This has been a great thread and I really appreciate the discussion.
Thanks.
Paul,
I did read the article when new - the June 1967 issue was my first issue of Trains (though did pick up many back issues in subsequent years, the April and May 1967 issues were amongst the first).
The test of the 1402 would not have occurred before 1930 as it wasn't finished before then (the 1400 came out in 1924, the 1401 in 1927, 1402 in 1930 and the 1403 in 1933, with the 1403 being the only locomotive built in 1933). You're right in that the D&H had spent quite a bit of money upgrading their line to allow for larger train sizes, seem to recall that the grade was 0.8% compensated by the time the 1402 came around (the 1968 ABC's of Model Railroading article on grades was instructive as to what compensation meant as far as grades).
I also remember picking a bit of civil engineering fundementals from reading AC Kalmbach's Track & Layout, learning what a cut and fill were. Don't think my knowledge of RR civil engineering is anywhere near our dirty feathered friend, but probably knew more about how RR's were built as a pre-teen than maybe 90% of adults.
- Erik
erikem [snip] What is truly scary to realize that the article was published 37 years or less after the test run you mentioned, and it has been almost 42 years since that issue of Trains came out.
"Please do not say such things !" [from "The Wind and the Lion" movie, 1977 or so] Anyway, if you read that article when it was new, that would make us about the same age . . .
Wasn't the test run in the 1920s, so it was about 47 years later ?
The configuration of that line and the quest for more efficient operations also go to the point of this thread, how they interact and affect profitablility, etc.
Your story illustrates why this is such a fascinating and informative hobby !
- Paul North.
Paul_D_North_JrRegarding the passing maneuver, the comments above brought back to mind a little story that I believe appeared in one of the 3 articles on the D&H Consolidations that are referenced below, which is as follows as best as I can remember it:
Regarding the passing maneuver, the comments above brought back to mind a little story that I believe appeared in one of the 3 articles on the D&H Consolidations that are referenced below, which is as follows as best as I can remember it:
That was from the article in the June 1967 issue, my recollection was that he was held up three times by the same train. Quite an interesting and informative article, got me interested in learning more about thermodynamics (I was 12 when I first read the article). Didn't really understand why heating area in the firebox was more effective than the firetubes/flues until reading the Babcock & Wilcox book on Steam. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I saw what the boiler on 1400 really looked like (on Doug Self's website, Loco Locos).
What is truly scary to realize that the article was published 37 years or less after the test run you mentioned, and it has been almost 42 years since that issue of Trains came out.
blue streak 1What does this lead to? I would love to be able to operate my RR section with all trains at one speed. Boy can I handle a lot of trains but that is not realistic so my capacity is limited for all the above factors + maintenance windows and more restrictions not considered. If you add trains that are going twice as fast as present freight traffic you need two or three tracks to handle all the present traffic and keep them separated. Think what it is like when you are on a two lane interstate in your porsche traveling 125 and you come up and have to wait for a 2 mile long tractor trailer going 60MPH passing another 2 mile long tractor trailer going 55MP. OOPS - that slows you down for a minimum of 25 minutes not counting distance to get front to back separation. Now throw in a new Medium Speed Passenger Rail (MSR 80 - 125 MPH my definition)(HSR above 125 MPH). Now for assumptions. Any route that will get MSR will probably be designed for daytime hourly or every other hour service. Since most of the route will probably use present ROWs except where curve straightening is required then the route is going to need a new track built to Class 7,6,or 5 standards. Where possible this track shoud be 25 ft away from the existing track to prevent slow downs due to maintenance on either track. Although I would expect the track structure to be built to 300,000# + load limits there would probably not be too much freight traffic on the new passenger tracks. (ton mile charges for freight use of the MSR rail line might be an incentative). Blue streak 1
What does this lead to? I would love to be able to operate my RR section with all trains at one speed. Boy can I handle a lot of trains but that is not realistic so my capacity is limited for all the above factors + maintenance windows and more restrictions not considered. If you add trains that are going twice as fast as present freight traffic you need two or three tracks to handle all the present traffic and keep them separated. Think what it is like when you are on a two lane interstate in your porsche traveling 125 and you come up and have to wait for a 2 mile long tractor trailer going 60MPH passing another 2 mile long tractor trailer going 55MP. OOPS - that slows you down for a minimum of 25 minutes not counting distance to get front to back separation.
Now throw in a new Medium Speed Passenger Rail (MSR 80 - 125 MPH my definition)(HSR above 125 MPH). Now for assumptions. Any route that will get MSR will probably be designed for daytime hourly or every other hour service. Since most of the route will probably use present ROWs except where curve straightening is required then the route is going to need a new track built to Class 7,6,or 5 standards. Where possible this track shoud be 25 ft away from the existing track to prevent slow downs due to maintenance on either track. Although I would expect the track structure to be built to 300,000# + load limits there would probably not be too much freight traffic on the new passenger tracks. (ton mile charges for freight use of the MSR rail line might be an incentative).
Blue streak 1
Elevating speeds beyond 79 mph encounters severe problems with train control if it's to be done on an existing track also used for freight. Beyond the requirement for an ATC system (and now a PTC system instead), it typically requires a complete resignalization, which in turn often means the crossovers are no longer in practical, efficient, or signalizable locations, and have to be moved. This gets extremely expensive because by this point you have paid for 50% to 100% new rail, ties, turnouts, train-control, wayside signaling, grade-crossing signaling, communications systems, and while you're at it, you might as well replace all the drainage structures too.
On a line handling any appreciable amount of freight intermixed with passenger, on which speeds greater than 79 mph are desired, it is usually less costly to simply build an entirely new and separate passenger rail infrastructure to one side, and never, ever, ever, let the two mix. You cannot run the passenger trains faster than 79 mph on the freight tracks, and you cannot run the freight trains on the passenger tracks unless you equip those tracks with heavier rail, the expensive turnout frogs, and are willing to shoulder the costs of more frequent surfacing, rail profiling, and frog welding. Also, you'd like to have a different rail profile on the passenger track than the freight track, different superelevation and unbalance, different grade-crossing approach circuit lengths, different ties and resilient fasteners, different signal spacing and aspects, and so forth. You cannot optimize infrastruture to be ideal for both fast light passenger and slow heavy freight, at the same time.
And -- lest I forget -- let's not forget the fatal problem of platform height, platform gap, and ADA compliance. You can have a platform that clears freight, or you can have a platform that meets ADA, but you cannot have both on the same track. So at every station, expect to build station tracks so the freight trains do not whack the platforms. And since people usually want stations to be in densely built-up urban areas, and if anywhere a right-of-way is short on unused empty space, it's in a densely built-up urban area, expect a horribly expensive right-of-way acquisition including things like utility relocations, grade separations, quiet zones, sound walls, reconstruction of a lot of city streets and intersections, etc. This is assuming someone will even sell you the land without a 20-year political and court battle.
RWM
blue streak 1 PDN; RWM: Thanks for the posts. My example was for starting the discussion and notice I said that no consideration was given for front to back spacing. I suspect that it would take twice as long to get spacing so the slower train did not get a restrictive signal when passed by the faster train. [snip]
blue streak 1: Yes, I saw that, and figured as much. You clearly had enough to do with the details of the example you were setting down. You gave me a good set-up with the analogy of the two 2-mile long tractor-trailers passing each other at 60 MPH and 55 MPH. I just wanted to take that aspect of it and work with it a little farther and see where it took us.
You can see where we're at now - pretty much any way it's cut, entire additional tracks will be needed. Without that, it seems that train slots are kind of like landing slots at the airport - you can't make many more of them without building a whole new airport, and you can't make them too much closer in time because of safety, but you can make the planes bigger, more fuel-efficient, and do other things to tweak those other aspects of the operation, etc.
Thanks for participating, and making this one as much fun as it's been !
PDN; RWM: Thanks for the posts. My example was for starting the discussion and notice I said that no consideration was given for front to back spacing. I suspect that it would take twice as long to get spacing so the slower train did not get a restrictive signal when passed by the faster train.
To add MSR (110 mph) to any of the western transcons would definitely require another track the whole distance of the run. Plus an additional passing siding for opposing MSRs to pass. Passenger traffic would never be high enough except maybe in some Texas locations
MY point is that a certain level of passenger traffic has to be present to justify MSR or HSR. The NE corridor now has that level of traffic and with ROW improvements traffic will increase.----But it still comes down to the fact that there is not enough trackage south of Philidelphia to handle the additional different speed traffic or the traffic increase resulting from MSR/HSR south of Washington. Basically it would have: an occasional freight, SEPTA and MARC commuter traffic, AMTRAK regional service , and ACELA SERVICE. This is four different top speed trains. The two or three tracks south of Philidelphia just isn't enough.
South of Washington the question that needs to be answered is: "If we have MSR or HSR will we have enough passengers to justify the service???." For the Washington - Raleigh segment dicussed here the traffic potential has not been there until about 3 - 5 years ago. The Carolinian now has business class indicating that class is coming up and many times is sold out. I-85,I-95 congestion and the desire of many business men and others to not fly "Barbie Jets" to Ric, DCA, or Phl unless absolutely necessary prevails. 3-1/2 hrs Raleigh - Wash would certainly attract more daytime passengers. The 175 mile Raleigh - CLT presently 3:10 reducible to 1:50 may be more problematic. But again this route is going to need the extra trackage to be operationallly feasibile.
Railway Man In practical terms, the amount of "wrong-hand main" that will be used up for a runaround in reasonably flat CTC territory where both trains keep moving at their best possible speed is ~ 40 miles. This is presupposing there are no opposing moves wanting to use that other main track during this event. It still takes a very good dispatcher to get away with it, and a smart ACD or Chief will only let a good dispatcher attempt it. [snip] This enables accuracy for a specific terrain with specific grades, speed restrictions, wayside signal locations, wayside signal aspects, etc. Then I look at it and see if it makes any sense. Sometimes the model does some dumb things, or the modeler has toggles turned on that make the model a little more aggressive than would happen in real life. RWM
This enables accuracy for a specific terrain with specific grades, speed restrictions, wayside signal locations, wayside signal aspects, etc. Then I look at it and see if it makes any sense. Sometimes the model does some dumb things, or the modeler has toggles turned on that make the model a little more aggressive than would happen in real life.
During one of the road tests of the D&H's one-of-a-kind, L. F. Loree-inspired, demonstration super-high pressure compound 2-8-0's, the DS held the test train at an interlocking so that a regular coal train with the usual tonnage of cars and associated complement of locos could proceed ahead of it. That so annoyed the test loco's engineer - a real veteran, they used the same guy for all of the test runs so as to remove as much of that variable* from the data as possible - that he asked if they could cancel the routine of the planned test, and instead see how fast they could get to the next interlocking. Since the test engineers had data from like 50 test runs at that point, they were willing to deviate from the planned test and gave their consent. The test crew had a saying that "Steam can be used either expansively or extensively" - before this, they had been using it expansively, but on this trip they were using it extensively ! The two tracks were separated mains on either side of the valley, and the test train crew could see that they were rapidly overtaking and passing the regular coal train over on the other side. The test train did in fact beat the regular coal to the next interlocking, and so then had to wait for the coal train again for like 5 minutes before it appeared, and then moved through and cleared the interlocking. The closing line: "After that, the dispatcher had a lot more respect for us, and didn't hold us for anything."
(* - Its been said that what the engineer ate for breakfast will influence the results of the test runs - I can believe that.)
[Back to my (paper)work now.]
Railway Man Locomotives are fungible, sidings are sunk costs. . . . [snip] . . . It's a lot less risky to purchase locomotives because its very difficult to project future traffic growth with a high degree of precision. [snip] RWM
This is getting kind of like a tennis match - we're taking turns at this subject. I was thinking much the same thing while driving home last night (nothing as interesting on the radio . . . ).
The locos are obviously mobile and can be moved around as needed - this division for the grain rush, that division for the coal season, the other end of the system for the fall intermodal traffic crunch, etc. - but the siding is fixed in place and can't ever be moved to where its needed most. Plus, the locos can be added to various trains in various numbers to suit the needs - the siding is only a 1-purpose tool. Finally, the locos can be financed with the very advantageous rates associated with railroad rolling stock (because they are movable and hence easily repossessed if needed and sold to another RR - but that's another topic entirely), whereas the siding would have to be financed out of general corporate funds or bonds (mortgages), like any other real estate, which is usually a little more expensive "dollar-for-dollar" for that reason.
And for those who don't know: While locomotives may be fungible (= alike and indistinguishable among themselves - such as bushels of grain is the common example), in this context I'd instead use the concepts of the locos being much more flexible than, or being substituted for, the siding.
Deggesty Paul, as you mention the four track mains (which extended to Buffalo and Pittsburgh), don't forget Zoo interlocking. There, the PRR, at no little expense,arranged all the connecting tracks so that no train crossed, at grade, a track for traffic in the opposite direction. Several years ago, Trains had several installments of re-captioned stills from movies. One showed an Indian scout, in his army uniform, explaining to a puzzled engine crew, who wondered why they were not where they wanted to be: "They must have lined you up wrong at Zoo." There's a nice little article about Zoo in the March, 1999, issue; it shows all the tracks. Johnny
Several years ago, Trains had several installments of re-captioned stills from movies. One showed an Indian scout, in his army uniform, explaining to a puzzled engine crew, who wondered why they were not where they wanted to be: "They must have lined you up wrong at Zoo." There's a nice little article about Zoo in the March, 1999, issue; it shows all the tracks.
Johnny
Johnny -
Thanks, I know ZOO well. At the moment the diagram from that 1999 issue is the "background" for my computer screen (forget where I got that from, though):
Zoo Tower in twilight Trains, March 1999 page 60 Operations at Zoo Tower in Philadelphia ( AMTK, NJT, OPERATION, "PALMER, DAVID", PHILADELPHIA, PRR, SEPTA, TOWER, TRN )
There was another article on ZOO from back in like 1952 I think, which I have:
Zoo Junction Trains, March 1952 page 24 Notable feats of railroad engineering ( "GLOFF, GEORGE A.", JUNCTION, PHILADELPHIA, PRR, TRN )
Supposedly as ZOO was originally laid out, it was too tough to automate like many other NE Corridor interlockings. But now that it's been simplified somewhat by abandonment and out-of-service tracks, and computers have gotten more powerful and the state of the art has advanced, that may be within reach. It would take someone more familiar with that than me, though - like RWM - to tell us more about the feasibility of such a change.
Plus, back in the 1990's I would go hang out there at ZOO on Sunday afternoons in March for a couple of hours while my wife and daughter were at the Philadelphia Flower Show at the old Convention Center, west of 30th Street Station. Now that the Flower Show has moved to the Pennsylvania Convention Center (= former Reading Railroad Terminal 's trainshed, extensively rehabbed), there are other attractions that are easier to get to from there. But we're supposed to go again this year (1st weekend in March), so we'll see . . .
I also have a black-line print of ZOO's track diagram that I purchased at a railroadiana show a few years ago. Now that I have a new house and lots of bare basement walls that are all mine to hang it and my GG1 prints on . . . soon.
Back in (I think) the 1980s, before tonnage from the Powder River Basin really began to skyrocket, Union Pacific served some coal mines in the Medicine Bow, Wyoming (think Hanna, Dana, Black Butte) region, and the lads and lassies in Omaha were convinced that this (and not the Poweder River) origin would supply an enormous river of eastbound coal. So in came the bulldozers, and grading for a third main was well along when it suddenly became apparent that less coal traffic than expected would materialize, but that traffic ex-Powder River Basin was booming.
To indulge in a bit of amateur psychoanalysis of UP's front office, I speculate that this mis-forecasting of business, coupled with the sails-trimming approach to operations by then-COO Mike Walsh rendered UP gun-shy over adding capacity, so much so that by the time it absorbed the Chicago and NorthWestern, the company (UP) had fallen into the unenviable position of having fallen behind in capacity in its all-important Red X, plus having to double track large stretches of the former CNW give it a two-track main line to Chicago. While its principal rival (BNSF) sought to keep just ahead of the curve, UP suddenly found itself struggling to catch up , with its competitive position commensurately hampered.
If this (admitted) Monday morning analysis is all wet, I'm sure someone knowledgeable will swiftly correct it. But it gives people something to chew over....
Murphy SidingRailway Man It's a lot less risky to purchase locomotives because its very difficult to project future traffic growth with a high degree of precision. There have been some very embarrassing projects built during my career that were deemed absolutely essential at the time but shortly afterward the traffic pattern changed and there's a lot of track and earthwork suddenly doing nothing. RWM Care to give some for examples?
Railway Man It's a lot less risky to purchase locomotives because its very difficult to project future traffic growth with a high degree of precision. There have been some very embarrassing projects built during my career that were deemed absolutely essential at the time but shortly afterward the traffic pattern changed and there's a lot of track and earthwork suddenly doing nothing. RWM
It's a lot less risky to purchase locomotives because its very difficult to project future traffic growth with a high degree of precision. There have been some very embarrassing projects built during my career that were deemed absolutely essential at the time but shortly afterward the traffic pattern changed and there's a lot of track and earthwork suddenly doing nothing.
Check with me in another 20 years.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Paul_D_North_JrRWM - Thanks for that clarification and comments. I can see where I was a little off-base with the people - what you're describing for the RFE is more what I had in my mind. I was wondering, too, about taking the $100 million for that hypothetical siding and instead buying say, 50 locos (at $2 million ea.) = whole lotta more HP to add onto those slow trains to do exactly as you say is the recent trend. Not quite the same as the siding dollar-for-dollar, but another alternative to look at. But I didn't want to write the equivalent of another section of a book this afternoon . . . Even before I read your response above I was thinking the following: Now we know why the PRR and the NYC essentally said "The heck with this fooling around with half-measures - we'll just build 4-track mains" (with a very few too-tight 2-track exceptions, and in some places, even 6 tracks) - to handle all their traffic between NYC and Chicago (and Washington, D.C., too for the PRR). Which was basically a fast (through) and a slow (local) track in each direction. And then they installed interlockings - with like 6 crossovers to get all the way across those 4 tracks and back again, complete with block towers that were manned 24 x 7 x 365 - like every 6 to 10 miles to facilitate the kind of maneuvers that we're discussing here. Can you imagine what that cost to do then ? Better yet, can you imagine what it would cost to replicate all that today ? Now we can better appreciate the value of all that track, structure, and signal infrastructure and route-miles and track-miles that's already out there now. It staggers the imagination (at least mine tonight, anyway). - Paul North.
RWM -
Thanks for that clarification and comments. I can see where I was a little off-base with the people - what you're describing for the RFE is more what I had in my mind.
I was wondering, too, about taking the $100 million for that hypothetical siding and instead buying say, 50 locos (at $2 million ea.) = whole lotta more HP to add onto those slow trains to do exactly as you say is the recent trend. Not quite the same as the siding dollar-for-dollar, but another alternative to look at. But I didn't want to write the equivalent of another section of a book this afternoon . . .
Even before I read your response above I was thinking the following: Now we know why the PRR and the NYC essentally said "The heck with this fooling around with half-measures - we'll just build 4-track mains" (with a very few too-tight 2-track exceptions, and in some places, even 6 tracks) - to handle all their traffic between NYC and Chicago (and Washington, D.C., too for the PRR). Which was basically a fast (through) and a slow (local) track in each direction. And then they installed interlockings - with like 6 crossovers to get all the way across those 4 tracks and back again, complete with block towers that were manned 24 x 7 x 365 - like every 6 to 10 miles to facilitate the kind of maneuvers that we're discussing here. Can you imagine what that cost to do then ?
Better yet, can you imagine what it would cost to replicate all that today ? Now we can better appreciate the value of all that track, structure, and signal infrastructure and route-miles and track-miles that's already out there now. It staggers the imagination (at least mine tonight, anyway).
Locomotives are fungible, sidings are sunk costs. There's a very tough ROI threshold to build a siding. Figure $250 foot plus not less than $1 million for the two control points, plus design, permitting, right-of-way, utility relocation, etc. -- oh, about $5 million for a 10,000-foot siding in good country. With no bridges. In tough country, maybe $8-10 million. In an urban area with right-of-way acquisition? Ka-ching. It's a lot less risky to purchase locomotives because its very difficult to project future traffic growth with a high degree of precision. There have been some very embarrassing projects built during my career that were deemed absolutely essential at the time but shortly afterward the traffic pattern changed and there's a lot of track and earthwork suddenly doing nothing.
Paul, as you mention the four track mains (which extended to Buffalo and Pittsburgh), don't forget Zoo interlocking. There, the PRR, at no little expense,arranged all the connecting tracks so that no train crossed, at grade, a track for traffic in the opposite direction.
Paul_D_North_JrWow - we've rolled quite a number of more-or-less related topics into this poor abused thread, haven't we ? Well, now I want to take my 40-mile siding analysis (above), and "bring it on home" with a location-type question, as follows: (By the way, note that RWM was right again when he said - a l-ooo-nnn-g ways above - that a lot of this can be worked out with a pencil and an envelope - the computer just makes it more sophisticated, as diningcar noted just above with his recounting of the Santa Fe's analysis of such things.) Take my hypothetical 40-mile, $100 million siding scenario above. How much will it cost ? Well, to borrow $1,000 now to pay back over 30 years at a 6 % interest rate will cost $6.00 per month, so the $100 million siding will cost . . . [calculates - there sure are a lot of zeroes in here !] . . . $600,000 per month, or about $20,000 per day ! Add something for maintenance (40 miles at $10,000 per mile per year for heavy traffic = $1,100 per day or so), taxes, insurance, whatever - call it close to $24,000 per day or $1,000 per hour. Even on a busy line, I doubt if that passing siding will get used for this purpose as often as once an hour - the train density just isn't going to be / can't be that heavy, due to other factors - but let's assume that it will be 1 per hour anyway. So each train that uses this passing siding costs us $1,000. Now, my intermodal train from yesterday is earning $9,000 revenue per hour. Is this siding worth it to save that train some running time ? [I know, there's some comparing of "revenue apples-to- expense oranges" in this, and non-linear effects, too, but bear with me here.) Well, if that intermodal train saves at least $1,000 worth of that $9,000 per hour, which is about 7 minutes or more, then the answer is yes. But can or will the intermodal train save that much time, and what about other things that might get in its way ? In other words, if the 60 MPH intermodal train instead had to slow down and "dog along" behind the 40 MPH coal train for an hour, what result ? Well, the IM would only go 40 miles, instead of the 60 miles it would have otherwise if ithe IM could have continued unimpeded. So the IM now has to recover 20 miles of distance, which will take at least 20 minutes at its nominal speed of 60 MPH - and 30 minutes at the slower 40 MPH if the IM continues following behind the coal train. So on the surface, the initial analysis is that the siding could well pay for itself, if a lot of intermodal or similar high-value trains are using it. Now, here are the "location" questions: What are some other alternatives for getting the IM around the coal train ? Well, the obvious and traditional one of stopping the coal train in a conventional 10,000 ft. long siding is maybe not such a good idea - too much delay there, and slow moves brakng to get into it and stop, and then coming out of it and getting back up to track speed. But instead of building a 40-mile long siding in the assumed flat territory, maybe the smart thing to do is put this passing siding on an grade. There, the coal train - with its comparatively low HP/ton ratio - will be dragging uphill at only 15 or 20 MPH, while the intermodal train - with its comparatively high HP/ton ratio - can better maintain its higher speed and run uphill much faster. Then the IM, with its larger speed differential and hence a higher overtaking rate, can get around the coal train much faster, and so the siding doesn't need to be near as long. Or, why not put the siding on a moderate downgrade ? That way, the coal train can head in and either slow way down, or even stop. Now that ECP (Electronically Controlled Pneumatic) brakes are starting to be implemented in the coal train fleet, this maneuver won't be quite as problematic as it might have been up until now. With that much more of a speed differential, it follows that the intermnodal train could get around the coal train much faster, and the passing siding could be much shorter. And with the coal train being on a moderate downgrade, getting back up to speed might not be that difficult - release the brakes and let gravity do a lot of that work. It would take a "driver" = locomotive engineer, Road Foreman of Engines ("RFE"), a trainmaster, or a similar person with a lot of actual operating experience to evaluate and judge these alternatives. So, any thoughts or comments on them from out there ? - Paul North.
Wow - we've rolled quite a number of more-or-less related topics into this poor abused thread, haven't we ?
Well, now I want to take my 40-mile siding analysis (above), and "bring it on home" with a location-type question, as follows: (By the way, note that RWM was right again when he said - a l-ooo-nnn-g ways above - that a lot of this can be worked out with a pencil and an envelope - the computer just makes it more sophisticated, as diningcar noted just above with his recounting of the Santa Fe's analysis of such things.)
Take my hypothetical 40-mile, $100 million siding scenario above. How much will it cost ? Well, to borrow $1,000 now to pay back over 30 years at a 6 % interest rate will cost $6.00 per month, so the $100 million siding will cost . . . [calculates - there sure are a lot of zeroes in here !] . . . $600,000 per month, or about $20,000 per day ! Add something for maintenance (40 miles at $10,000 per mile per year for heavy traffic = $1,100 per day or so), taxes, insurance, whatever - call it close to $24,000 per day or $1,000 per hour.
Even on a busy line, I doubt if that passing siding will get used for this purpose as often as once an hour - the train density just isn't going to be / can't be that heavy, due to other factors - but let's assume that it will be 1 per hour anyway. So each train that uses this passing siding costs us $1,000.
Now, my intermodal train from yesterday is earning $9,000 revenue per hour. Is this siding worth it to save that train some running time ? [I know, there's some comparing of "revenue apples-to- expense oranges" in this, and non-linear effects, too, but bear with me here.) Well, if that intermodal train saves at least $1,000 worth of that $9,000 per hour, which is about 7 minutes or more, then the answer is yes. But can or will the intermodal train save that much time, and what about other things that might get in its way ? In other words, if the 60 MPH intermodal train instead had to slow down and "dog along" behind the 40 MPH coal train for an hour, what result ? Well, the IM would only go 40 miles, instead of the 60 miles it would have otherwise if ithe IM could have continued unimpeded. So the IM now has to recover 20 miles of distance, which will take at least 20 minutes at its nominal speed of 60 MPH - and 30 minutes at the slower 40 MPH if the IM continues following behind the coal train. So on the surface, the initial analysis is that the siding could well pay for itself, if a lot of intermodal or similar high-value trains are using it.
Now, here are the "location" questions: What are some other alternatives for getting the IM around the coal train ? Well, the obvious and traditional one of stopping the coal train in a conventional 10,000 ft. long siding is maybe not such a good idea - too much delay there, and slow moves brakng to get into it and stop, and then coming out of it and getting back up to track speed.
But instead of building a 40-mile long siding in the assumed flat territory, maybe the smart thing to do is put this passing siding on an grade. There, the coal train - with its comparatively low HP/ton ratio - will be dragging uphill at only 15 or 20 MPH, while the intermodal train - with its comparatively high HP/ton ratio - can better maintain its higher speed and run uphill much faster. Then the IM, with its larger speed differential and hence a higher overtaking rate, can get around the coal train much faster, and so the siding doesn't need to be near as long.
Or, why not put the siding on a moderate downgrade ? That way, the coal train can head in and either slow way down, or even stop. Now that ECP (Electronically Controlled Pneumatic) brakes are starting to be implemented in the coal train fleet, this maneuver won't be quite as problematic as it might have been up until now. With that much more of a speed differential, it follows that the intermnodal train could get around the coal train much faster, and the passing siding could be much shorter. And with the coal train being on a moderate downgrade, getting back up to speed might not be that difficult - release the brakes and let gravity do a lot of that work.
It would take a "driver" = locomotive engineer, Road Foreman of Engines ("RFE"), a trainmaster, or a similar person with a lot of actual operating experience to evaluate and judge these alternatives. So, any thoughts or comments on them from out there ?
Your siding on the downgrade has to be signaled for a non-ECP train because even ECP trains might fail and go into non-ECP mode, and there is no way the FRA is going to let you write a special instruction that says you can only use the siding for ECP trains, even should you want to do something that risky! Downhill sidings have some very bad effects on wayside signal spacing, which will rob capacity for plain-old trains that will never take it. In general? A heavy train will never be routed into a downhill siding because there's way too much risk it will come out the other end. As a dispatcher, I never routed a downhill heavy train into a siding without first talking to the hoghead, and making sure he was comfortable with it. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't.
We build hundreds of scenarios like this and test them with the RTC model. It's not a black-box model; it only tests what you put in. So if you put in garbage, you get dumb results. But those of us that are using it are mostly old chief dispatchers so we have extra-gray hair and lots of skepticism. These days no passenger train or line change or new siding or anything will be built without running it on the RTC model, and the people who look at the results and figure out what to do with them are people like me -- former chief dispatchers, superintendents, and the like; people whose job it is every day to make a division or a region run.
Paul, you have the wrong set of people. Train dispatchers and signal engineers are the people who know how a railroad operates as opposed to how a train operates. The braking curves are worked out by formula and experience. RFEs play in that game and are the experts who will tell you if a braking curve is too aggressive. (We also work closely with specialty rail track/train dynamic firms that analysze buff forces, etc.). The braking curves set the signal spacing. The signal spacing says what trains are going to do for speed and spacing. Trainmasters have no role in designing infrastructure or in service design or in network planning; their job is to get crews out the door, do efficiency tests, go to investigations, and solve local problems. I have never in my career seen a trainmaster stick his nose into a dispatching office much less know what goes on there. At the level of an assistant superintendent, then that person better start learning how a railroad operates not just a train. Most of the annointed up-and-comers are secunded to a dispatching office as an ACD for awhile so they can learn something of how a railroad operates.
If you want to do overtakes, you build outside sidings. You put the slow train into them and wait until the fleet runs by, then bring them out. You will oftentimes hog them out, of course. That's the breaks. There is usually not a lot of economic incentive to run the wheels off a heavy train anyway. If the coal or grain train has a 72-hour cycle or a 70-hour cycle, so what? These trainsets usually end up parked a month of the year anyway, so the "savings" in time never accrues to anything useful, like less car capital costs. The economic incentive to speeding up coal and grain trains with higher hp/ton ratios is mostly so that they will not delay trains that have a significant time component to them. The tradeoff, then, is between building sidings to stash 1.2 hp/ton grain and coal trains into to get them out of the way of the hotshots, and not building sidings and powering them up to 2.0 hp/ton to try and run them ahead of the hotshots. Generally the plan for most Class 1s in recent years has been more power, less sidings. This is precisely what we test with the RTC model -- comparing alternatives, conceptually costing the thing, and seeing which business case works better.
CSSHEGEWISCH The operating examples shown above go a long way in explaining why, after running a test train, BNSF declined to bid on the UPS request for super-speed service, the so-called Bullet Trains.
The operating examples shown above go a long way in explaining why, after running a test train, BNSF declined to bid on the UPS request for super-speed service, the so-called Bullet Trains.
Thanks Paul, for a fine example of the sophistication of today's railway management.
Santa Fe had hired industrial engineers several years prior to the merger with BN and used their education and experience to analyze these proposals. I presume BN had some also at the time of the merger.
Santa Fe had a 'train simulator' computer program which was very sophisticated as early as 1975. For the TRANSCON it had the alignment, profile, special circumstances associated with a line gegment and even took into account prevailing winds and their effect on train resistance all loaded into a data base. It was used for power allocation, locomotive purchases, signal spacing and braking application studies, as well as other uses. These BNSF people keep improving upon their analysis techniques which is illustrated by the example Paul has given.
henry6 I am not saying any service should be started just because somebody comes to the door with the need or idea...again I am not just talking passenger train here...but the customer and the railroad have to work out an agreement. It would be assumed that some kind of market research has been done and planning, etc. of some kind, too...real business people with business plans and understandings and not pie in the sky railfans. If it is to move logs, cars, people, coal, whatever, it has to have a business plan and an understood markting concept. Why do the business experts here keep slamming the door on innovation and possible growth by dismissing an idea out of hand and suggesting that the railroad do the same.
I am not saying any service should be started just because somebody comes to the door with the need or idea...again I am not just talking passenger train here...but the customer and the railroad have to work out an agreement. It would be assumed that some kind of market research has been done and planning, etc. of some kind, too...real business people with business plans and understandings and not pie in the sky railfans. If it is to move logs, cars, people, coal, whatever, it has to have a business plan and an understood markting concept. Why do the business experts here keep slamming the door on innovation and possible growth by dismissing an idea out of hand and suggesting that the railroad do the same.
Other people have had the same idea you have, starting about 37 years ago to be exact. I have had responsibility for reviewing the business cases and advancing on their merits (if there are any!) 8 such proposals during the past 2 years. Two are on my desk right now. My predecessors did the same, and many of their analyses are behind me on my bookshelves. Most of these ideas failed to get off the drawing board because none of them could effectively compete for the resources they required from the railway facility with other active customers of the railway facility. But when they do get enacted, no one in the railfan community ever celebrates our adoption of a new idea or an outside proposal, they just condemn us for not doing it faster and more often. With a "enthusiast" group like that, who needs enemies?
I appreciate your tireless promoting of ideas; people need to do that. But your conclusion that since we're not all jumping on it that we must be closed-minded, not that the business case is deficient, has no evidence and no logic I can find to support it. I'm too old and grey-haired to be insulted any more.
This is precisely why even though many of us inside the industry -- at some very high levels -- are died-in-the-wool rail enthusiasts, we don't want to be labeled as such or associate with such, because some rail enthusiasts are the most frustrating people we ever meet, worse than the dumbest-post politician. Too often they are the ones that are closed-minded ... to reality. It's hard to explain to other people at the railroad why we would want to associate with a group of people whose prescriptions if enacted would bankrupt the company, wreck our families, and put us all into the soup-kitchen lines. (And that's why most of us are here under an alias.)
Railway Man In practical terms, the amount of "wrong-hand main" that will be used up for a runaround in reasonably flat CTC territory where both trains keep moving at their best possible speed is ~ 40 miles. This is presupposing there are no opposing moves wanting to use that other main track during this event. It still takes a very good dispatcher to get away with it, and a smart ACD or Chief will only let a good dispatcher attempt it. If you have that kind of low train density on a consistent basis that you can do stunts like this, you are maintaining an awful lot of track that is not being paid for by the traffic. Rail operations is the science of balancing expense with revenue. A solution that optimizes revenue will be very expensive to implement. A solution that optimizes expense runs zero trains. [snip; emphasis added - PDN] RWM
Thanks for confirming the 40-mile conclusion with your real-world insight. The essential conclusion, of course, is that putting any train with a differential speed requirement on a line with tight operations is inevitably and unavoidably going to be either hugely disruptive and hence unacceptable to the railroad, or else hugely expensive to mitigate, and hence unaffordable for someone. When you think of adding a "plain" single track at $1 - 2 million per mile, plus the interlockings at each end and crossovers every 10 miles in between, that siding is going to cost at least $40 to $80 million, plus any special structures (sure to be a few) - say, $100 million. And what - 3 to 5 years to design permit, build, and accept ? That's why no new passenger trains will be added to any busy main line anytime soon. And when they are, the invitation will be like to a high-stakes poker game: "Show up - and bring money !"
LOL (again !) at your last statement, too. Don't you just love how many CEOs and business people focus on that - only ? As you know, of course, the optimal solution is the one that maximizes (long term) net revenue, which is the difference between revenue - expense. A minor mathematical* and technical point - that's not the absolute balance between the two, but instead the solution = operation where each $1.00 change in revenue will have the effect of a $1.00 change in expense in the same direction - both increase, or both decrease. Anything else is by definition sub-optimal. And anyone who has either the judgment or crystal ball to discern that point in all situations with accuracy, precision, and certainty, hasn't made his/ her presence or talent known to us yet.
[* - Where the slope (1st derivative) of the curve of revenue - expense is equal to zero.]
Two things: Death Valley Scotty was a one time thing. He himself was not looking to run fast non stop passenger service to Chicago. But, ironically, he did show the Sante Fe what might be done if they really wanted to do it. But that's not what I am talking about here..
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diningcar [snip] Paul, if another "Scottie" showed up today with a similar proposal he may not have enough money, even with the current slowdown. The disruption of the TRANSCON, and the ancillary disruptions, would be difficult to compute. In 1905 Santa Fe was promoting the passenger business and considered this a public relations project. [snip]
HAH ! Good point ! Using the figure of $9,000 revenue per hour for a typical intermodal train that I developed in my post of 11:52 AM yesterday (02-11-2009), for a 40 hour trip "window" that would be $360,000 or so - probably more like twice that to allow for contingencies, extra supervision, disruption to other trains along the way as you mention, etc. But if I had a spare $ Megabuck I might call Matt Rose up and ask if he too wants to do something to earn a good buck and capture the nation's attention and get it off the other silliness in all of its various forms . . .
- PDN.
diningcarRegarding taking on passenger service in these 'lean times', that would be like pregnancy with no option for abortion. The public, with their legislators, would make it very difficult or impossible to terminate.
Regarding taking on passenger service in these 'lean times', that would be like pregnancy with no option for abortion. The public, with their legislators, would make it very difficult or impossible to terminate.
A graphic and utterly true analogy.
Paul_D_North_JrAs RWM and maybe others have told us, the required length of passing sidings for trains to get around each other is horrendous. A couple weeks ago I worked out in my head something like a 60 MPH intermodal passing a 40 MPH manifest or coal train - each 10,000 ft. long, and moving at a constant speed - and also came up with a figure in the 25-mile range. Here's how the approximate math works:<edit for space>Other values for these numbers could be used ("YMMV" = Your Mileage May Vary !), but the conclusions will be similar. Practially, that has to be getting close to a 40-mile long passing siding, which may as well be effectively a another main track. It feels like this entire maneuver would take those two trains halfway across Nebraska to consummate ! - Paul North.
As RWM and maybe others have told us, the required length of passing sidings for trains to get around each other is horrendous. A couple weeks ago I worked out in my head something like a 60 MPH intermodal passing a 40 MPH manifest or coal train - each 10,000 ft. long, and moving at a constant speed - and also came up with a figure in the 25-mile range. Here's how the approximate math works:
Other values for these numbers could be used ("YMMV" = Your Mileage May Vary !), but the conclusions will be similar. Practially, that has to be getting close to a 40-mile long passing siding, which may as well be effectively a another main track. It feels like this entire maneuver would take those two trains halfway across Nebraska to consummate !
In practical terms, the amount of "wrong-hand main" that will be used up for a runaround in reasonably flat CTC territory where both trains keep moving at their best possible speed is ~ 40 miles. This is presupposing there are no opposing moves wanting to use that other main track during this event. It still takes a very good dispatcher to get away with it, and a smart ACD or Chief will only let a good dispatcher attempt it. If you have that kind of low train density on a consistent basis that you can do stunts like this, you are maintaining an awful lot of track that is not being paid for by the traffic. Rail operations is the science of balancing expense with revenue. A solution that optimizes revenue will be very expensive to implement. A solution that optimizes expense runs zero trains.
The RTC tool is used to model runaround scenarios in specific terrains, which saves a great deal on all the pencil, paper, and calculator work that Paul did above. This enables accuracy for a specific terrain with specific grades, speed restrictions, wayside signal locations, wayside signal aspects, etc. Then I look at it and see if it makes any sense. Sometimes the model does some dumb things, or the modeler has toggles turned on that make the model a little more aggressive than would happen in real life.
Paul_D_North_Jr henry6 And, incidenlty, let me add that I am not just talking about passenger service...I am talking about anybody who walks into the railroad office and wants to buy: it is a perfect time for them to explore new avenues of income and find out what they might have to or want to do to get it. [emphasis added - PDN] Are you familiar with the story of "Death Valley Scotty" ? He was a miner who struck it rich. Back in July 1905, he chartered a special short passenger train on the AT&SF from California to Chicago, pretty much just for the heck of it to see how fast they could do it ? The trip was made with specially selected locos and enginemen and a couple of reporters on board, closely supervised by ATSF officials. It's something of a legend: "The entire nation followed the “Coyote Special.” As the train sped along the 2,265-mile journey, bulletins were flashed from the railroad to the press. Cheering crowds lined the tracks. When the train arrived at Chicago’s Dearborn Station on July 11 at 11:45 a.m., two days later, it had covered the entire distance in 44 hours, 54 minutes, breaking the old record by nearly eight hours. The record would stand unmatched for more than 30 years, until the advent of diesel locomotives." - From a 2002 article in the Los Angeles Times, at: http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jul/28/local/me-then28 - Paul North. EDIT - add: Good grief, there's a ton of more info on this in the Wikipedia article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Special
henry6 And, incidenlty, let me add that I am not just talking about passenger service...I am talking about anybody who walks into the railroad office and wants to buy: it is a perfect time for them to explore new avenues of income and find out what they might have to or want to do to get it. [emphasis added - PDN]
Are you familiar with the story of "Death Valley Scotty" ? He was a miner who struck it rich. Back in July 1905, he chartered a special short passenger train on the AT&SF from California to Chicago, pretty much just for the heck of it to see how fast they could do it ? The trip was made with specially selected locos and enginemen and a couple of reporters on board, closely supervised by ATSF officials. It's something of a legend:
"The entire nation followed the “Coyote Special.” As the train sped along the 2,265-mile journey, bulletins were flashed from the railroad to the press. Cheering crowds lined the tracks.
When the train arrived at Chicago’s Dearborn Station on July 11 at 11:45 a.m., two days later, it had covered the entire distance in 44 hours, 54 minutes, breaking the old record by nearly eight hours. The record would stand unmatched for more than 30 years, until the advent of diesel locomotives."
- From a 2002 article in the Los Angeles Times, at: http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jul/28/local/me-then28
EDIT - add: Good grief, there's a ton of more info on this in the Wikipedia article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Special
Paul, if another "Scottie" showed up today with a similar proposal he may not have enough money, even with the current slowdown. The disruption of the TRANSCON, and the ancillary disruptions, would be difficult to compute. In 1905 Santa Fe was promoting the passenger business and considered this a public relations project. Several RR's did gooffy things back in those times - the MKT had two trains stage a head on with unmanned trains starting toward each other from either side of a valley, and had advertised it so there would be spectators.
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