Yes, let's hear the details!
Murphy Siding croteaudd Hello RWM,The idea is, through new time and operating efficiencies, and with only half the rolling stock, to accomplish the same output. It must be remembered that with present techniques in these hard economic times, nothing really benefits the railroads or their employees, only harms. On the other hand, having to maintain only half the rolling stock fleet because that half does twice the work, combined with resultant enhanced “time value of money” benefits to the railroad and its customers, more money would be available to retain employees, which happens to be the whole point of this topic in the first place. So, the railroads would sacrifice their new ‘savings’ profits in the short term (that they wouldn’t get anyway with present methods), but reap much, much higher profits in the long term when economic prosperity returns! ( I'm not RWM, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night ) OK, fine and well- you suggest to use 1/2 the equipment to to 100% of the work. Who wouldn't want to do that? But.....how exactly do you plan to do that? Why haven't the professional railroaders in our country figured this system out up until now? They've had 170 or so years to figure it out. I'm curious to hear the details of your plan.
croteaudd Hello RWM,The idea is, through new time and operating efficiencies, and with only half the rolling stock, to accomplish the same output. It must be remembered that with present techniques in these hard economic times, nothing really benefits the railroads or their employees, only harms. On the other hand, having to maintain only half the rolling stock fleet because that half does twice the work, combined with resultant enhanced “time value of money” benefits to the railroad and its customers, more money would be available to retain employees, which happens to be the whole point of this topic in the first place. So, the railroads would sacrifice their new ‘savings’ profits in the short term (that they wouldn’t get anyway with present methods), but reap much, much higher profits in the long term when economic prosperity returns!
Hello RWM,The idea is, through new time and operating efficiencies, and with only half the rolling stock, to accomplish the same output.
It must be remembered that with present techniques in these hard economic times, nothing really benefits the railroads or their employees, only harms. On the other hand, having to maintain only half the rolling stock fleet because that half does twice the work, combined with resultant enhanced “time value of money” benefits to the railroad and its customers, more money would be available to retain employees, which happens to be the whole point of this topic in the first place.
So, the railroads would sacrifice their new ‘savings’ profits in the short term (that they wouldn’t get anyway with present methods), but reap much, much higher profits in the long term when economic prosperity returns!
OK, fine and well- you suggest to use 1/2 the equipment to to 100% of the work. Who wouldn't want to do that? But.....how exactly do you plan to do that? Why haven't the professional railroaders in our country figured this system out up until now? They've had 170 or so years to figure it out. I'm curious to hear the details of your plan.
Today's railroads are handling more tonnage with fewer cars and people than they ever have at ANY time in the past; which leads to the assumption that this trend will continue into the future.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Don:Thanks for the explanation of the intermodal operations. One NS train I have always wondered about is the 25A. It runs from Chicago daily to Ft Wayne and then south. The destination is not clear. I have heard it runs to Danville, Ky. Is that another block swap location?
The St. Louis/Louisville line joins in at Danville, so is it possible it is combined to another train? Another possibility is it drops Cincinnati and Lexington in route.
The train handles double stacks and also intermodals, including UPS trailers. It is usually a pretty good sized train, 150 - 200 intermodal units is standard.
ed
oltmannd On a large RR I am familiar with, the typcial number of intermediate handlings per trip, not counting the originating and terminating yards, is about one and a half. For one complete cycle, a freight car will spend about 10% of the time on a through freight train, 25% at an intermediate yard and the rest getting to, from and at the customer which would include time at the origin and destination yards, time on a local train, and time at the customer's facility.
For one complete cycle, a freight car will spend about 10% of the time on a through freight train, 25% at an intermediate yard and the rest getting to, from and at the customer which would include time at the origin and destination yards, time on a local train, and time at the customer's facility.
At the risk of inviting all kinds of grief ("Fools rush in !", as my 12th grade calculus instructor used to yell at us) - but as my start to following-up on the above post and RWM's insights into velocity and car-cycle time:
"I have in my hand* . . . " a print-out from the BNSF website's "Carload Transit Schedules" page from Aurora, Illinois to Fullerton, California - 2 points at the opposite ends of its Southern TransCon that I picked just at random. That page/ application / print-out provides "Estimated Transit" times for car "Releases" on each day of the week, which range from 9 Days 12 Hours (released by 5:00 PM on Sun. & Tues.) to 10 D-12 H (Mon., Fri., & Sat.) 11 D - 12 H (Thu.), and 12 D - 12 H (Weds.).
Good grief - that's from 228 to 300 hours (also conveniently provided) for about 2,200 miles (my estimate), or an average speed of from around 10 MPH down to about 7.3 MPH. BNSF's road trains are around 20 MPH average for 110 hours, and Terminal (yard) Dwell times are around 20 to 24 hours average, so that's another 100 hours for say 4 yards, so I guess the rest 1 to 3 days - is for locals, system delays, etc.
This may not be the best example - BNSF might well be able to commit to a better transit time for a specific customer, known shipment and date, and a premium rate - but I thought it would be a useful example of what we're discussing here.
I need to head out now, but before I go, I'll add that we may also be worrying about "a tempest in a teapot", or the proverbial "tail wagging the dog" here. These days, the bulk of the rail traffic seems to be coal, intermodal, grain, and multi-level (autos) unit trains or big blocks of cars. The individual or small blocks of cars may just be the small change / scraps /leavings of the business, that look bad in isolation sitting in the yard, but in the overall scheme of things don't amount to much in the way of inefficiency. More on this later.
- Paul North.
(* - Standard introduction to a question by 1950s Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his anti-communist hearings, I believe)
Paul: Carload earns very good money. Conventional wisdom five years ago was "carload is dead," but now the more progressive are thinking it's a huge opportunity for growth in volume, revenue, and profit, and you will see several billions of dollars invested into improvements in the carload business in the next 10 years, including several new hump yards.
The Class 1 railroad business mix moves as follows, in round numbers:
Multiple handlings are not unusual, and range from a per-trip number of visits to yards of 4 to 8, depending upon which Class 1 you're considering.
Here's a sample trip for a centerbeam of lumber loading on a western short line and moving long east through Chicago to a destination on an eastern short line.
Day 1: Generally the car will be released by the consignor in late afternoon, and the short line will pick it up that night.
Day 2: The car will arrive at the interchange early the next morning, and get picked up by a local. That local will move the interchange block to a regional yard arriving midday. The regional yard will generally build an outbound train and dispatch it eastward toward the first regional hump yard that night.
Day 3: The inbound train will arrive the hump yard yard early the next morning, and the train will be humped. Our car will go into a bowl track with a Chicago block probably specific to the next carrier. Those bowl tracks will fill with other inbound traffic during the day, and sometime about 12 hours after the first cars arrive, the tracks will will be ready to be trimmed and assembled in block order in the departure yard. Now our car is into a Chicago train that leaves that night.
Day 4-6: Train moves east, arriving Chicago late on Day 6. The train is steel-wheel interchanged to the eastern carrier, and moves to a hump yard for sorting into a destination yard on the eastern Class 1.
Day 7: The car leaves the hump yard east of Chicago and heads for a east-coast yard, arriving around midnight that day.
Day 8. The car is sorted into a train for a local support yard, and moves to that yard.
Day 9: The car is sorted into a local at that yard, and switched to the short line.
Day 10: The short line picks up the car and spots it to the consignee in the early morning hours.
Total transit time 9 hours, 4 hours, three interchanges -- there are a LOT of handlings here, but this is not excessive. If you think through how to reduce handlings, you're left with the interesting conclusion that the best way out of this hole is to build volumes, because with volume there can be larger volumes between each O-D pair and each intermediate point, and yards can be bypassed. Counterintuitively, the larger the volume becomes, the less you need yards. The unit train is best thought of not as a train that avoids yards, but as a train that outgrew the need for a yard. This is precisely why railways are becoming a cash-printing machine -- cut the rates, build the volumes, the efficiencies become tremendous, the cash flow becomes quite attractive.
RWM
Several points and a couple of questions:
The trip log by RWM seemed a bit ambitious to me. But, I have no reference. Is that a typical real scenario, or best case?
Trains had a map awhile back showing carload movements from Houston area to the Northeast. That was an eye opener. Also, there was a Trains article about 7 years ago regarding carload freight adn the $$$ generated. I will attempt to find it.
In the discussions of intermodal west and east of Chicago, it became very obvious the system is much more complex than originally thought. Considerable volume of intermodal moves to and thru Chicago. A couple of questions...
1. Is Chicago the major interchange point for W/E intermodal? What percentage moves thru Chicago vs St. Louis? Is Kansas City via NS much of a interchange? My initial impression that it is not, but that is only a guess. If it is not a major point, is that due to western carriers not wishing to short haul themselves, or is it more due to the nature of building the intermodals at Chicago and the system network that has developed there?
2. Is there much trailer (as opposed to stack) handled from west to east, or even Midwest to east that passes thru Chicago? Or is Chicago the line in the sand for trailers? For example, say Atlanta - Minneapolis or Omaha - Buffalo?
MP173Several points and a couple of questions: The trip log by RWM seemed a bit ambitious to me. But, I have no reference. Is that a typical real scenario, or best case?
It's a simple case, and yes, it's a good case -- there are no blown connections, overtonnage trains, weather events, etc. The idea is to get consistency more than speed. I know of almost no shipper who would not glady trade a 14-day cycle for a 16-day cycle if it was always a 16-day cycle and not sometimes a 12-day and others a 22-day. Inconsistent cycles just kill shipper costs and management time.
Trains had a map awhile back showing carload movements from Houston area to the Northeast. That was an eye opener. Also, there was a Trains article about 7 years ago regarding carload freight adn the $$$ generated. I will attempt to find it. In the discussions of intermodal west and east of Chicago, it became very obvious the system is much more complex than originally thought. Considerable volume of intermodal moves to and thru Chicago. A couple of questions... 1. Is Chicago the major interchange point for W/E intermodal? What percentage moves thru Chicago vs St. Louis? Is Kansas City via NS much of a interchange? My initial impression that it is not, but that is only a guess. If it is not a major point, is that due to western carriers not wishing to short haul themselves, or is it more due to the nature of building the intermodals at Chicago and the system network that has developed there?
Chicago is by far the major gateway for intermodal. Second tier (and it's a distant second) is St. Louis and Memphis; then Meridian, then at a distant fifth, New Orleans. Memphis is a growth story; St. Louis is stagnant. Kansas City is purely an auto and carload play for NS. The reason for Chicago is not so much short-haul as that the infrastructure was already in place with spare capacity created when passenger trains evaporated, and more importantly, Chicago is an enormous load center in its own right. It makes a lot of economic sense to send as much traffic as possible to Chicago, and tag-along the through traffic with the Chicago traffic. The reason it's desirable to consolidate the Chicago traffic with the through traffic is the alternative is ugly -- it more than doubles the amount of space required at the ports, more than doubles the port dwell time, and more than doubles the intermodal terminal handling costs. Under the "everything goes to Chicago" model, the port flings everything onto the first available string of well cars and away it goes and clears out the port. Otherwise the port has to build two trains at the same time, one for Chicago and one for the other gateway, and the dwell time goes up and the space requirement doubles, and the handling costs more than double.
Also, St. Louis is a costly, slow terminal.
There's lots of UPS, TL, and LTL traffic through Chicago. But TL in general is under a lot of pressure from domestic container, or put another way, the line between TL and domestic container is blurry -- e.g., J.B. Hunt.
RWM:Great explanation, thanks.
I used the phrase "trailer" and actually should have used the term "truckload carrier". I am very much aware of the container movements by JBH and others...just my old trucking blood taking over.
Your explanation of "everything to Chicago" makes sense. Just get it out of here and let someone else sort it out later.
Now, getting back to KC and the Sunshine Band (sorry, I couldnt resist that), obviously it should be KC and NS...do you every see the time that route will be utilized for intermodal, as Chicago reaches a choke point and possible capacity eases as automotive manufacturing shifts from the Detroit model to who knows what?
Do you know if UP is using their Rochelle intermodal as a possible staging area for building eastbounds to CSX/NS or is that strickly for local drayage. Is the interchange across Chicago still nearly all rubber rather than steel? No wonder the roads are such a mess now...potholes you wouldnt believe.
It is really interesting looking back at old photos taken in the 70's of intermodal trains. First of all, I didnt see too many of them back then and it was a treat to see one. Second, they were all piggyback...the novelty of double stacks wore off pretty quickly after a few years. Third, the marketing graphics were really pretty neat, as were the boxcar graphics. One my favorite current trains of recent years was the NS217/218 pair between Chicago and Greensboro, NC. Up until last fall, all trailers, no stacks; quite a bit of UPS, Schneiders, and US Express (also EMP and JBH's).
217/218 always intrigued me. Even in the good economic times in the mid decade there would only be 50 - 60 trailers/containers. At $1000 per unit (maybe) it seemed like thin money.
croteaudd Everything perpetually seems to stand still in railroad yards.
Everything perpetually seems to stand still in railroad yards.
I think the fundamental point of the original poster is correct - railroad cars spend much of their time standing still.
I recall that the average number of loads a railroad car hauls in a year is 12 to 15. Is this accurate and how does this compare to truck trailers and containers?
Anthony
AnthonyVcroteaudd Everything perpetually seems to stand still in railroad yards. I think the fundamental point of the original poster is correct - railroad cars spend much of their time standing still. I recall that the average number of loads a railroad car hauls in a year is 12 to 15. Is this accurate and how does this compare to truck trailers and containers? Anthony
His observation was that rail cars spend much of their time not moving. His premise was that this was unnecessary and wasted money. His point was that railroads could make cars move faster and quit wasting money. We're waiting for his proof of concept.
The average number of loads per year a boxcar makes is around 15. The average number of loads a rotary gondola in unit train service makes is 50-plus. But so what? The goal of railroading isn't to turn cars fast, it's to make money. Measuring the number of trips per year and worshiping of that metric may actually reduce the amount of money a railroad makes.
It's grating to hear someone claim that we're all sitting on our hands not doing anything about car cycle times, especially when the claim comes without a proof of concept and has no apparent experience or science in support. But since there's doubt, let me assure you that for more than 150 years, somewhere around 2 million railroaders have been working long hours every day looking for ways to reduce the idle time on a boxcar, hopper, gon, or centerbeam in loose-car freight, and increase the number of cycles it makes. But not if it costs more money to do it then the money saved. Freight cars in the whole scheme of things are one of the cheaper inputs into moving freight. In raw, non-discounted numbers, if a centerbeam costs $50,000 and makes 500 trips in its lifetime, the cost of the car per trip is $100. That doesn't give much margin to play with here to seek alternative transportation methods for each trip to squeeze that $100 downward.
Asset turnover is always a factor in any business.
Grocery stores turn their assets quickly...to determine asset turnover, divide the assets of a company by it's yearly revenue. Their margins are fairly thin.
Jewelry stores on the other hand do not turn assets nevery as quick, but have very high margins. Obviously the sweet spot in business is to turn assets quickly with very high margins. A few companies do this, but most do not.
I believe that railroads have addressed this issue over the years. One method of addressing this has been the transfer of cars from railroad owned to private fleets. Overall, rolling stock is going to be a fairly small portion of the assets of a railroad, the land and track would seem to be a much larger asset pool. Thus, it would seem that the ideal situation would be to increase the productivity of those assets (ROW) by maximizing the revenue on that segment. Thus, you have the mix of high margin (carload) and lower margin (intermodal) plus the unit train moves.
Carload freight supports some very costly functions - local pickup and delivery and yard classification, while intermodal does not.
MP173RWM:Great explanation, thanks. I used the phrase "trailer" and actually should have used the term "truckload carrier". I am very much aware of the container movements by JBH and others...just my old trucking blood taking over. Your explanation of "everything to Chicago" makes sense. Just get it out of here and let someone else sort it out later. Now, getting back to KC and the Sunshine Band (sorry, I couldnt resist that), obviously it should be KC and NS...do you every see the time that route will be utilized for intermodal, as Chicago reaches a choke point and possible capacity eases as automotive manufacturing shifts from the Detroit model to who knows what? Do you know if UP is using their Rochelle intermodal as a possible staging area for building eastbounds to CSX/NS or is that strickly for local drayage. Is the interchange across Chicago still nearly all rubber rather than steel? No wonder the roads are such a mess now...potholes you wouldnt believe. It is really interesting looking back at old photos taken in the 70's of intermodal trains. First of all, I didnt see too many of them back then and it was a treat to see one. Second, they were all piggyback...the novelty of double stacks wore off pretty quickly after a few years. Third, the marketing graphics were really pretty neat, as were the boxcar graphics. One my favorite current trains of recent years was the NS217/218 pair between Chicago and Greensboro, NC. Up until last fall, all trailers, no stacks; quite a bit of UPS, Schneiders, and US Express (also EMP and JBH's). 217/218 always intrigued me. Even in the good economic times in the mid decade there would only be 50 - 60 trailers/containers. At $1000 per unit (maybe) it seemed like thin money. ed
The only part of this I can address (due to either lack of knowledge, or lack of freedom to comment, or both), is your intriguing question about the future value of the former Wabash to Kansas City, should the recent decline in finished auto traffic from the Detroit area prove permanent. That's a very good question. I can't answer it.
Yes, a great deal of the Chicago interchange is rubber. That will transistion to steel wheel if volumes increase dramatically, enabling terminals at the ends of the network to economically build full trains and full shiploads for terminals at the other ends of the network. Much of the reason why intermodal trains originating at ports are not full trainloads for some other terminal is that the ships arrive mine-run, because their boxes arrive at the originating port mine-run. The volume of boxes seems enormous, but when you break it down into O-D pairs the volume between most of the pairs is really quite small. I did some recent analysis on O-D pairs in the carload business in one of the major Class 1 lanes, and it was remarkable how there were only 20 or so large O-D pairs for every 10,000 very small pairs.
To Murphy Siding,Concerning your March 4, 7:57 a.m. post: The following bold letterings are your questions, but the normal type wordings are my replies … You suggest to use 1/2 the equipment to do 100% of the work. Who wouldn't want to do that?You would be surprised! It must be remembered that railroad management decision makers are highly paid and their time is at a premium, and, in my opinion, do not want to look at anything they can’t immediately figure out but consumes their time. Also, anyone that perceives that their income generating or profit making ability could be interfered with would resist and/or cause trouble. It is always risky to propose ideas that go against the established profiteers. But, those that developed the new concepts perceived how the economy worked and why people so often were pitted against each other, thus ways were masterminded to circumvent and eliminated the threatening, divisive issues altogether. But, people who feel the slightest bit threatened, but in reality would not be, don’t want to even hear anything or even take a chance.But.....how exactly do you plan to do that?It could be accomplished through an operating reorientation from “destinational” to “directional” thinking. Concepts can be proven with short term tests.Why haven't the professional railroaders in our country figured this system out up until now? They've had 170 or so years to figure it out.What CEO wants to possibly jeopardize their career with radical, non-traditional ideas? The status quo is the safe route. Also, as already mentioned, there are great forces at work to hinder anything new. That is an absolute historical fact.I'm curious to hear the details of your plan.I’m surprised! Since when does anyone connected with railroading want more information on this?Nevertheless, even though the effort has long been given up, here are a few recalled details:First: Railcars could be in near constant motion, and as previously mentioned, an A to B directional reorientation is believed to be best, and would dramatically speed-up service.Second: “Sorting facilities” that allows quick reshuffling of long or short sets of railcars are believed to be much better than “yards” where virtually nothing moves. In sorting facilities, no railcars would have their air deliberately bled by car workers.Third: A unification of management and labor must be done, so that they both perceive themselves on the same side against the mechanisms of the money system, a system that historically pits one against the other, and eventually causes the total demise of that civilization, a phenomena that has been repeated over and over. In understanding fully what is working against them, railroad management and labor thus can work as a team to protect themselves.So, Murphy Siding, I hope I’ve answered your reply post at least halfway adequately in light of the limitations of a forum format and the time constraints my personal life has placed upon me. Like it was stated above, the effort to get the attention of railroading has long been abandoned. This topic was concocted to just make people think. It is so sad to see railroaders furloughed and without a paycheck for feeding their families. Perhaps this topic can give the railroad brotherhood ideas to, in someway, protect themselves from the historically very, very dark side of money function.
I appreciate the explicit explanation of your ideology. That helps me to understand your position.
Railway Man AnthonyV croteaudd Everything perpetually seems to stand still in railroad yards. I think the fundamental point of the original poster is correct - railroad cars spend much of their time standing still. I recall that the average number of loads a railroad car hauls in a year is 12 to 15. Is this accurate and how does this compare to truck trailers and containers? Anthony His observation was that rail cars spend much of their time not moving. His premise was that this was unnecessary and wasted money. His point was that railroads could make cars move faster and quit wasting money. We're waiting for his proof of concept.
AnthonyV croteaudd Everything perpetually seems to stand still in railroad yards. I think the fundamental point of the original poster is correct - railroad cars spend much of their time standing still. I recall that the average number of loads a railroad car hauls in a year is 12 to 15. Is this accurate and how does this compare to truck trailers and containers? Anthony
Hadn't bothered reading this thread before. Now that I have, I see his point. And so do the railroads.
Does the term "velocity" ring a bell?
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
croteaudd: I'm not a railroader, I'm a railfan, just like you. From what I've read over the years about the history of the industry, and it's evolution, I'd wonder if you're seeing the big picture here. Over the past 170 or so years, the industry has been all about evolution, innovation, and improvement. Railroad history is full of people who were/are always trying to build a better mousetrap. I'm not sure where you get the impression that there's a simpler, better way to do things, and that the only thing keeping it down, is some sort of evil force fueled by money. I disagree.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
MP173 Don:Thanks for the explanation of the intermodal operations. One NS train I have always wondered about is the 25A. It runs from Chicago daily to Ft Wayne and then south. The destination is not clear. I have heard it runs to Danville, Ky. Is that another block swap location?
Yes. Danville does a lot of block swaps for intermodal and multilevel trains and, I think, some merchandise trains, as well. It's a good "wide spot in the road" to do this type of switching.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
MP173 One my favorite current trains of recent years was the NS217/218 pair between Chicago and Greensboro, NC. Up until last fall, all trailers, no stacks; quite a bit of UPS, Schneiders, and US Express (also EMP and JBH's). 217/218 always intrigued me. Even in the good economic times in the mid decade there would only be 50 - 60 trailers/containers. At $1000 per unit (maybe) it seemed like thin money.
One my favorite current trains of recent years was the NS217/218 pair between Chicago and Greensboro, NC. Up until last fall, all trailers, no stacks; quite a bit of UPS, Schneiders, and US Express (also EMP and JBH's).
217/218 runs via the N&W, so no stacking - at least until the Hearland Corridor work is done.
Some stats: For general service box car loads, typical actual transit times, dock to dock, in days:
(note: this includes time held at customer request)
croteaudd“Sorting facilities” that allows quick reshuffling of long or short sets of railcars are believed to be much better than “yards” where virtually nothing moves. In sorting facilities, no railcars would have their air deliberately bled by car workers.
From that little hint, I gather that the cars in your sorting facility would be sorted in a way that does not have them running on tracks with their wheels turning. I guess you must put the cars on special dollies that can run them in any direction of a big flat sorting table, place them into lines, and then run them back onto tracks.
croteauddMurphy Siding,Admittedly, as stupidly simple as the logistical aspects of the previously promoted rail operating concepts were, they were very difficult to see and comprehend, which may explain their absence in railroading today.It may be like an experience I once had. A neighbor just could not see what I was trying to get across to him. Why? I don’t know. But how many times does one have to state 2 + 2 = 4 for it to sink in? After an hour of basically saying the same thing with slight variations, the light popped on in his head. “Oh, I see what you are saying,” he humbly stated. Some of the stupidest simple things are hard to see.Most fascinatingly, things I thought of 20-25 years ago are slowly making their way into the industry. Necessity is the mother of invention, some say. Economic necessity is forcing the industry to look hard to find, and finding, new efficiencies. But, why do railroads see now what I saw 20-25 years ago? You can be the judge on that one, but if you reason it out, you may start thinking like I do …Hey, I’m curious, Murphy Siding. Did you take on the name after a Murphy Siding near you?
Murphy Siding was near where I lived as a kid, on the Milwaukee Road in western S.D.
croteaudd,
Sounds to me like you should talk to these people at Railcars Sequencing Turntables, LLC: http://www.freightturntables.com/home
They have it all worked out and will explain the details. Their website will load a demonstration in a minute or so. It is as simple as 2 + 2 = 4
When you get done checking that out, come back and tell us what you think of it.
If they really wanted to, I guess railroads could buy a bunch of 200-300 horsepower engines and run one or a few cars essentially non-stop directly from the shipper's dock to the consignee's facility. Maybe those engines could have a little sleeping compartment behind the engineer's position and with a two man crew each man could trade off running and sleeping.
That would solve the problem of cars standing still-except when loading or unloading-and certainly would provide plenty of jobs. I suppose that the railroads would have to figure out a way for these little trains to pass each other when coming in opposite directs on single track routes. They would also have to solve the problem of how to get a faster train to pass a slower train going in the same direction.
Don't know why someone hasn't thought of this, but maybe instead of having the engines and cars running on flanged steel wheels on tracks, these trains could run on flat hard concrete or black top pavement, perhaps using rubber tires. That would solve the passing problem. Even better, since federal, state and local governments have built a very extension route system or hard, flat roads, it wouldn't even be necessary for the railroads to build additional capacity to handle all the added trains involved in the new method of operation.
Oh, wait... Nevermind!
Those who suggest that railroads would be better off running short, fast and more frequent trains really fail to grasp the concept that railroads are a mass transportation system. The underlying and compelling economic factor is in the economy of scale produced by running long trains pulled by engines producing no more that maybe a couple of horse power per gross trailing ton and operated by two men. Consider that a 100 car train will have maybe 8 to 10 thousand tons of freight, the tonnage to manpower ratio is 4-5 thousand to 1. Compare that to a typical tonnage ot manpower ratio of about 40 to 1 for and over the road truck. Also, you won't find many 100 HP tractors pulling those trucks.
You might ask, if the ecomomics of the long train are so superior to motor trucks, why do the railroads not haul everything. The answer is they do, if the long train consists of one consigment from one shipper to one consignee. (Think coal, grain and other product unit trains.) If the train is made up of hundreds of consignments running between about as many origin destination pairs, then the railroad has an unavoidable operating and facility expense to gather all those cars place them on long trains and disperse them from the trains to the consignee's facilities. That adds a cost element to the shipment that lets a motor carrier to often be cost competitive. It also explains why, as noted in posts above, that the railroads work hard to build facilities and design operations to reduced the costs on that part of the business.
To get a better handle on the concept, consider that commuter railroads are also a form of mass transportation service with people instead of freight. Does anyone think it would make any sense if Chicago's Metra Service suddenly doubled the frequency of its trains? The trains could be half the size and might have slightly faster schedules, but the cost per rider would certainly be greater since the total number of crew personnel would just about double. A large number of riders might benefit since since the service would come closer to meet their specific individual starting and ending work schedules, but would they be willing to expend more for such convenience? Further, would anybody consider the design of a commuter rail sytem that had stations within walking distance of every potential rider to be economicly rational or feasible? In much the same way as trucks gather freight in trailers and containers to haul to the train "station" to be put on long trains, we all use cars or buses to get between our countless actual origins and destinations and the commuter train station. Those who do commute on trains usually do so because riding together with a train load of other people is less expensive than driving a car between the house and the job.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
MP173 Asset turnover is always a factor in any business. Grocery stores turn their assets quickly...to determine asset turnover, divide the assets of a company by it's yearly revenue. Their margins are fairly thin. Jewelry stores on the other hand do not turn assets nevery as quick, but have very high margins. Obviously the sweet spot in business is to turn assets quickly with very high margins. A few companies do this, but most do not. I believe that railroads have addressed this issue over the years. One method of addressing this has been the transfer of cars from railroad owned to private fleets. Overall, rolling stock is going to be a fairly small portion of the assets of a railroad, the land and track would seem to be a much larger asset pool. Thus, it would seem that the ideal situation would be to increase the productivity of those assets (ROW) by maximizing the revenue on that segment. Thus, you have the mix of high margin (carload) and lower margin (intermodal) plus the unit train moves. Carload freight supports some very costly functions - local pickup and delivery and yard classification, while intermodal does not. ed
Ed:
Money invested in rolling stock is not small by any means. Assuming a present-day average car cost of $50,000 and a fleet of 1.3 million cars, the replacement cost is $65 billion dollars.
Assuming a 40-year life, the average annual replacement cost is $1.6 billion.
I must admit these numbers are surprisingly high.
AnthonyVAssuming a present-day average car cost of $50,000
Bucyrus croteaudd, Sounds to me like you should talk to these people at Railcars Sequencing Turntables, LLC: http://www.freightturntables.com/home They have it all worked out and will explain the details. Their website will load a demonstration in a minute or so. It is as simple as 2 + 2 = 4 When you get done checking that out, come back and tell us what you think of it.
Oh, my!
oltmannd Bucyrus croteaudd, Sounds to me like you should talk to these people at Railcars Sequencing Turntables, LLC: http://www.freightturntables.com/home They have it all worked out and will explain the details. Their website will load a demonstration in a minute or so. It is as simple as 2 + 2 = 4 When you get done checking that out, come back and tell us what you think of it. Oh, my!
I hope croteaudd has had a chance to check it out. I think it is the very kind of out-of-the-box thinking that he is alluding to in this thread. I am waiting to hear back from him.
AnthonyVMP173 Asset turnover is always a factor in any business. Grocery stores turn their assets quickly...to determine asset turnover, divide the assets of a company by it's yearly revenue. Their margins are fairly thin. Jewelry stores on the other hand do not turn assets nevery as quick, but have very high margins. Obviously the sweet spot in business is to turn assets quickly with very high margins. A few companies do this, but most do not. I believe that railroads have addressed this issue over the years. One method of addressing this has been the transfer of cars from railroad owned to private fleets. Overall, rolling stock is going to be a fairly small portion of the assets of a railroad, the land and track would seem to be a much larger asset pool. Thus, it would seem that the ideal situation would be to increase the productivity of those assets (ROW) by maximizing the revenue on that segment. Thus, you have the mix of high margin (carload) and lower margin (intermodal) plus the unit train moves. Carload freight supports some very costly functions - local pickup and delivery and yard classification, while intermodal does not. ed Ed: Money invested in rolling stock is not small by any means. Assuming a present-day average car cost of $50,000 and a fleet of 1.3 million cars, the replacement cost is $65 billion dollars. Assuming a 40-year life, the average annual replacement cost is $1.6 billion. I must admit these numbers are surprisingly high. Anthony
Ed's point was that rolling stock cost is relatively small in the whole scheme of costs. I agree. My point is that rolling stock cost per trip is already so low that there is very little opportunity to make it smaller. A car-handling scheme that saves a whopping 25% of the car-cost per trip only makes sense if it can be done for around $25 or less in capital cost, variable cost, interest, taxes, and amortization. I'm avid to see the numbers for an alternative. It's easy to sit outside the industry and criticize it, but if there's not a spreadsheet showing the proposed savings, and a fully thought-out plan to implement it, then it should not be surprising if the critics are ignored. This is not a simple industry with simpletons running it.
RWM -
Thanks for the replies to my previous posts regarding yards, velocity, handlings, etc. I've been considering them and the other detailed comments and responses in the meantime, and keep coming back to 2 thoughts:
1) Yard Operation Models, of which more below; and,
2) "Continuity Equation" concept analysis - which is beloved by engineers of the fluid mechanics, hydraulics, hydrology, environmental, and other types, as well as accountants and diverse others - as applied to the closed sub-system of a yard. This essentially recognizes that for incompressible flows, over a longish period of time, "Volume / Carloads Out" has to equal "Volume Carloads In". Otherwise, there would be a net gain or loss of Volume/ Cars to the system /yard, and in a system / yard of fixed capacity (tracks), such a gain or loss can't happen. This concnept can be written as a mathematical algebraic equation in terms of flows in and out, and augmented by adding concentrations to each flow and volume the same as the environmental people do, because the concentrations would be analogous to the proportion of cars for a particular destination or block, etc. Further, they like to do differential equations to this to see how each of those concentrations change over time - but I digress, and all this needs some more thought before I want to post it.
Back to my Yard Operations Model inquiry: Can you tell us if you are aware of any, and if any of the large railroads use them with any regularity - like annually - to analyze and refine the operations of their yards ? I might be a whole lot less concerned about the apparent inefficiency of, say, 1,000 cars sitting in a yard with an average dwell time in the 24-hour range at $25 car hire per day - i.e., $25,000 per day in the aggregate = about 20 crew-starts, each and every day - if someone would tell me that this is indeed studied and actively managed, the same as crew starts and locomotives and fuel used, etc. Does any of the major railroads even monitor or track on a regular basis the number of car-days consumed by each yard on their system ?
You've mentioned using the Rail Traffic Controller model in several threads - as does the STB in the Operations portion of the Minor Environmental Impact Assessment (? terminology) in the CN-EJ&E transaction review. But I don't recall any mention of a similar tool regarding yard operations. About 10 years ago I had a phone conversation with a senior person at Multi-Modal and my recollection is that at the time he said there wasn't any such thing in widespread use*. It may well be that this kind of analysis is the traditional province of the industrial engineer "time-and-motion" types, and/ or is so specialized for each railroad and yard that it doesn't lend itself to portability or being used in situations or conditions other than with the parameters for which it was specifically designed. (Compare with your recounting in the Location thread of the earthwork grading software that was demonstrated to you several years ago and which resulted in an essentially unusable, unoperatable, continuously curving alignment with a roller-coaster profile, etc.)
What this leads to, of course, is whether there is a model of a node or hub operation, as contrasted with - and teamed up with - the RTC modeling for the spokes or line-haul operations. The next step would be to integrate the two models, so that the Yard Model feeds the RTC model, and vice-versa. Which is why I ask - I figure you should know, if anyone does.
When you have a moment, if you can. In the meantime, best wishes for the weekend.
*-Somewhere in that long-ago conversation was a discussion about programming computer code in the Fortran IV language. I have a suitable prize for anyone else who can remember the nuances of that.
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