"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
Last Chance wrote:Triple Crown enjoys alot of support in the area. Should they deploy to southwestern states, I fear that there will be very little for them should something break. Coming out of Nogales into the Triple T will tear em up if they still have not patched those gigantic potholes.
What's a "Triple T"?
ericsp wrote:BNSF did try running trains of ReeferRailers a few years ago.
Whatever happened to those refrigerated RoadRailers? When BNSF dropped the dedicated RoadRailer trains the equipment went into use as TOFC trailers. They'd be pretty old by now. Are they still being used?
Does anyone know what a "Battle Cruiser" was? (There is a railroad point to this!)
Battle Cruisers sure sounded like a great idea. Up to WWII navies fought each other with battleships. These were huge vessels with big guns and lots of steel protection. They could slug it out. The problem was finding the other guys battleships. To do this scouting the navies used cruisers which were faster, lighter ships with smaller guns and less steel protection. When the cruisers found the enemy's battleships they reported back and got out of the way.
So the idea of a Battle Cruiser was born. The concept was to put the bigger guns on a cruiser so you'd have more fire power. The steel protection was left off to retain the high speed of the ship. Some were built. But no one ever really figured out how to use them. The big guns were useless in scouting and they couldn't fight battleships because they didn't have the protection needed to stand up to big guns shooting at them.
It resulted in a disaster when the British HMS Hood, a Battle Cruiser, was forced to face off against the German battleship Bismark. The Hood was literally blown out of the water. Of the entire crew, only three survived.
Battle Cruisers sure sounded like a good idea, but no one ever figured out how to use them.
It's the same with RoadRailers. The idea sure sounds good. Seems to make sense. But aside from Triple Crown and its special niche market, nobody has figured out how to use them.
They've sure tried. BNSF made a major effort and investment with its refrigerated RoadRailer service from California. CN, UP, CSX, and ICG also started RoadRailer services and, like the BNSF, eventually shut them down. (Amtrak doesn't count)
While RoadRailers have advantages, primarily in reducing terminal/drayage costs and train weight, they have one huge disadvantage. It is very difficult to aggregate and batch an entire trainload of merchandise/perishables from one origin to one destination. When this inevitable difficulty presents itself RoadRailer service is blown out of the water, just like the Hood.
Unless and until bimodal technolgy can operate in train consists with other rail equipment RoadRailers will remain a small niche player in the market. This mixed operation would allow the operating railroad to enjoy the advantages and minimize the disadvantage of needing to aggreate and batch and entire trainload from one origin to one destination.
Triple T stands for Tucson Truck Terminal one of the finest truck stops in the country. As I see more and more of the independent truck stops swallowed by the majors it is only a matter of time until price fixing (price gouging) will be taking place.
Al - in - Stockton
rrnut282 wrote:If they weren't able to aggregate enough traffic to dispatch a train of roadrailers, then they mis-located their terminal or limited their rubber-tired reach for traffic or mis-marketed the service. How is it the railroad can find enough semi trailers to fill multiple piggy-back trains, but not enough for a road-railer train? Road-railers would make the "rubber interchange" in places like Chicago easier.
"Rubber-tired reach" is the weak point of domestic intermodal. The costs of trucking to and from the intermodal terminals can easily double the cost of using intermodal and degrade its competitiveness vis a vis over the road trucking. RoadRailers can mitigate this problem by allowing lower cost rail terminals located near the shippers and receivers. However....
When you go to the smaller terminals it becomes harder to aggregate trainload lots of RoadRailers so you loose while you gain. So far, with the exception of Triple Crown, the losses have outweighed the gains.
A RoadRailer consist is one origin to one destination (Triple Crown is again an exception with their hub at Ft. Wayne.) A domestic intermodal train allows aggregation from multiple origins/destinations. For example, a westbound domestic intermodal train originating at Chicago will carry freight originating in Chicago, and New York, and Toronto and Norfolk, etc. The loads can be destined to several destinations; Phoenix, Fresno, and Stockton for example
As long as RoadRailers are restricted to RoadRailer only consists, you can't readily do this with RoadRailers. You would need to establish RoadRailer trains from several origins to several destinations. Since no one has yet figured out how to handle marine containers by RoadRailer, and since truckers want to move their own trailers on the trains, this would require the establishment of dual intermodal systems - which would greatly agrivate the aggregation problem and drive expenses through the roof.
That's why it's usually more efficient to use conventional intermodal equipment than RoadRailers, and that's why it's much more difficult to aggregate into RoadRailer consists than into other intermodal consists.
Yes, that was the triple T I referred to.
The age of the Independant offering complete service is fading fast. Even the large modern TA chain has begun to establish walk-in only delis with no sit down meals in some places. A sign of the times as far as Im concerned.
Thanks to those that kept it between the lines before I got to it.
How many road-railers does it take to make a train? Does it have to run daily? Remember they are limited to 150 maximum, so you can't have too many shippers at one time, and you have to turn some away or run another section. NS did that a lot when they were restricted to 75 units per train.
Why can't they run short "collecting" trains (ala locals) to a Left Coast hub and then run the aggregated train cross-country? There could be a terminal in Denver or Pheonix, Dallas, Kansas City and on to Chicago. Dallas and KC are already on TC's route map. I have seen Triple Crown trains as short as 40. I don't know what their "break-even" point is as far as trailer counts, so I can't say if they lost money on that run or not. I'd guess the break-even point varies on the length of the run and how good the highway is between those points.
greyhounds wrote: rrnut282 wrote:If they weren't able to aggregate enough traffic to dispatch a train of roadrailers, then they mis-located their terminal or limited their rubber-tired reach for traffic or mis-marketed the service. How is it the railroad can find enough semi trailers to fill multiple piggy-back trains, but not enough for a road-railer train? Road-railers would make the "rubber interchange" in places like Chicago easier."Rubber-tired reach" is the weak point of domestic intermodal. The costs of trucking to and from the intermodal terminals can easily double the cost of using intermodal and degrade its competitiveness vis a vis over the road trucking. RoadRailers can mitigate this problem by allowing lower cost rail terminals located near the shippers and receivers. However....When you go to the smaller terminals it becomes harder to aggregate trainload lots of RoadRailers so you loose while you gain. So far, with the exception of Triple Crown, the losses have outweighed the gains.A RoadRailer consist is one origin to one destination (Triple Crown is again an exception with their hub at Ft. Wayne.) A domestic intermodal train allows aggregation from multiple origins/destinations. For example, a westbound domestic intermodal train originating at Chicago will carry freight originating in Chicago, and New York, and Toronto and Norfolk, etc. The loads can be destined to several destinations; Phoenix, Fresno, and Stockton for exampleAs long as RoadRailers are restricted to RoadRailer only consists, you can't readily do this with RoadRailers.
As long as RoadRailers are restricted to RoadRailer only consists, you can't readily do this with RoadRailers.
I have very little knowledge of RoadRailer operations and question why it is necessary to run trains consisting only of RoadRailers. Is there some technical limitation that prevents them from being tacked onto the rear of a manifest or intermodal train? If this were possible it would eliminate the problems of aggregating enough RoadRailers at any one location to justify dispatching a solid train of them. One or more could simply be added to the consist of any train at points along its route that were convenient to the origin of the loads and one or more units could be dropped off at points close to their final destination.
Mark
The trailers I recall were 2 inch thick planking backed by light truss of welded plates or beams along the bottom. The sides and top were even more flimsy.
Hardly something capable of withstanding those kinds of energies generated by a train.
The strongest ones I recall were the 48 foot Ravens Flatbed with the 10 foot spread. You could belly a 52,000 pound coil onto it and.... the only thing standing between your successful trip and disaster was the quality of the factory's work building such a trailer; combined with management of the 4 forces (Push, drag, lean and bounce/G loads) against that coil.
I watched normal flatcars in a train shake and shiver badly when stress is applied to them during a NORMAL train operation and those things are much stronger than my "Ravens" I would hate to see it weighted or stressed in that manner.
KCSfan wrote: I have very little knowledge of RoadRailer operations and question why it is necessary to run trains consisting only of RoadRailers. Is there some technical limitation that prevents them from being tacked onto the rear of a manifest or intermodal train? If this were possible it would eliminate the problems of aggregating enough RoadRailers at any one location to justify dispatching a solid train of them. One or more could simply be added to the consist of any train at points along its route that were convenient to the origin of the loads and one or more units could be dropped off at points close to their final destination.Mark
Forget RoadRailers. They had their chance and they missed the market.
Think about RailMate. www.railmate.com.
RailMate has been specifically designed to operate in consists with other rail equipment. It's been successfully tested on the CP in the USA behind manifest consists. It delivered 46,000 pound loads that were highway legal just fine. Its currently going though the FRSA certification process.
The prototypes are dump trailers designed to haul rock, grain, and garbage. There will be no problem building Railmate container chassis to handle merchandise/perishables.
The problem is going to be getting the railroad operating department to make a pick up at Dodge City.
I believe that the railroads had or used to have thier own trucking. No problem getting that load in Dodge City. Ugh.... lolz.
Thanks for a wonderful thread. Enjoyed it. Cya all on the flip side.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.