8) One early indication of how the economy is doing, is that intermodal freight trains, go bare-table in the begining, and before the recovery, they begin to disappear...
Have you seen a bare table train lately?
Post your opinons, pics, heads-up here!
A bare table train, with a brand new CSX Gevo along for the ride, makes it's way eastbound near Thoreau, NM and past some of the great scenery along the Gallup Sub. BNSF Gallup Sub, Thoreau, New Mexico. March 16, 2008...
I am so glad you posted this!
Some time back, I mentioned this on the forum since I saw one coming out of the yard and headed east. It wasn't so much that it was empty as it was that it was toward evening and I commented that this would possibly be hard to see after dark. Even with the reflector strips.
I envisioned tripping over a footstool in the dark in the living room. Low to the ground and nothing to block the line of sight and let you know something was in front of you.
And that puppy wasn't short, either!
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
they run them to another yard that needs them.csxs q 164 had alot of bare tables at the end of its train on sunday.
stay safe
joe
Deshler Ohio-crossroads of the B&O Matt eats your fries.YUM! Clinton st viaduct undefeated against too tall trucks!!!(voted to be called the "Clinton St. can opener").
Allen,
I know this is slightly off topic but that is an excellent photograph.
Wayne
Modeling HO Freelance Logging Railroad.
Allen, you begin by suggesting bare table train movements are an indicater of the national economy. Is that a streeeetch or do you have a basis such as: the Federal Reserve Board uses it: The Congressional Budget Office uses it; The Association Of American Railroads creates statistics where bare table movements are incorporated?????
A great photo along one of my favorite train watching locations, thanks!!!
Empty international containers are in extremely short supply, and the mountains of them that had accumulated at ports and terminals are dwindling or gone. Almost all international containers moving west to the Pacific Coast are being loaded for the westbound trip to the Pacific Rim countries at their inland U.S. destination, which is a significant change from a few years ago, when most of the containers were returning west empty. International containers in most terminals are being allocated to customers -- or perhaps rationed would be a better term.
Baretable moves indicate a mismatch in equipment location to equipment need. It isn't directly coupled to slowdowns or speedups in the economy. Lately there has been an oversupply of well cars on the West Coast and a shortage in the Midwest. Next month, it could be the reverse. Container flows fluctuate by day, by week, by month, and by season, and it's by no means a clockwork-type flow.
There used to be a headhaul and backhaul in the international container business -- the headhaul being goods coming into the U.S. and the backhaul being anything that the shipping line could find to avoid shipping back air -- but demand for the outbound containers has gone up dramatically, and the rates too (50% for bulk commodities) -- so it is no longer the case that the outbound container is truly a backhaul.
RWM
Lately we have been getting several a week from the west , we ship back a lot of grain to asia.
Bare table moves aren't new. I have been on one going one direction and met an opposing bare table move.
Aren't some of these cars in a pool, say between Chicago and Los Angeles. If there isn't a container out of one point, it returns to the other empty? Most of our symbols for bare table moves end with an R, for repostion. Trains entirely of empty auto racks also will end with R.
Mookie, at least at night they have a red flashy thingy on the back. At least, we hope it's flashing. Sometimes it's actually harder in daylight to determine where the end is from a distance.
Jeff
One reality of rail traffic is the the traffic volumes are not equal between locations. As such there routinely arise requirements to relocate equipment in 'free running pools' such as TTX intermodal cars.
In reality the same situations occur in normal merchandise freight traffic, it is just not as obvious to people watching trains pass. A box car is a box car and from looking at it (if the doors are closed as they are required to be) you have no idea if the car is loaded or empty. The same for tank cars and any other cars that are not open and display their loaded status to the viewer. Iron ore loaded in coal hoppers, looks like an empty train since the cars are only loaded to a portion of the cubic capacity.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
jeffhergert wrote: Mookie, at least at night they have a red flashy thingy on the back. At least, we hope it's flashing. Sometimes it's actually harder in daylight to determine where the end is from a distance.Jeff
Mook
wabash1 wrote:empty intermodel moves are not new it happens every week, if you are basing the economy from that then the railroads have been broke and the country in depression for 10 years ,and we get empty autoracks every day. 50-80 at a time. and ship 75-100 per shift
During the last weekend of 2006, at the Folkston Funnel, we saw frequent auto racks SB with cars, pickup trucks and (perhaps) SUV's. Or maybe just more pickup trucks.
The same last week, this past 2007, we saw less frequent auto racks heading into Florida. And they were empty.
It does not require the proverbial "rocket science" to put two and two together. Sure, they could have been repositioning them....but why empty autoracks INTO Florida?
Railway Man wrote: Empty international containers are in extremely short supply, and the mountains of them that had accumulated at ports and terminals are dwindling or gone. Almost all international containers moving west to the Pacific Coast are being loaded for the westbound trip to the Pacific Rim countries at their inland U.S. destination, which is a significant change from a few years ago, when most of the containers were returning west empty. International containers in most terminals are being allocated to customers -- or perhaps rationed would be a better term. There used to be a headhaul and backhaul in the international container business -- the headhaul being goods coming into the U.S. and the backhaul being anything that the shipping line could find to avoid shipping back air -- but demand for the outbound containers has gone up dramatically, and the rates too (50% for bulk commodities) -- so it is no longer the case that the outbound container is truly a backhaul. RWM
That's the best news I've heard in a month.
It is important, to mention that if the US economy fell into the basement, that Global shipping, will continue...
For example, traffic from the Pacific Rim, goes to Europe, via the United States of America...
No other way, is considered safe, unless you have a heavy-duty fire hose!
Allen Jenkins wrote: It is important, to mention that if the US economy fell into the basement, that Global shipping, will continue...For example, traffic from the Pacific Rim, goes to Europe, via the United States of America...No other way, is considered safe, unless you have a heavy-duty fire hose!
Actually virtually no significant tonnage of traffic has moved from the Pacific Rim to Europe via the United States, historically or at present, not overland or via the Panama Canal (which is no longer part of the U.S., of course). The Pacific Rim traffic flow to Europe is via the Suez Canal except for ships of 150,000 DWT or larger (Suezmax ships), which travel around the Cape of Good Hope. Even when the Canal was closed during 1956-57 and 1967-75, Pacific Rim traffic did not travel to Europe via North America.
The term "double-stack land bridge" gets a lot of people tangled up. The land being bridged is indeed North America, but the destination of the containers is the U.S. East Coast, not Europe. The term appeared when double-stack container trains began replacing traditional all-water traffic flows via the Pamana Canal and Suez Canal for Pacific Rim-East Coast traffic. The containers don't get back onto a ship at the far end of the land bridge.
I am lost on the fire hose comment.Did I miss something?
Back to baretables. KNew of a crew that took one to Chicago from Phoenix,rested out and took it out of Chicago going guess where.
Yes we are on time but this is yesterdays train
Railway Man wrote: Actually virtually no significant tonnage of traffic has moved from the Pacific Rim to Europe via the United States, historically or at present, not overland or via the Panama Canal (which is no longer part of the U.S., of course). The Pacific Rim traffic flow to Europe is via the Suez Canal except for ships of 150,000 DWT or larger (Suezmax ships), which travel around the Cape of Good Hope. Even when the Canal was closed during 1956-57 and 1967-75, Pacific Rim traffic did not travel to Europe via North America.The term "double-stack land bridge" gets a lot of people tangled up. The land being bridged is indeed North America, but the destination of the containers is the U.S. East Coast, not Europe. The term appeared when double-stack container trains began replacing traditional all-water traffic flows via the Pamana Canal and Suez Canal for Pacific Rim-East Coast traffic. The containers don't get back onto a ship at the far end of the land bridge. RWM
IIRC,
In The Beginning, there was no railroad "Bridge" type service. Each port had what it regard to be its "Hinterland" and import/export cargo from that area "Naturally" went through that port. Ships made several stops at various ports to load and unload.
When containerization took off the the ship lines looked for a way to reduce port calls. One idea was that a ship from the Far East (China was yet to be a major factor) could carry containers to both the US and Europe. It would unload all containers at a US west coast port. The European bound freight would move by rail unit trains to a US east coast port where it would be loaded on a ship bound for Europe. This was the original "Land Bridge". It made some sense and at least some of the US ports liked it because they got to handle containers that they would not otherwise have seen. How many containers actually moved this way? I don't know.
Next came "Mini-Bridge" under which containers bound for a US east coast port were unloaded on the west coast and moved to the eastern port via rail. The nutty regulators still required that all the containers move through the east coast port, no matter what their destination was. I once saw a presentation about this service showing that a container of Caterpillar parts for export moved from central Illinois to an east coast port, then was put on a "Mini-Bridge" train to move to a west coast port. The westbound move passed within 30 miles of the actual origin. The container took a 2,000 mile tour of the eastern US for no other reason than that's what the regulators (those wacky, crazy guys) said it had to do.
Out of this came "Micro-Bridge". This eliminated the regulatory requirement that the container move through two ports and produced the establishment of though rates (Gasp!) from/to interior US points to places like Singapore.
As RWM has indicated, the original "Land-Bridge" seems to have been a commercial failure. "Mini-Bridge" was a senseless regulatory creation. But they did lead to today's stack trains.
It's easy to get the various "Bridges" mixed up.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.