Zug gets a cigar...me, nor anybody else has done the research; Zug you are correct! But that does not address a thing I have said....and Mac, not demeaning anyone you've mentioned, but they have submitted nothing but their fears without research either. No one here has researched it enough to throw it way. . Its as simple as that. So far here, it is nothing but internet rhetoric...I don't care what the Germans have done, or anybody else. Has someone here actually taken this product and tried to apply it, in a total business type way, to any and all possiblities in the US? Even one? I don't mean the "I don't think..." or , "....the unions won't..." or "becuse it doesn't fit the track" or whatever else the knee jerk reaction is, but really done anything other than type words into this thread? I admit I have done nothing but put words down, too...that I am not a railroad manager or marketer or in operations or sales,...neither am I in a business that might be able to use this product. I have suggested some applications but they have been brushed aside by emotion rather than reasearch and application.
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Henry,
You are not paying attention. I know of at least three posters here who have real railroad marketing experience. At least three are or have been train dispatchers. Many are train or engine crewmen. Carl runs the hump at Proviso and Ed switches cars for the PTRA.
I would agree with Greyhounds that railroads are weak in terms of marketing develoment. They are also good at price discipline. There must be a margin or you pack up the toys and buy muffler shops.
If you are trying to sell equipment to a railroad the risk adjusted margin must be better with your gear than with any and all other possibilities. This equipment does nothing to reduce costs, and increases many cost elements.
The point those of us with railroad experience are trying to make is that "NO" can be, and often is, a considered, rational answer.
Mac
henry6Yeah, the Reading ran in a different time period and what they did worked. I wonder if this Cargo Sprinter were available then if it would have been better.... Again, Zug, you've just dumped the concept without any reasearch, just "feelings" and conjecture. Nobody here...and I really don't expect anybody here to do it...has researched or or otherwise tried to apply this technology. I don't expect anyone here will because no one here is a railroad manager or planner or in sales and marketing...we're just railfans who like trains.
Yeah, the Reading ran in a different time period and what they did worked. I wonder if this Cargo Sprinter were available then if it would have been better....
Again, Zug, you've just dumped the concept without any reasearch, just "feelings" and conjecture. Nobody here...and I really don't expect anybody here to do it...has researched or or otherwise tried to apply this technology. I don't expect anyone here will because no one here is a railroad manager or planner or in sales and marketing...we're just railfans who like trains.
In the Reading's time, they also had plenty of smaller branchline engines.
And you are promoting the concept on your feelings. You haven't done the research either. It isn't my department to study these things. But if you think that the major railroads don't look at all these new concepts, then you are mistaken. They have purchased Brandt trucks. They know what's out there.
PS. I'm not 'dumping' on the concept, but giving it my honest opinion as a simple, present day, under-30 yrs old RRer. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Conrail did experiment with the Coalveyer in the late 80s in western PA ( I believe). Later they used it for stone or dirt movements in Jersey. An interesting concept, but probably too specialized and not in enough demand to work. I fear the same thing here. There are less-than trainload coal loadouts. I belive the Reading and Northern may have one or 2. But with those operations, you usually need to move around LOADED coal hoppers. They are not light. Is this thing capable of moving (and stopping) multiple loaded 100 ton hoppers?
As far as assembly line and intra-factory RRs, it probably is still cheaper to buy some old locomotive and use that. And if it's an insular RR, then they don't have all the pesky FRA stuff to deal with. If a factory is large enough to have a complex RR system in it, I would guess that it probably has enough need for real locomotives. Otherwise they could just push the railcars around with any large machines. Those big CAT wheel loaders seem to do nicely.
The reading also ran in a different time period. You can do a lot more work if you throw the rule books in the trashcan.
PNWRMNM Henry, In what situation will either the railroad or the customer be better off using this technology than anything AND everything else out there? With realistic costs please. Mac
In what situation will either the railroad or the customer be better off using this technology than anything AND everything else out there? With realistic costs please.
How can I answer that Mac, when the whole board of directors, operations, the marketing and sales departments, customer relations experts,, and the rest of the staff here have already dumped the idea. So we don't know what the application could be, we don't know what the costs are, we don't know what the benefits are, we don't know what the downsides are, we don't know how a customer might feel if approached, we just know that nobody seems to want to look into it. But they do know they don't like it.
Mac, I'm not a railroader and have no financial interest in nor cares whether this flies or not. I am just surprised that there is no one enterprising enough to look at what it is and how and if it might work. This is a discussion board about railroading, the Cargo Sprinter in particular, by a bunch of railfans, most of whom apparently are not managers of any kind, especially railroads. I suggested mine loads of less than unit train size or movements between two factories or as a segment of an assemblyline. I pointed out the old Reading BEE LINE service which someone else noted was a money maker, a service in which this could maybe have worked. Overall it has been dismissed out of hand by this board of posters. For the sake of real railroading I hope there are real railroaders out there who have seen and looked at the Cargo Sprinter concept had have attempted to apply the technology to some part of his/her railroad or some shipper on his/'her line. If not then we should be sinking in pizzas.
henry6Trackmobile was a concept...but it is not this Cargo Sprinter. Railroads did not develope diesel locomotives; they were brought to the railroads by manufacturers, Plenty of manufacurers have brought cars, equipment, signaling, raidos, you name it to the railroad and the railroad adapted or adopted as needed. Why not look at this Cargo Sprinter with a positive view seeking an opportunity to adapt, adopt, and use it to make money. I just can't understand how negative the comments have been here, no one looking at what this might be for the railroad or its customers.
Trackmobile was a concept...but it is not this Cargo Sprinter. Railroads did not develope diesel locomotives; they were brought to the railroads by manufacturers, Plenty of manufacurers have brought cars, equipment, signaling, raidos, you name it to the railroad and the railroad adapted or adopted as needed. Why not look at this Cargo Sprinter with a positive view seeking an opportunity to adapt, adopt, and use it to make money.
I just can't understand how negative the comments have been here, no one looking at what this might be for the railroad or its customers.
True. But Brandt has been making their rail trucks for over 10 years. And except for a few MOW rigs, they sure haven't seen to caught on as they would have liked, I'm sure. And that has the advantage of rubber wheels (plus a commercial truck platform that can be maintained at an alread-established service network), so they could deliver cargo one-way on the rail line, then take the highways back home if no freight had to be moved.
My question to you Henry: what does the sprinter enable a RR to do that it can't do with a end-cab switcher or GP38 (even the Brandt truck)? And can it do MORE and be more flexible than those?
A new toy train is not the answer. A new method of operations is needed. Small yards have been shut down everywhere. There are fewer and fewer locals. Hardly any 3-man crews around anymore that make switching an industry so much easier (And quicker). The RRs have manpower set up to have the fewest men possible, and still maybe, be able to run the intermodals (if no one marks off). You can have all the small trains you want, but without crews and local terminals, it won't be much help.
henry6I just can't understand how negative the comments have been here, no one looking at what this might be for the railroad or its customers.
I don't know that it is a negative vs positive thing here. As long as some of us do not take into consideration some of these issues brought up and treat it like an us vs them thing one will not get around it.
It could be that we are looking at it a little funny maybe.
Look. Apparently it seems to be not as successful as what it appears--even in Europe. If it will work anywhere it may not be on the class I roads. Why not branchline/shortline operations? Then again, just how small a load are these things going to take anyways? And where to?
And again, let us not think that this is negation but real issues that need some thinking through.
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
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I doubt the cargosprinter concept will ever be utilized on mainlines like BNSF's transcontinental. If it would then the cargo would have to be very valuable and time sensitive for a railroad to give up a stacktrain.
But what about using this concept on a regional railroad or a group of branchlines where the question won't be upgrade to the latest axle loading standard but abandonment? Maybe because a neighbouring class 1 has facilitated the building of a mega elevator that loads out 110 car covered hoppers (and when will that standard change?). Maybe it could be used to move trains from the smaller elevators to the new big one. Somewhere there is the point that trucks are no longer cost efficient but fully upgrading the raillines to the new axle loading standard is not financially possible. Also you don't have to deal with all those pesky long double stack trains.
Another possibilty is at the end of the run of those big stack trains. How far are those containers trucked? Not all raillines connecting to the terminal are clogged with double stack or other traffic. Maybe there is a market for the concept there too?
Additional thoughts: why think containers with doors at one end only? Why not one with doors in the side or with sides out of cloth? I have seen trucks that unloaded regular 20 ft containers all by themselves, no additional cranes needed. Or use it to load at a factory and unload at another factory down the line.
No reason to use this technique if you can make more money or make the same amount more efficiently with other thechniques than this one. Where this might be interesting is on the margins of those other thechniques if it can be done efficiently. It does come close to that integral train concept by John Kneiling, including distributing powered axles throughout the train if memory serves me correctly.
Btw, the reason the concept didn't work out was a combination of factors, including lack of support by the big Deutsche Bahn, the concept being plagued by technical problems, being tried at the wrong time on a busy line (between Hamburg and Osnabrück on the one side and Frankfurt (Airport) on the other while there was the world expo in Hannover where the units were combined) and the cost of units jumped upwards to double the initial projected cost.
The technical problems apparently were overcome as the technique behind it was used in British maintenance vehicles.
greetings,
Marc / Naomi
The only Trackmobile I've seen was at Goderich ON's main elevator. That is owned by the shipper---
greyhounds Victrola1 I remember reading a Midwest short line toyed with a small consist concept. It was a semi tractor with dual highway and rail capabilities. The idea was to pull a few grain hoppers from elevators to nearby grain processors. One man could drive out to an elevator, lower the flanged wheels. The driver could spot empties left by conventional service and bring back a limited number of loaded hoppers. To my knowledge, this idea remains nothing more than an idea. In this country, the short container train may have been of interest 60 years ago when there were still such customers on lightly used branch lines. Given the speed and flexibility of truck competition in such a market, it would probably would have been for naught. The economy of scale is missing. It was the Iowa Interstate under previous ownership. I talked to the guy who drove the tractor pulling the rail cars.
Victrola1 I remember reading a Midwest short line toyed with a small consist concept. It was a semi tractor with dual highway and rail capabilities. The idea was to pull a few grain hoppers from elevators to nearby grain processors. One man could drive out to an elevator, lower the flanged wheels. The driver could spot empties left by conventional service and bring back a limited number of loaded hoppers. To my knowledge, this idea remains nothing more than an idea. In this country, the short container train may have been of interest 60 years ago when there were still such customers on lightly used branch lines. Given the speed and flexibility of truck competition in such a market, it would probably would have been for naught. The economy of scale is missing.
I remember reading a Midwest short line toyed with a small consist concept. It was a semi tractor with dual highway and rail capabilities. The idea was to pull a few grain hoppers from elevators to nearby grain processors.
One man could drive out to an elevator, lower the flanged wheels. The driver could spot empties left by conventional service and bring back a limited number of loaded hoppers. To my knowledge, this idea remains nothing more than an idea.
In this country, the short container train may have been of interest 60 years ago when there were still such customers on lightly used branch lines. Given the speed and flexibility of truck competition in such a market, it would probably would have been for naught.
The economy of scale is missing.
It was the Iowa Interstate under previous ownership. I talked to the guy who drove the tractor pulling the rail cars.
I know we've talked about these before.
http://www.iaisrailfans.org/gallery/ABPhotos?AIOtmp?full=1
Scroll down, 3 pictures together on the right side.
Jeff
henry6 EDIT ADD: Overall I can't believe the negativity, lack of intiative, foresight, imagination, creativty, hunger, understanding of railroading, understanding of research, understanding planning, understanding of marketing, or desire to utilize your physical plant, people, and equipment, to do your best to make it work.
EDIT ADD: Overall I can't believe the negativity, lack of intiative, foresight, imagination, creativty, hunger, understanding of railroading, understanding of research, understanding planning, understanding of marketing, or desire to utilize your physical plant, people, and equipment, to do your best to make it work.
As a 40+ year rail professional I seen many ideas floated, some have worked, some were tried and failed and been adjusted into something that did work, some were tried, failed and left for dead, others never saw the light of day. As has been stated, the CargoSprinter is a concept that is searching for a market where it can profitable within the investment and operational realities of existing rail networks. Reality bites.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
henry6 But if I were a real railroader I would have my sales, my operating, my marketing, my real estate, my planning department heads at least, and anyybody else I could think of, in a meeting for a presentation and brainstorming session. Hopefully I wouldn't need to charge any one of those departments with investigating and coming back with a report. If I felt I did need to appoint a department to run with it, I would go and make pizzas or hamburgers. EDIT ADD: Overall I can't believe the negativity, lack of intiative, foresight, imagination, creativty, hunger, understanding of railroading, understanding of research, understanding planning, understanding of marketing, or desire to utilize your physical plant, people, and equipment, to do your best to make it work.
But if I were a real railroader I would have my sales, my operating, my marketing, my real estate, my planning department heads at least, and anyybody else I could think of, in a meeting for a presentation and brainstorming session. Hopefully I wouldn't need to charge any one of those departments with investigating and coming back with a report. If I felt I did need to appoint a department to run with it, I would go and make pizzas or hamburgers.
Again, this is backwards. You don't start with a product/service and "brainstorm" how you could sell it to existing or potential customers.
You instead start with a knowledge, understanding and analysis of customers' (existing and potential) needs and "brainstorm" how you can meet those needs better than your competitors. You then try to come up with a product/service to meet the identified needs. You start with the market need, not the product/service.
Having said that, I think the US railroads (with the exception of the NS) tend to be weak in the marketing/market development area. This is understandable. Before deregulation they simply were not permitted to do real marketing/market development. A "Marketing Culture" could not develop. After deregulation they fairly rapidly (15 years or so) went to a situation in which they had all the business they could handle. No need to develop new business when your railroad is "full". Now, we'll see what happens when they're just a little bit hungry.
As to this "Cargo-Sprinter" thingy, the basic concept is not new. As far back as the 1950's a transportation consulting firm, A. T. Kearny, was touting the "Minipiggy". Short/short haul trains have been around for a long time to serve customers in situtations where it makes economic sense to run such trains.
But always, you start with the market and the market needs, not the product/service you want to push on the customers.
Henry - don't take my statements as representative of any company. If you think RRs are standing idly by, you are mistaken. From business units to spinning off lines to shortlines, to offering rebates to customers - a lot is getting done.
But to serve a customer, it takes manpower, machines and infrastructure. And you better make enough off of that shipment to justify those. If it costs you x amount to run any type of train (from a sw1001 to a sd90mac down a branch to pick up a boxcar, you better be making >x on that fright over a certain amount of time. Otherwise you are just throwing money away. Not what we need to be doing.
This sprinter concept is not new in the least. It's been done in many other forms, and has never taken off. How many years have we had trackmobiles? Any major RR use one of those on a branch? I think not. Why do we need another form of equipment when we already have plenty of smaller locomotives that can easily serve that customer on Monday, then go do something else on Tuesday? And the FRA isn't going to allow these sprinters to play with the big trains on the mainline.
I can't wait for the day when you can teleport the freight from one place to another. The only problem would be all these little voices crying--"help me! help me!!"
Mac...you've got my examples wrong...McD and Pizza Hut could delve into each other's product but not run trains. So, if we are in the railroad business: have track, engines, charters, etc. we should be doing that or else get out and make pizzas or hamburgers. And I maintain the weakness of American business has been in the game of making money rather than earning money by provide a product or service...too often going for 80% of $100 instead of 50 or 60 percent of $200. Therefore if we are in the railorad business looking to make a buck we better look into the prospects of this or that and apply ourselves not just say it won't work and walk away from it...no you don't jump on every new idea that comes along, but you better examine it and test it and understand it because if you don't somebody else just might jump into it before you and you're toast. We are railfans here and it is easy to dismiss anything out of hand. And maybe be right. But if I were a real railroader I would have my sales, my operating, my marketing, my real estate, my planning department heads at least, and anyybody else I could think of, in a meeting for a presentation and brainstorming session. Hopefully I wouldn't need to charge any one of those departments with investigating and coming back with a report. If I felt I did need to appoint a department to run with it, I would go and make pizzas or hamburgers.
UlrichIt has some merit I guess...but any fuel savings or efficiency over trucks is eroded by rail's somewhat more circuitous right of way in order to keep grades below 2.5%. It would be better to modify a tractor trailer combo..put a flanged wheel on the tractor and a guide rail into the interstate highway...when a driver gets on he can put it on "autopilot" until his prgrammed exit where he once again takes over at the wheel.. The sprinter doesn't offer door to door flexibility nor does it offfer the economies of scale that a normal train does..this it seems to offer the worst of both worlds in that sense.
It has some merit I guess...but any fuel savings or efficiency over trucks is eroded by rail's somewhat more circuitous right of way in order to keep grades below 2.5%. It would be better to modify a tractor trailer combo..put a flanged wheel on the tractor and a guide rail into the interstate highway...when a driver gets on he can put it on "autopilot" until his prgrammed exit where he once again takes over at the wheel.. The sprinter doesn't offer door to door flexibility nor does it offfer the economies of scale that a normal train does..this it seems to offer the worst of both worlds in that sense.
Now we're re-inventing the truck wheel. We have flageways for major routes.. they are called "railroads".
BT CPSO 266I admit I am one of the amused bystanders, but I am just looking about how the railroads can capture more freight business. I am looking at this as a shipper looking to move 4-7 containers of freight, located close/beside to the rail, to a receiver that is close/beside to the rail.
You are asking the wrong question. It is NOT about capturing more freight business, it IS about making more money.
Your hypothesis is too vague for analysis, but you can safely assume the default alternative is truck direct. Trucks have relatively low terminal expensis and relatively high line haul expenses compared to rail as a general rule. Trucks have the tremendous advantage of no intermediate handling and no need to aggregate and disagregate shipments which the rail mode must do to attain the low line haul costs and to limit the number of trains over any given track segment per unit of time. Big trains will give more transportation output per unit of time on any given fixed plant than will small trains. This is basic physics. The trucks' direct service advantage, combined with a new high capacity taxpayer financed right of way, is the reason trucks now have 90% of the combined rail/truck market.
This technology does nothing on its face to minimize rail terminal costs, which for this purpose should include the truck dray on each end. If line access costs were computed on a train mile basis, which I suspect is the case, then this technology has a much higher line haul cost per container mile. It is container miles we are trying to sell. No terminal cost advantage and higher line haul cost is not a winning formula.
One of the reasons that rail has survived as a mode is that management does NOT jump on every new idea that comes along.
Henry - Your example of hamburgers and pizza proves the point. I don't see McDonalds selling pizza nor Pizza hut selling hambergers. As Clint Eastwood said "A man has got to know his limitations." So does a railroad.
There is nothing wrong with the idea of a short container train. We can look back to Santa Fe's Super C trains of the 1960's. The Twin Cities and Western operated a short container train in 2008 for a customer. The British and other European systems operate very short container trains by our standards. They are all operated by locomotives.
henry6 A concept in search of a market is nothing new in our world....gasoline was a volitile product gleaned by refining crude oil that had not place to go until the gasoline engine was invented to propel automobiles...how many other things can be added to the list. Anyway, that's no excuse for not accepting it...in fact I think I gave a couple of good examples of how and where it might be adapted. Moving less than trainload lots of coal from small mines; inter and intra plant movement of materials and parts even as part of an assemblyline; a manufacurer than produces a set number of units of product in a given day or week that all goes to one other location...there are so many opportunities to adapt this product to...it just takes ingenuity, creativity, dedication to the job, or just a light bulb being turned on in someones' mind at the right time at the right place with the right thing. Inginuity, rescoursfulness, creativity are things not automatic or as finely defined and produced as a computer sourced solution. As for stepping on a rail...electricution had nothing to do with the rule...it is simply that it in much easier to turn and ankle or lose balance or somehow injure oneself; Common sense says step over not on.
A concept in search of a market is nothing new in our world....gasoline was a volitile product gleaned by refining crude oil that had not place to go until the gasoline engine was invented to propel automobiles...how many other things can be added to the list. Anyway, that's no excuse for not accepting it...in fact I think I gave a couple of good examples of how and where it might be adapted. Moving less than trainload lots of coal from small mines; inter and intra plant movement of materials and parts even as part of an assemblyline; a manufacurer than produces a set number of units of product in a given day or week that all goes to one other location...there are so many opportunities to adapt this product to...it just takes ingenuity, creativity, dedication to the job, or just a light bulb being turned on in someones' mind at the right time at the right place with the right thing. Inginuity, rescoursfulness, creativity are things not automatic or as finely defined and produced as a computer sourced solution.
As for stepping on a rail...electricution had nothing to do with the rule...it is simply that it in much easier to turn and ankle or lose balance or somehow injure oneself; Common sense says step over not on.
Cargosprinter would not be very useful in moving bulk materials(maybe hauling those Coaltainers NS experimented with but why not just run a shorter train of gondola?) and it would be overkill to use it as a short haul vehicle within a plant (what can it do that an old switcher and a few conventional cars can't in an industrial setting?).
It's a cool piece of technology but the fact that it has not been succesful in the market it was designed for (Europe) says something..
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
PNWRMNMRailroading is a business. It is all about the money. It is not about running particular types of trains to amuse bystanders, which is what most of us here are.
I admit I am one of the amused bystanders, but I am just looking about how the railroads can capture more freight business. I am looking at this as a shipper looking to move 4-7 containers of freight, located close/beside to the rail, to a receiver that is close/beside to the rail.
I understand what you are saying about not choosing a train of 10 containers over 200. Yes, we have to build up the infrastructure of course and what would have to be done is self explanatory. I know the rails are a business and our out to make money, and these small sprinters do not make as much as the big guys, but if you get enough of the smaller trains running you just opened up a new profit margin.
I mean if you are like me; I do not mind using tax dollars to build up the infrastructure for these faster, smaller sprinters, to be able to pass the bigger trains and bringing more of a "highway" concept to the rails. Once I start hearing solutions to solving our growing freight problems by proposing triple-trailer long and bigger & heavier trucks onto the highways that's when I have a problem.
We have a perfectly good freight transportation system concept that is not being used to it's full potential. The less interaction with how our freight gets to us, the better, if you ask me. I would sure make traveling on I-80 a lot more pleasant and less stressful. I don't mind trucking but it is freight that does not need to be on the highway, if it had another option that I have a problem with.
Ok,,,we're in the railroad business, i.e. we have track, we have locomotives, we have cars, we can also use anybody elses cars and locomotives on our track, we want to make money. We do not make pizzas, we don't play baseball, we aren't in the business of fixing computers. So an idea comes along that is different than what we have been doing. What do we do? Bring up all the problems and stumbling blocks of why we can't use the product or service. Dismiss it as not fitting our concept of who we are or dismiss it because someone else has invented the truck. If we were in the pizza business would we quit because someone came up with a hamburger? As a baseball team do we quit because someone invented basketball and football and hockey? And new computers come along as fast as Indy cars so we quit? The exucses I hear here for not exploring this concept, this tool, this whatever it is, whatever it could be, these excuses are indicative of what's wrong with American businesses: no creativity, no dedication to the industry, complacent with the status quo. There are exceptions: look how the cell phone industry and the computer industry keep reinventing themselves every day, litterally and figurativly. It seems the railroad industry does not have such foresight, creativity, hunger, desire, killer and survival instinct. Or maybe it is just because we are fans worshiping what was and what is and don't want to and and want to have to deal with the future?
The railroad runs trains to make money. Rail customers use the railroad to make money. How will this equipment make both parties more money than what they are doing now? The first question is the economic question, not the political one that most of you have jumped on.
This technology has three big economic problems. One it is truck competitive so your revenue per container mile is limited and low. This problem applies to all rail intermodal and is basic to anything you contemplate in the intermodal field.
Two, it still requires a top lift type of terminal to get on/off the train, just like regular intermodal. The shot of the train pulling into the covered loading dock was interesting, but did not address how the containers would be handled once the train stopped. Could a major factory have a captive terminal? Yes, but it is another layer of cost.
The reason rail intermodal is cost competitive on long hauls and does so poorly on short hauls is the combined dray and terminal costs on each end. You need a lot of lower cost line haul mile savings to cover the dray and terminal costs. What this technology would tend to do is enable a higher number of low volume terminals located closer to the customers which would reduce dray costs. Whether or not that makes economic sense would require some serious analysis. Rail intermodal started out in that fashion and found out that the less than trainload service that resulted was not marketable.
The third, and to my mind most serious problem is that it is very wastefull of railroad resources in terms of track space, or pathways, whichever way you want to look at it. From a dispatcher's perspective this train of 10-70 containers consumes as much track space, and requires as much attention as a 200-250 container double stack train. Some of you blithely assert that the railroad should lay more track to support these tiny trains. Where is the money going to come from? No railroad manager would propose such a thing in house let alone go to the financial market with it. Even if it is government money, the project would be an economic waste, a wealth destroyer.
In the short run the capacity of a railroad is fixed. As Balt ACD pointed out there are a lot of places that were at or near capacity before the current recession hit. Imagine that you are Matt Rose. You have a legal duty to your shareholder to make as much money as you can with the assets you have. How many 200 box stack trains would you cancel to free up space for a 10 box train? In other words how many $20 bills are you going to throw away to get a shiny dime?
How about as a feeder service between somewhere and an existing big volume terminal, or even a captive between two points? This is concevable, but it would be a lot quicker and cheaper to pull some cars out of storage and find a GP or SD 40 to pull them than to sink new capital into this fancy equipment that will do no better at accomplishing the economic purpose.
Railroading is a business. It is all about the money. It is not about running particular types of trains to amuse bystanders, which is what most of us here are.
I think that Greyhounds summed this "Sprinter" concept up very suscintly, " A concept in search of a market."
My feeling is that these ideas do infact have a place in our developmental processes for new ideas, ideas that are currently outside of the industry accepted model. Our current Intermodal model is very functional and sure could be called successful. Yet it is always seeming to be "tweeked" to find a better way of doing something that is working, and attempting to do it better ( an idea that the inventor hopes can be sold proftably while creating value for the purchasers.
The original 'piggy-back' concept (nee NYC, B&O and PRR) now evolved into double stacks, containers and now evolving into dry and refrigerated segments. AS well as the evolvolution of the "Tripple Crown's system" must be included as well.
Someone in commenteing, mentioned,' we do not need to do everything that the Europeans do.' True, ut if they have an idea for a new way of doing somethind, why not try it and see if it will make money for the owners withing 'our' systems constraints. The Sprintyers seem to fit in the latter category.
Don't forget the Strick Corporation's Cab Under Tractors of the 1970's concept for getting more volumn on a then limited ( by Federal Laws) length limits. When that concept was fielded the immediate Teamster's Union was to almost 'stroke out' in opposition. (Linked here):
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/649/2/41011.0001.001.pdf
And there was the Ryder Coroporation's Turbo tractor (Center Cab ) Concept with the drive train in an easily removable package.
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