53' containers....!

[Anonymous]

The problem with ever increasing size of containers/trailers is twofold, 1, the customer wants to move more freight at the same price as the previous smaller container which is bad for railroads and trucking companies alike and 2, most roads in North America once you get off the multi laned limited access highway system is at or near its design capacity for trailer length. In Europe, even 45' and 53' are beyond the design capacity of most roads. The question is where will it all stop? How big is big enough especially when trucks start pulling double and triple trailers? In my opinion when you start sending more than 53' across the country it is time to put the freight in a box car and ship it by rail. Unfortunately too many shippers and/or receivers have abandoned their rail access and others have never had any. The continuing high price of fuel is going to make many distribution centres rethink their lack of rail access.
I also don't see why JB Hunt and Schnieder are abandoning container service. They need to implement better control over their chassis. The beauty of containerized frieght is that you don't need a set of bogies for every uni saving capital,repair and licensing costs, you can stack the units saving space on the ground, and you can stack the units while in transport saving cost. I can't the imagine the railways willingly reinvesting in TOFC cars on a scale sufficient enough to provide piggyback service nationwide to keep the Hunts and Schneiders of the world happy.

[Anonymous]

JB Hunt and Schneider are not getting out of the container market. Schneider is just gettinin IN to the market, and is still taking delivery on a rather large order of containers. JB Hunt just made a large purchase of 53' containers and retired their 48'ers a couple of years ago and will probably be content to sit on what they have until it's time to start retiring some of the current fleet.
Swift is now getting into the act in a big way by taking over the leases on the 53' NACS equipment from BNSF.

[Anonymous]

A portion of a Schneider press release from last November:

GREEN BAY, Wis., and SAN ANTONIO – Nov. 15, 2004 – Schneider National Inc., a premier provider of transportation, logistics and related services, today debuted a new stackable intermodal container at the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) Intermodal Expo. The new container, authorized for use on any railroad, was designed to be multi-modal, provide extra interior space and increase route flexibility. Schneider National worked with Stoughton Trailers and Wabash National to design the container to match the inside dimensions of a standard 53-foot trailer. The Company purchased 200 units that it is testing this fall with plans for full deployment in 2005.

[Anonymous]

Modelcar the 102 means inches in width.

I recall early trucking there were differences between the 96 inchers and 102 inchers that reveal themselves at the tractor's drive wheels and invites a citation from a cop if you are on a road that restricts against 102'ers.

I for one DO NOT want to see cabovers make a comeback to haul 57's

In fact I believe 57's are just too long.

Zapp has it right. I was raised in Maryland and I think they finally allowed 53's but 48's were the "Big" trailers back in the day. I also recall that some new drivers were not permitted to haul 48's until they had some time in 45's back in the day.

The Tandem on the trailer's position is I think, is the "California Hole" If you look under the trailer you see a series of holes on rails for the tandem to slide on. You can make a 53 foot trailer feel like a 48' er on the road by sliding them up.

Now one hole is usually marked as the California Hole because CA does not want the wheel base to be any longer than that specific length. I also believe the Tractor kingpin's own settings also are impacted so there is a little wriggle room but not too much.

One reason the shippers push for 57's and longer is they can haul more stuff for the same cost. Period. Anything they can do to keep from paying that one truck, one driver and one company is money in thier pocket.

Regarding chassis useage against JB Hunt's stocks I have to state some disbelief and have a desire to watch a few stack trains go by and see if that is actually being done. I would expect JB hunt to be possessive of thier chassis.

If railroads are slapping trailers on and off any chassis they see regardless of who owns which chassis then there is either a lack of oversight (Money paying workers to track....) or... lack of interest in purchasing and maintaining pool chassis.

I almost can smell the strong arm power of the almighty dollar at work here.

I have shipping container experience with both 20's and 40's and recall that they lock at the corners. Sometimes the locks are busted and have to be fixed. You can run on three locks but not two. Best to have all 4 in place.

I recall going into chester PA with a empty container and having to turn in the box, then the chassis, then finding a suitable chassis with either 20', 40' or goose neck (Wow now what is a goose neck??) and then getting the load out of the stack next to the ship and checking, inspecting, customs and paperwork time to get all that stuff out of the port and onto the road to the customer. Time was of essence here and no one looked too hard except if they found something that costs THEM money directly.

Goosenecks are a way of gaining additional interior height in containers. You can spot those by seeing yellow and black markings and the 8.5 or 9 foot markers. You dont want to put a high box on a normal chassis as you will increase your bridge height and hit somebody's bridge.

I see railcars that accomodate an entire trailer now in the trains. They just drop it in and off they go. It never fails to amaze me the constant problem of hauling freight from the 50's bulk loading to pallets in the 60's and TOFC and to containers. I recall you did not see containers in the interior of the USA very much until someone discovered that you can slap 400 boxes onto a train and ship it east coast to west coast and beat the transit time (Via the Panama Canal)

Suddenly additional "Inland ports" complicate the problem as everyone frantically tried to connect to the international trade.

Down in Mexico along the border.. I believe that Mexican truckers bring the freight to the USA line, transfer it to American Truckers and THEN it goes on to the customer. Very time consuming at times. I dont know if they improved the situation down in Eagle Pass, Nogales or similar places by now.

Canada's border freight is essentially transparent. Theroratically you can get a peice of paper in smallville IOWA and end up in Hamilton Ontairo with just a few minutes at the customs booth on the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. Everything is taken care of so the driver usually dont have to worry about the customs in Winsdor. Those are the best loads. The rest usually have to stop in and visit the broker and customs man.

[edbenton]

High iron I talked to a couple friends of mine who drive for JB and they are the ones who said that JB is getting out of the container usage. I agree on teh 57 foot issue they are TOO *** BIG I pulled mostly reffer and I would not want one of those as a reefer trailer. In CA the limit for axle to kingpin is 40 feet that is why you see the 3 foot setback on the kingpin on a 57 ft they set it 6 feet into the trailer. I for one think a cabover still has its use. They are great in say Philladelphia, Boston and hauling max weight loads of beer. I would not drive one again however.

I for one think if the shippers want the longer tailer make them pay for the extra cost to build the infastructure to use them relocate outside the downtown areas and design a factory that gives a driver enough room to get in and out easy. I have seen to many tractors and trailers ripped up by drivers having to squeeze a 53 into a hole designed for a 45 footer. I saw a show truck with a custom mural tear his trailer up in Ontario CA because he had to back in between to 53 footers and he was not happy.

[rickyd2]

I spent the last 20 years of my 32 year career on the Santa Fe involved in intermodal operations. First in Los Angeles, then Albuquerque, then Littleton. CO (Denver, area) and finally at Kansas City where I retired so I too have some first hand experience.

First I am going to say that there would be little chance of misuse of J.B.Hunt's chassis at an intermodal termional. They represent too great a volume of traffic
to allow terminal ioperators to abuse their chassis pool. Same will apply to Schneider and they sure don't mess with UPS. UPS has long had a direct phone line to the various railroad CEO's and do not hesitate to use it. I'm not too sure but what J.B.Hunt has the same arrangement. At the time I retired, the Santa Fe had a Vice President-Intermodal whose sole duty was to keep UPS happy.

Menmtion was made of PacerStacktrain. I believe this goes back to the old American President Lines who, in cooperation with Union Pacific originated the stacktrain concept, utilizing their own well cars. It wasn't long till all the Class I railroads jumped on the bandwagon.

Some, not all, of the well cars have stanchions built into them so that they can handle trailers as well as containers. The UP runs thru the little town where I live and I get many chances to observe their stacktrains and it was really surprising to see that first trailer loaded into a well car.

During the early years in Los Angeles, trailers originating on the East Coast were the bane of our existence, particularly those with fixed "East Coast" tandems, They were always overloaded for California use and we had to transload part of those loads into a second trailer to avoid the overload ticket that we would always get. Back then, the Calif. Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. had officers sufficiently trained that they could spot an overload just by the sound of the tires on the highway. The gtrailers from the east coast with sliding tandems were little better because they were
usually rusted in place. One of our sharper drivers figured out that they could run over a railroad crosstie and set trailer brakes at the same time, the sliders would usually move, sounded like a train wreck sometimes, but effective. We also learned to make sure there were stops on the slider rails after one guy dragged the trailer body off the tandems. That was a lot of fun to explain.

[Anonymous]

=) Slider fun and games.

Majority of my time was in reefers also but I enjoyed a time with a covered wagon with a 10 foot spread. No sliding needed. Many a time cross scales 40,000 on the rear end and they check carefully.

Containers did not have sliders. You were stuck with what you got. Ugh...

I think California can build warehouses along the line with Oregon, Nevada and Az and use thier own trucks to fini***he delievery. Then they can have thier axle limits and we have the freedom from Urban ills such as the South LA Produce market.

53 foot trailers particularly have problems in Grocery and Cold Storage places on the east coast built for 40' trailers. Add that to a conventional instead of a cab over and you gots yerself a real back breaker.

I remember one place where I was told to back thru one set of doors. I said forget it.. I'll wait for a different door as I was "Too fat" to fit. They repeated the order "YOU WILL...." I stood my ground. Finally dispatcher said ok you get it in there, I will not make you pay for damages.

Both doors, outside tires and insulation shaved off.

Looking back on that incident.. I should have hopped the airline or train straight home instead of backing into that particular dock.

Another time I had a 53'er in a place made for bob-trucks (Or straight trucks) I asked them you want this WHERE? They finally backed thier straight truck to me and transloaded. That costed alot of money and time as well as making a missed service failure on the next reload that was due later that day. UGH.

I could go on.. but you get the idea.

[Roger38]

I have seen lots of brand new Schneider containers this summer on the BNSF line through Minnesota.

[Anonymous]

i dont think jbhunt is leaving cont. when i was in chicago saw many bran spankin new jbhunt cont. on bnsf main line.

[Modelcar]

HighIron....Yes, I am familiar with that dimension but thanks...{The 102"}....

[nslakediv]

Pacer Stack Train 53' containers do go international, we used to receive them big blue bast**** full of Chinese, Mexican and 4 others foreign countries toilets, stacked to the ceiling, how they got them on there was truely amazing. We allways had fun getting them out.

[tabeckett]

I drove for JB Hunt from Nov 1995 to Jan 2001. During that time, they went to great effort to separate their intermodal and OTR van traffic, such that an OTR driver could not be hooked to a container for an OTR load. Note how you see very few road tractors pulling containers, and no vans on the train. After JB started acquiring air ride trailers in the late 90s, they were quite emphatic that its vans not go by rail, because the handling and jostling in transit would damage the air ride suspension gear. When I started there, they had a fleet of approximately 5000 each 48 and 53 foot vans, and about 7000 48 foot, and 9000 53 foot containers. In the last three or four years, all the 48 foot boxes have been retired, except for some 48 foot vans in Dedicated Contract Services. They have also acquired approximately 8000 53 foot containers since 2001. It is quite unlikely that they are about to abandon containerized freight. The economics don't support such a move, given the recent investment, and the recent spike in fuel prices, though diesel has been high for a much longer time than gasoline. Additionally, the cost of moving the box by rail is much cheaper than OTR, especially when double stacked.

The chassis issue has, to my knowledge, never been a problem. I don't recall ever seeing any other box on a JB chassis, or a JB chassis on another company's chassis. If I am not mistaken, JB's chassis are not compatible with other containers, as the locking pins on the corners are all in fixed position for a 102" box, where the others mate with a 96" box. In some intermodal yards, JB has its own section, and its boxes do not mix with other trailers/containers.

53 foot trailers started to appear as a result of the Surface Trasnportation Assistance Act(STAA) of 1982. This established a National Network of highways, which includes almost all of the Interstate system, and other roads as designated by the states. It allowed 53 foot, 102" wide trailers on this national network, along with sufficient access to reach fuel/rest/service facilities. Some states already had size limits that met or exceeded these requirements-many of the same states that allow 57 foot trailers. The "California hole" referred to above is the slider hole 40 feet from the trailer kingpin. The center of the rear axle may not be farther back than this hole. They are strict about it. I can recall many times being reminded that loads going to California must be loaded so that they were California legal. All states now allow 53 footers on at least some of their highways, though a permit is needed in some states. Maryland is still a pain(as High Iron notes), and will ticket you if you are off the network. Most states have some kingpin requirement, anywhere from 40 to 43 feet from kingpin to rear tandem axle. It's not a big deal with light loads, but heavy loads must be placed correctly so that the trailer tandem will meet the kingpin law, as well as the bridge law, which dictates the spacing of axle groups on the entire truck. Both of these topics can be discussed at great length. And, yes, I've done that move to slide my trailer axles by using a crosstie. Lots of fun. Helps if you have someone handy with a BIG hammer!!

As correctly noted, 53's allow a greater payload than shorter trailers, but are of limited usefulness for heavy loads. Most consumer goods cube out long before they go overweight-most loads I pulled for Target, Wal Mart, JC Penney, etc, came in at 15-25,000 lbs; even some paper products, such as paper towels, tissue and toilet paper will cube out the box(P&G and Fort James are good at this, and will load a 53 so there is not an inch to spare) around 27,000 lbs. I doubt 57 foot trailers will ever be allowed beyond the few states that allow them now. The infrastructure is not built to handle them in most places, especially not in the northeast, where some roads were built literally 300 years ago, and just paved. I have put too many 53 foot trailers in places that were never meant for a 45. I really started to hate PA-for a state that is so heavily industrial, they built their infrastructure 100 years ago, and never improved it. I once made a delivery in Johnstown PA, and had my drive axles on one corner, and my trailer axles on the opposite corner turning a 53 into a street I needed to deliver on. What a pain!! I'd never have made it with a 57. Besides, you can be sure that the states that only begrudgingly allow 53's will never allow a 57. The stupid thing about it is that these states don't want to face the reality that 53/102 trailers have become a fact of life, yet they continue to make it difficult as possible for the drivers to get their trucks in and out efficiently-but everyone wants the stuff they bring!!

The issue of container vs trailer for the driver is not only one of taking the load over the road vs rail, but of weight. JB's chasis weigh 6600 lbs, and a 53 foot box 9600 lbs, for a total of 16,200. A standard dry van weighs around 14,000, give of take 500 lbs. But as fuel prices escalate, and the trucking companies continue to fight a driver shortage, intermodal will be a more and more attractive method of getting freight moved over long distances.

I agree with Highiron about California-let 'em come to Yuma or Topock or Reno and get the stuff.

[rickyd2]

I noted this morning while waiting for a UP stack train to clear crossing carrying mostly Hanjin and COSCO(China Ocean Shipping Co.) that there were quite a few 45 ft Hanjin boxes telling me that they are, indeed, in international service. Without major ship modifications, these would all have to be "top of stack" loading on board.

I haven't had the opportunity to get to the ports of Long Beach/Los Angeles in several years to look at ship loadings and I understand that it has gotten so large and so busy that it is nearly impossible to get a good look at the larger container operations.

[Tilden]

And a ship's capacity is rated in standard 20 foot containers.