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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by greyhounds [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Greyhounds, The statement that "bi-modal technology has failed again and again" is a bit presumptuous, given that the technology is still being tried out on a basis of slothful attrition by the railroads. We know that the modal transfer times using bi-modal are exceptional, in some cases saving days over pallet transfer. Bi-modal reefer trailers have more capacity than reefer containers, so it even beats COFC. Frankly, given what we see in the success of Triple Crown vs the other operations, it is apparent that only by the prime directive of a trucking firm will bi-modal get a fair chance at success. Conversely, if we leave it to the railroads, they will surely find a way to turn lemonade into lemons and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. [/quote] This is from an unpublished writing by me. It's evident that it was written a while ago. "The BNSF just recently suspended operation of its “Ice Cold Express” RoadRailer trains. The elimination of these trains, which operated between Los Angeles and Chicago, is disturbing for two reasons. First, they were targeted on the California produce transportation market. This market is huge, long haul, and predominately moves via motor freight. California produces about one half the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in North America. This equates to around 500,000 refrigerated tractor-trailers leaving California each year. Most of these trucks are on long haul runs to eastern population centers. These truckers don’t return to California empty, they maximize their revenue by getting “backhaul loads” from those eastern cities to California. That makes the total market, including backhauls, 1,000,000 long haul loads per year. The railroads successfully handled this business for years, but were driven out in large part by Federal rate regulation. For the DECADES since, the railroads have generally conceded this long haul business to the truckers. The now defunct Ice Cold Express was a strong attempt by the BNSF to get more of this business back on the rails where it belongs. It’s sad to see such a false start in such a worthy, important effort. Secondly, this is yet another setback for RoadRailer. For a while, it looked as if the Ice Cold Express might have ben RoadRailer’s big break through. A major railroad had made a major investment in refrigerated RoadRailer equipment for the first time. Two intermodal marketing companies, Alliance Shippers and Clipper Exxpress, also joined the operation. These companies also made substantial investments in the service by purchasing their own equipment to operate in the trains. The CN established a connecting RoadRailer Service to Toronto and Montreal. These cities are both major markets for California produce. CSX established its own connecting service to the US east coast. It looked as if RoadRailer might be finally on its way. Then things began to fall apart. First, the CSX and CN connecting services at Chicago were shut down. Now the Ice Cold Express no itself longer operates. Just what the Hell went wrong? Why did the Ice Cold Express join the ranks of other failed RoadRailer operations?" This service wasn't marketed by the BNSF. It was marketed by Mark VII Transportation, an outfit owned by R.C. Mateny. R.C. had started National Piggyback Services. This was an intermodal marketing company with a strong presence in the perishable market. When American President Lines needed to establish a domestic intermodal network to compliment their international stack train operations, they bought R.C. out and National Pig became APL Domestic and now Pacer Stack Train. R.C. aparently got tired of playing golf every day and started Mark VII. BNSF went to him to market their Ice Cold Express RoadRailer service. And even he couldn't make it work. The Ice Cold joined other failed RoadRailer ops on the CN, UP, CSX, etc. Even Swift Transportation, a very successful trucker couldn't make it work on the West Coast. Tripple Crown has gone basically nowhere in 20 years. Yes, I know, they've got a relatively new run up to Minneapolis. Big Deal. They're basically where they were 20 years ago. It ain't workin'. It could work in some places. But that Washington fruit, onions and potatoes will move just fine in refrigerated boxcars. Ken [/quote] Nice article. Could be published if you include a few observations that were left out, such as the fact that it was BNSF that yanked all bi-modal service, not Swift or RC. If you remember correctly, when it came time to renegotiate the Swift RoadRailer agreement, BNSF suddenly jacked up the rate, so high that it then became cheaper for Swift to take these trailers over the road. We all know that both BNSF and Swift profited from the RoadRailer operation, but for some reason BNSF has an aversion to making money from bi-modal innovation. I know this from personal experience. Perhaps they were afraid that the RoadRailer operations might be too successful, causing a supply chain shift away from newly ordered boxcars and well cars. Hmmmm, it is interesting to note that a truly integrated transportation company would never behave thus, but unfortunately for the USA our rail system is closed access, and such irrational behaviour is the result. But I am open for other excuses besides tried and true monopolists theory. Question: Is there anyone out there who thinks that box of cherries is going to get from the orchard to NYC just as fast as the over the road truckers, or at the same cost to the grower/marketer? Don't forget, there are plenty of storage facilities already in place, so why would the growers want to yank their investments there and commit to a centralized rail distribution center? They will still need truckers to take the fruit from one facility to the new facility, transload the pallets into the faciltiy, then reload the pallets onto the fridge cars, mosey along to NYC in 5 days, where the process will have to be reversed, then mosey on back to Washington State. By that time, the over the road truckers will have handled two cross country trips between existing facilities, probably with backhaul to boot, which totally negates rail's efficiency advantage since the truckers will have hauled just as much freight in that time period as the rail cars. Anyone with any brains can see that this situation was made for bi-modal. The facilities are already in place, and all we need is two terminal sidings for the modal transfer. Under open access any number of 3PI's would jump at the chance if they had fee simple right of access to use the rails, and the net result is a more efficient expenditure of capital. Unfortunately, we all have to deal with the royal idiots of the current rail oligarchy, who even with monopolistic pricing still can't cover their ROI targets.
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