a "premium" I guess we assume that means a couple of hundred bucks per box. But only $50? And that's the dock to dock comparitive price, right? Not just the rail terminal to terminal difference? I guess I'm taking the comparitive pricing of Fed Ex and UPS package price quotes (not counting overnight and two day which would use air freight, but three day, four day, etc. "ground" schedules) and using those prices as a predictor of trailer/container prices. I would have thought the price spread percentage would have been similar for packages and entire trailers. <br /> <br />Secondly, I would've thought with the added burdens of station stops that Amtrak would be slower than the hotshots, all other things being equal e.g. crew change points, refueling stops, etc. Aren't hotshots allowed to run at passenger speeds? Didn't the Santa Fe used to run 90 mph TOFC through Kansas and Colorado (I seem to remember a TRAINS article regarding the same)? Have the freight railroads really slipped that far on the speed front? Is the market for time sensitive bulk cargo just not there anymore?
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