What Doomed The 40 ft. Box Car?

[Anonymous]

Was it the 50 ft. box car?

Was it deregulation of the industry in the 1980s that permitted the expansion of intermodal services, particularly COFC?

Was it the disappearance of the less-than-carload shipments, i.e. the switch of those shipments to trucks?

All of the above?  Some more than others?

I'm just curious to know what brought-about the disappearance of such a common piece of rolling stock.  I've seen a few that have been converted to storage buildings.  The Minnesota Prairie Line has an ex-Katy 40' box near their engine shed, and I saw a NYC 40' box in a scrap yard in Cedar Rapids where the old ROCK roundhouse used to be (the box car and the scrap yard are long gone and dang it I never snapped a picture).

Inquiring minds must know. 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Add to the list:  The greater weight-carrying capacity of modern cars - trucks - wheels - axle bearings, which transitioned to roller-bearings instead of the old brass friction bearings - and of course, the rails and track.  A car that was only 40 ft. long often could not carry as much as these upgraded components would allow - it would 'cube out' for load before' weighing out' - so that length became a significant constraint in the economics and efficiency of the cars.

Also, the advent of higher-horsepower diesel locomotives, which made it possible and practical to haul loner trains of heavier cars. 

I'll leave it to someone else to post a definitive timeline of how car capacities increased over the years, but over the last weekend I saw an old 40 ft. long or so flatcar with a gross weight limit of 220,000 lbs. = payload of around 160,000 to 170,000 lbs.  Since then the gross weight limits have increased to 263,000 lbs. [or is/ was it 265,000 lbs. ?], then 286,000 lbs., and now 315,000 lbs.

- Paul North.

[henry6]

Railroaders finally started thinking out side the "box" car.  HIghway trucks were getting bigger, loads and products were changing shapes and deminsions, blowing on the thumb till railroads turned blue attitude no longer worked.  New ways, new sizes, new markets had to be found and made to work for the railroad as well as the shipper.  It was no longer a one size fits all world.

[gopherstate]

In the Upper Midwest it was simply the advent of 4427 cf and 4750 cf covered hoppers.  Most 40' box cars in this area (Minnesota) carried grain.  Simple economics made it cheaper and more efficient for the elevators to demand covered hoppers.  Easier to load and unload, cleaner, larger capacity and not as prone to loss as a box car.

[daveklepper]

first trucks, and then intermodal and containers, made inroads the general merchandise traffic these boxcars carried  - -- also.

[tree68]

Considering the number of 53' van trailers I see rolling down the highway...  They probably carry as much or more than a 40' boxcar.

Which also brings up the fact that trucks (semitractors, specifically) have also increased the amount they can haul.  Semitrailers have been increasing incrementally as well.

[ndbprr]

 

Add railroad attitude toward single car or LCL shipments.  They were very happy to see small shippers go to trucking.

[bubbajustin]

Intermodal cars , if you think about it, can haul twice the stuff (2 containers in one car)

[billio]

WIAR

Was it the 50 ft. box car?

Was it deregulation of the industry in the 1980s that permitted the expansion of intermodal services, particularly COFC?

Was it the disappearance of the less-than-carload shipments, i.e. the switch of those shipments to trucks?

All of the above?  Some more than others?

Combination of factors.  Dereg, plus the construction of the Interstate Highway system, certainly helped.  Interstate highways made it possible for truckers to compete head to head for single boxcar shipments.  For distances of less than 700 miles truckers seemed to enjoy a competitive advantage.  Moreover, single-car shipments are extremely expensive.  They involve a good deal of labor-intensive switching, require massive yards to sort single cars into trains, and eat up that one esource that, once consumed, can never be made up:  time.

As dereg took hold, several factors kicked into play.  1)  Railroads evolved from retailers to wholesalers (think multiple car shipments and unit : trains) wherein their natural economic advantage came to the fore.  2)  this helped nudge them away from car shipments of onesies and twosies (and concurrently, spelled the end for numerous light-density branch lines, a winnowing process that continues, albeit greatly abated, to this day.  Ditto for expensive local switching operations).  3)  Railroad management quality improved sharply as the corporate bureaucrats who flourished under 80 years of ICC regulation were gradually replaced by more, er, able businessmen whose focus was on the bottom line.  Managers, armed with much better cost data, began to take a hard look at the costs and revenues of the portfolio of services they offered, and single-car shipments became a focus of cost cutting.

In time, single boxcars came to be supplanted by TOFC and contailer service, and local switching came to be supplanted by more flexible and less expensive cartage and drayage service.  To correct a misimpression, dereg per se did not "permit" the expansion of intermodal service, but it sure hastened both its adoption and its profitability.  One recalls stories of Santa Fe making what seems in retrospect an almost laughably simple adjustment to the marketing of its intermodal service:  match the speed and quality of the service to the price shippers were charged.  An adjustment of this sort in the days of regulation would have been unthinkable and unlikely. 

LCL shipments haven't disappeared from the rails.  Many freight forwarders (agents who pick up and consolidate individual shipments) use intermodal rail for their shipments, loaded into trailers or containers.  Some BNSF Transcon trains consist largely of LCL shipments.

Boxcars haven't gone away, but have evolved, becoming larger and more specialized.  Larger boxcars (50-foot and longer) tend to move in multiple car shipments -- not too often will one see a single 50-footer in revenue service.  One multiple car shipment consumes as much switching as a single-car shipment, but carries a much bigger revenue payoff.  Guess which type railroads sell?  Why the larger car size?  More cubic carrying capacity (and more than a truck can carry), and some loads simply do lend themselves to moving in 40-footers (consider, as an extreme example, new autos, which once were transported in 40-foot boxcars, now move in specially designed highway trailers and in bi- and tri-level auto racks, which are much more efficient).  Auto parts (not too many moving these days, alas) move in 60- and 80-foot boxcars -- it would be ludicrous to even think of trying to cram auto body panels into a 40 foot boxcar.

Anyway, my two bits.  Hope this helps...

[greyhounds]

ndbprr

 

Add railroad attitude toward single car or LCL shipments.  They were very happy to see small shippers go to trucking.

No, they fought hard to keep the lucrative (potentially, at least) LCL business.  The dang government regulators drove 'em from it.

[ericsp]

bubbajustin

Intermodal cars , if you think about it, can haul twice the stuff (2 containers in one car)

 

A boxcar can haul more than a trailer or container. If I remember correctly, the gross vehicle weight for trucks is 80,000 pounds. The gross rail limit for boxcars is anywhere from 220,000 to 286,000 pounds. Also boxcar cubic capacities range from about 5,000 cubic feet up to about 7,500 cubic feet (10,000 if you include the 86' IL boxcars). A 53' trailer (assuming 110" IH and IW) is about 4454 cubic feet.

billio

WIAR

Was it the 50 ft. box car?

Was it deregulation of the industry in the 1980s that permitted the expansion of intermodal services, particularly COFC?

Was it the disappearance of the less-than-carload shipments, i.e. the switch of those shipments to trucks?

All of the above?  Some more than others?

Combination of factors.  Dereg, plus the construction of the Interstate Highway system. . .

As dereg took hold, several factors kicked into play.  1)  Railroads evolved from retailers to wholesalers (think multiple car shipments and unit : trains) wherein their natural economic advantage came to the fore.  2)  this helped nudge them away from car shipments of onesies and twosies (and concurrently, spelled the end for numerous light-density branch lines, a winnowing process that continues, albeit greatly abated, to this day.  Ditto for expensive local switching operations).  3)  Railroad management quality improved sharply as the corporate bureaucrats who flourished under 80 years of ICC regulation were gradually replaced by more, er, able businessmen whose focus was on the bottom line.  Managers, armed with much better cost data, began to take a hard look at the costs and revenues of the portfolio of services they offered, and single-car shipments became a focus of cost cutting. Anyway, my two bits.  Hope this helps...

I have to disagree with deregulation being a cause. If I remember correctly, that was largely in the early 1980s (It seems like the Staggers Act was passed in 1980). By the 1960s, new 40' boxcars were the exception. Any idea of the 40' boxcar being the standard size was dead 20 years before deregulation.

[CShaveRR]

The question was about 40-foot box cars, but it could just as easily been about 50-ton twin hopper cars, or 8000-gallon tank cars, or older thirty-something-foot semi trailers, or 6.5-ounce Coke bottles. It's easier to use bigger whatevers less often. Always has been, probably always will be.

Probably the biggest blunder I ever saw on the railroad was Montgomery Ward building a warehouse at Proviso in the early 1970s--it was going to be big business for the CNW: two yard jobs around the clock, probably generating the equivalent of another train per day. They moved other industrial plants around to accommodate its location. There were four stub tracks leading into the building, which had literally dozens of spots for freight cars and hundreds for truck trailers. But the entire thing was built based on 40-foot box cars. Didn't take long before loading spots were lost because 50-foot box cars became normal. It had its own yard jobs (two per day, not per shift) for a few months. It was later sold; Monkey Wards eventually went out of business. The building (or parts of it) is still there, but no tracks serve it any more (there's a curious stub of one of the tracks remaining in Global 2).

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

ericsp

  A boxcar can haul more than a trailer or container. If I remember correctly, the gross vehicle weight for trucks is 80,000 pounds. The gross rail limit for boxcars is anywhere from 220,000 to 286,000 pounds. Also boxcar cubic capacities range from about 5,000 cubic feet up to about 7,500 cubic feet (10,000 if you include the 86' IL boxcars). A 53' trailer (assuming 110" IH and IW) is about 4454 cubic feet. [snip]

More importantly is the 'payload', or net cargo-carrying capacity of the vehicle.  For a conventional Over-The-Road tractor-van trailer combination, the maximum gross vehicle weight is usually 80,000 lbs. (40 tons).  Deducting the tare or empty weight of the trailer (roughly 10 to 12,000 lbs. = 5 to 6 tons) - and tractor (18,000 - 20,000 lbs. = 9 to 10 tons), or 30,000 lbs. = 15 tons total, leaves a maximum net payload weight of around 50,000 lbs. = 25 tons.  As a practical matter, those weights are often a little higher, so the max. legal net payload for a 53-ft. van trailer is usally more like 44,000 lbs. = 22 tons to 48,000 lbs. = 24 tons.  Note: All of these figures are approximate, and are subject to adjustment/ correction by someone with more expertise than me, such as Ed Benton.

Interestingly, note that for the 4,454 cubic feet space cited by ericsp above, a cargo density of about 10 lbs. per cubic foot* would be about the 'break-point' between whether the van would either 'cube out' = be completely full before it reaches its maximum allowable weight, or 'load out' or 'weigh out' = reach its maximum allowable weight before it is completely full.

In contrast, a common boxcar a few years ago was good for a gross weight of 263,000 lbs., which would be for 100-ton (200,000 lbs.) nominal capacity payload.  Obviously, it could carry from 4 to about 4.5 times as much weight as a highway van trailer.  Less obviously, for a 5,000 cu. ft. capacity - say, 9 ft. wide x 12 ft. high x 50 ft. inside length - the 'break-point' average cargo density would be about 40 lbs. per cubic foot* - again, about 4 times higher than for the van trailer.  If that had to be stuffed into a 40 ft. long boxcar of say 4,000 cu. ft. capy., then the 'break-point' density rises to 50 lbs. per cubic foot*, or about 5 times as dense as for the van trailer.  But that makes sense, because the example van trailer is about midway between these two railcar sizes for volume, so it follows that if the max. railcar load is 4 to 5 times heavier than for the roughly same-size truck, then the railcar's 'break-point' density would also be around 4 to 5 times heavier than for the truck.  For the other railcar volumes provided by ericsp above - a 7,500 cu. ft. railcar would have a 'break-point' of about 27 PCF, and an 86-ft. long 'Hi-Cube' 10,000 cu. ft. car would have a 'break-point' of about 20 PCF - the better to haul automobile gas tanks, bent sheet metal parts, and other bulky but not very heavy items.  Note: Again, all of these figures are approximate, and are subject to adjustment/ correction by someone with more expertise than me, such Carl, or anyone else.

* - For context, water is about 62.4 lbs. per cubic foot; most woods are a little less, from 40 to 60 lbs. PCF.  A big refrigerator - say, 3 ft. wide x 3 ft. deep x 6 ft. high = 54 cu. ft. might weight 300 lbs. or so, or about 6 lbs. PCF.

So the railcar can carry about 4 times more weight and cargo that's about 4 times denser than the van trailer - so guess which one got the heavy, dense loads, and which one got the lighter, 'fluffier' loads - which often had a higher 'value' and hence were 'higher-rated' as well ?

It follows that a railcar with much larger volume could be filled with a less dense cargo, and still not reach its maximum allwoable weight.  So a larger car than the traditional 40 ft. box car enabled the railroad to be more competitive for those lighter commodities with physical attributes for which trucks previously had an advantage.

- Paul North.

[carnej1]

greyhounds

ndbprr

 

Add railroad attitude toward single car or LCL shipments.  They were very happy to see small shippers go to trucking.

No, they fought hard to keep the lucrative (potentially, at least) LCL business.  The dang government regulators drove 'em from it.

But having said that, during the time frame you are referring too (50's/60's?) there was a battle going on within the industry (and in many cases within individual RR companies) over the economics of converting the box car LCL traffic to TOFC(and eventually containers)....From my reading the regulators, at least initially, caused much more impediment to the spread of piggyback services than too the existing lcl and Railway express type operations.

[MP173]

The just in time movement a couple of decades ago also is a contributing factor.   Trucking companies became much more effective in their marketing and the pure economics drove considerable amount of business from 40 ft box cars to LTL and even to 53 ft trailers.

The inventory carry cost of shipping by rail vs smaller shipments by truck was a huge decision driver in the 80's, particularly with interest rates in the double digits.

ed