RR's are full - then let truckers pull doubles!

[Anonymous]

One other thing, Mark Hemphill is absolutely right when he says that rate shortage is the cause of the problem. Rates for a loaded railcar on moves of over 300 miles are nearly the same as a truck rate for the same trip, yet the railroad carries three or more times the freight. Also, rail backhauls are few and far between. The rail infrastructure is simply too expensive to maintain without some form of government assistance. Properly deployed, such assistance will enable proper maintenance of existing infrastructure and hopefully also allow for acquisition of new right of ways and expansion of the network to reach the growing cities and towns of a new age. The oil won't last forever and transportation will still be needed.

[Anonymous]

vsmith wrote:
<<
Good God! Double 40+ footers is an Absolutly Stupidly Insane idea! Theres a reason why only short trailer doubles are allowed on the highways. Here are the problems.
>>

Having lived in California in a prior life I know what you are talking about, but in many other states there are long doubles on the Interstates. I'm not sure but I think some of them are at least double 48's and possibly double 53's.

LC

[Anonymous]

<<
I'm also disappointed in the presentation of shippers as being some sort of bad guy trying to destroy our nice little railroads. Excuse me, isn't it supposed to be about the shippers? Aren't they the reason transportation companies exist in the first place? Why do some of you instantly denegrate shippers who are guilty of nothing more than trying to alleviate themselves from the abuses of monopolistic practices by the railroads? Why do you think the manufacturers of bulky, heavy things are constantly moving their operations overseas or shutting down? One of the major factors in the U.S.'s loss of manufacturing jobs lies in the inability of stateside manufacturers to access competitive transportation options. Look at those handful of buk-transport-dependent manufacturers who are planning expansion in the U.S. By and large, they seek to site their new facilities in locations which have access to more than one Class I railroad. Few if any will be building new facilities in locales which have access to only one Class I railroad.
>>

The shippers would like to believe that everything in the world revolves around them. Railroads are a service company, however we perform a very definite and distinct function, rail transportation. In order to perform this function in an economically feasible way we must serve many customers. Most customers understand this, unfortunately, there seems to be some customer executives who don't. Usually this is not the local plant manager. It is a higher up who expects everything to be done to his timetable and at little or no cost to him(or her). That is where the trouble starts.

As far as your continued BS about monopolies, railroads are not a monopoly, haven't been for a long time. Haven't met a ship or barge yet that couldn't or wouldn't move more than a train at a lower cost. Haven't met a truck that couldn't move some pretty bulky stuff quicker than a train and to more places. There isn't even any comparison in the passenger arena.

You indicate that companies manufacturing heavy things are locating in other countries. I have news, that has darn little to do with rail or any other transportation and much more to do with the internal economies in the manufacturing process. Otherwise, why move your manufacturing facility away from your primary market??? And of course, if you do that, who will you be paying to bring your bulky heavy stuff to market?? Hmmmm. Railroads? NAAAAAH! Lets face it, manufacturers locating on two Class 1s are doing so for rate competition more than for access.

Perhaps railroads have issues, nobody's perfect. Shippers and recipients are every bit as bad. They will cheat on weights( "the car didn't weight 306,000lbs when it left our elevator!"), lie about carloadings ("Our new plant will produce at least 10,000 carloads annually", if I had a nickel for every time I heard that I'd be very comfortably retired), deny damaging cars by moving them with a front end loader ("It was bent like a pretzel when you delivered it, honest") whine about demurrage, intraplant switch charges, and anything else they know they owe. So, please don't give me the "Customers are Us" crap. Customers are at least as bad as any railroad when it comes to holding up their end.

LC

[Anonymous]

Wow! So much to correct here, and some continued disappointment at the opinions of those who really should know better...

1. Back to the original subject at hand, what needs to be done to improve the efficiency of truckers is to get rid of Gross Vehicle Weight limits and replace that with an average weight per axle standard. Here's a quiz: Which causes more road damage - two trucks each hauling 35 tons of cargo, or one truck hauling 70 tons of cargo? Assuming the average axle loadings are the same, the two trucks will cause more road damage because they are adding more tare weight in the form of the second cab unit. Obviously, by allowing a single trucker to haul two trailer loads worth of cargo will result in less road damage. In addition, a single truck pulling two 53' trailers will have less net length than two trucks each pulling a single 53' trailer, again due to the space taken up by the second cab unit. With our nation's dependency on trucks to deliver the goods, the idea of allowing more weight and/or more trailers per truck can only benefit the nation.

2. Mark, I really wish you would think things through regarding open access, defered maintenance, etc. Why do you insist that an infrastructure company would be more likely to defer maintenance than the current situation? We know that today's railroads are purposefully defering capital investments to temporarily improve their botton lines with Wall Street. An infrastructure company would have no choice, they would have to reinvest in the infrastructure or go out of business real soon. To suggest that infrastructure-based corporations exist only for the here and now and would not reinvest in infrastructure is extremely cynical. Don't the owners of pipelines reinvest to keep current capacity and grow for future capacity increases? What about electric transmission line owners? Telecommunications infrastructure owners? Don't timber companies replant trees after logging operations on separately private timberlands or public timber lands?

Do store owners simply let the paint peel and the shelves collapse to the point of being ineffectual for the selling of the goods, and then simply close up and walk away? NO! They include the costs of maintenance and expansion in the markup of the goods.

An infrastructure company will base rates in a way that will cover maintenance costs to maintain the track at certain minimum speeds, weights, train lengths, etc., and with a certain ROI factored in. By doing so, they will satisfy their customers, who in turn will commit to more long term contracts. This is the basic business model, and it includes the cost of maintenance as a cost of doing long term business. By reinvesting, they will attract more business, which in turn will allow investment in future expansions. There is enough of an efficiency and/or speed advantage of railroads to successfully compete with highways and waterways, enough so to make up for subsidization of the others.

In other words, there is a market for pathways to maintain the flow of goods. Those who provide the most efficient infrastructure will garner the most shippers and profit from it, those who let their pathways crumble will go out of business. It is the basic supply and demand dynamic, and this dynamic is the basis of the free market system. When either supply and.or demand are artificially squelched in monopolistic situations, it degrades the dynamic, and that is what is happening in the railroad industry in North America.

There are formulations available by third party firms that calculate what an infrastructure company would have to charge in order to cover up to the date maintenance and still produce a profit. Check out this website.....

http://www.zetatech.com/CORPQIII44.htm

..... then offer up your collective opinions on whether an infrastructure company could make it or not.

3. I'm also disappointed in the presentation of shippers as being some sort of bad guy trying to destroy our nice little railroads. Excuse me, isn't it supposed to be about the shippers? Aren't they the reason transportation companies exist in the first place? Why do some of you instantly denegrate shippers who are guilty of nothing more than trying to alleviate themselves from the abuses of monopolistic practices by the railroads? Why do you think the manufacturers of bulky, heavy things are constantly moving their operations overseas or shutting down? One of the major factors in the U.S.'s loss of manufacturing jobs lies in the inability of stateside manufacturers to access competitive transportation options. Look at those handful of buk-transport-dependent manufacturers who are planning expansion in the U.S. By and large, they seek to site their new facilities in locations which have access to more than one Class I railroad. Few if any will be building new facilities in locales which have access to only one Class I railroad.

Dave Smith

[Junctionfan]

First of all I am not in favour of double trailer. Highways are not capable in North America to take what I call the beginning of road trains. The only why trains are safe as they are is because a train doesn't require a stearing wheel to make sure you don't stear into traffic or have to worry about jack knifing due to an ice patch or hydroplaning during a bad rain storm. Truck trains are a wonderful idea if you plan on reducing the national population though.

I think that the federal government must invest in rail service. This includes giving tax breaks or even direct funding to the railroads like UP who are at capacity but is willing but only willing to increase capacity to run the service. I must say I am very distressed at CN and CP lack of interest in running trains at all. If they really wanted to run trains, with the territory that they own; UP, BNSF, NS and CSX wouldn't have to worry about picking up their slack. CN and CP in my opinion are not pulling their wait in improving the economy of Canada in particular and in the United States as well. CN seems to be more interested in owning the realistate than actual operation.

The government must make certain that the people know what is going on and educate them on what should be done and than let the voters make a decision on what should be done if not through a representative of federal government than a federal referendum. Public opinion is important; if the people are swaid into the decision the politicians want than the people will allow you to do what must be done. That is democracy (honest democracy (no lies; tell it like it is)).

I would say to investors. Those who invest in companies that are dependant on the railroad must start using a little more thinking from the brain and less from the pocket. If a railroad can not help you because they are at capacity, than they will loose profit and may end up SOL at the quarterly. If they go under, so does your stocks. It is in investors best interest to make sure that the railroads can increase capacity and should harp on the other investors to see that the railroads can get the money needed in order for their investments to be protected. Railroads must educate investors too about railroad needs and try to make them understand that they are a mode of transportation and not a financial instution and that even though they are on the stock market, it would not help the investors other investments if they could not meet the demand of the market.

Railroads must get federal help and investors need to be more intelligent with their greed. They must realize that their is a percentage of operation investment is required to make a decent profit. If you lower the operation than you lower the profit. You can increase operation without raising the rate of operation investment but the minimum must be there otherwise you won't be givin the money you expect.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dblstack

So far this year, the RR's have enjoyed tremendous volumes to the point of service drastically suffering on several of the class 1's, which the RR openly attributes to being "full." As a result of being full, the RR's have puffed up and have been very open in the trade press about taking rates up since they can be selective about the freight they move from this wealth of available freight. In some cases the RR has walked away from significant business (ie. Union Pacific - UPS freight) because some trains no longer fit their network... again, because they're full. RR's are hoping that this surge of freight will boost their fortunes to the point that they are the darlings of Wall Street. They're intentionally delaying capacity additions (ie. building more track) to capitalize on the traffic boom. Union Pacific was recently cited in the Wall St. Journal as a deterent to economic growth because they aren't able to deliver freight at the rate that the shipping market demands.

We've also read a great deal about the truck driver shortage in the U.S. and how the RR's also attribute their intermodal volume increase, in part to that situation.

There is a solution and railroaders big and small will gasp and blanch at the thought of it, but if the RR's can't handle the volume that is there and if there aren't enough drivers to handle the freight pulling single trailers, then why not let truckers pull double trailers (ie. double 48's or double 53's?)

I'm as "pro-railroad" as anyone that you will find, but there is an economic and logistical reality of getting this freight moved.

I know that there is a whole bleeding heart contingent that will cry that its unsafe to pull these longer combination vehicles, which is why you would restrict them to intercity moves on the interstate system with very specific restrictions to keep them off of local streets and state highways. (ie. they can operate on interstate highways but must be connected and disconnected within 1 mile of the interstate highway. Some Western states allow double 45's and 48's and I've driven among them many times with no concern whatsoever. Again, there would be a cry and hue over "its too dangerous" but that's protectionism under a veiled wrapper.

If the RR's can't do it... and they've publicly said that they can't, let someone else who can.

I was in the not so distant past a part of a state DOT (NCDOT) that built and maintained the part of the infrastructure known as public bridges and highways. What you are asking for is, in my opinion, the complete final destruction of any asphalt road in the U.S. As I mentioned in the thread on the future of railroading, One LEGALLY loaded Simi-tractortrailer combination does more damage in one pass to the road than do 900 automobiles (Proctor Method of Asphalt testing by AASHTO specs). Your suggestion would not double the problem but probably square the damage done to the PUBLIC roadways. When this is considered together with the crisis in the tax base of many states which are already stressed to the max and that are very dependant in many ways on gasoline taxes to service the PUBIC roadways. This would have the effect of even higher gas taxes (read increased subsidy) that you and me and a lot of other folks pay just to cover the cost of substructure repair and resurfacing. When this is compared to a PRIVATE company that has a measure of both increased effiencey and load factor far above that of most any other form of surface transportation (READ RAILROAD). The economics of the steel on steel technology is obvious especially to the members of this forum. HOWEVER, if you have quantified and qualified information to the contrary[:-^] many of us would like to hear about this. I know I would.

[Anonymous]

Most of you are correct in what I have read here,though Mark Hemphill is correct in what he said,ots you the tax payers that are paying for the cost to get the goods to market. But on another perspective look ,i'm a trucker also......I'm one of the many that drive an 18 wheeler,and we have MORE crap to put up with than most people realize.With the new HOS (hours of service) law,I cant get to my destination when I want to,as I can only be on the road for 11 hours,12 if some drivers "dirty log book ".And this is just the tip,with random inspections,scale houses,and a maximun limit of 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight limit......if I'm overloaded by AN OUNCE!,I have to take that off the trailer,and put it someplace,or in some cases,if its greater than that,you have to pull into the scale parking lot,call the dispatcher,and he in turn has to get a truck to come out and get the excess load and deliver it. All the while your sitting there wasting time and valuable money that should be going in my pocket,instead it goes no where.As far as safety,yes the DOT is heavy on that,yet I am very P-offed at the fact that the @#$%^&* NAFTA has allowed the mexican truckers to travel on U.S.highways,with trucks that are so old,parts are falling off the rigs and onto the roads. Now with the EPA getting on our butts about emissions,if a trucker wants to buy a new truck,he /she has to wait a YEAR for the truck,as the new engines that Caterpillar,Cummins,Detroit,and Mack have.....well ......they are NOT sure if they will be performable,and the warranties on them stink. You'd be lucky if the warranty will go for 10 years instead of 2 or 5 at the present time. as for doubles,I will NOT do it.. way too dangerous,and turning them is a big pain and problem too.It makes me wonder how the drivers for UPS,FED-EX, YELLOW,and other Less Than truckLoad (LTL) carriers can manage it. Makes me want to go back to the BNSF, and work for them now.

[mudchicken]

You might ask why existing railroads don't also starve their maintenance budget to maximize earnings. Actually, they do -- in the very short term. I'm always suspicious of a railroad which has historically had trouble earning money all of a sudden having a good quarter. I want to see if they bought any rail or ties or labor that quarter. (Most of the time, they didn't.) But in the longer term, the existing Class I railroad can't run itself into the ground, because its owners won't let it -- they've invested essentially in the ownership of assets, the geographic franchise, and the promise of long-term profitability. If the railroad company for structural or technical reasons can't make money no matter what, the investors will seek a merger or spin-off of valuable assets. See SP.

....backing Mark's point, see "DEFERRED MAINTENANCE".....Also, the large railroads arrange to spend money based on projected carloadings. Most will not go to a bank for financing (they want too much, more money in equipment trusts....ROR is low, not a fast buck)

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[garr]

Hello Mark,

I enjoyed your great work editing Trains but I believe I enjoy your imput on the forum more.

Government owning mainlines is not new. Georgia still owns the old W&A mainline from Atlanta to Chattanooga(now CSX), Cincinnati owns the CNO&TP(now NS from Chattanooga to Cincinnati, and North Carolina owns a key link in the NS in that state.

Jay

[vsmith]

HOLY ***, BATMAN! ANYTHING BUT THAT!

Good God! Double 40+ footers is an Absolutly Stupidly Insane idea! Theres a reason why only short trailer doubles are allowed on the highways. Here are the problems.

A semi can only pull a certain amount of weight. Most trucks are only rated a little more powerfull than the loads they are hauling, that is why they tend to crawl up steep grades while autos are zipping by. Add another trailer and you will either be barely moving up a grade or you will have to buy even bigger , more powerfull semis to handle the added weight. We dont need bigger semi's in this country, the current ones are big enough. Bigger/worse milage/less profit/higher insurance.

Double trailers are incredibly sensitive to wind loads. I have seen double trialer rigs get pushed around by winds way more dangerously than a single trailer even though the single is the same lenth as the double. Its the ability of the double to flex that creates instabilty, Take two 40 footers add a cross wind and that second trailer becomes a broom sweeping anything around it off the road.

A semi can only safely manuvure as traffic allows, a truck pulling a single 40 foot trailer has a hard enough time just changing lanes without hitting another car or getting cut off from a distrcted driver. Add another 40 feet to that and Jezzzuuuzzz can you imaging just how hard it becomes just to change lanes or merge onto the freeway? You could follow the routes of these double 40 footers by the trail of knocked over signals as they try to manuvere thru city streets, running over curbs and corners making right turns...I see this on an almost daily basis.

And finally most trucker end their deliveries by backing up the trailer to a loading dock. It is nearly Impossible to back up a double trailer into a loading dock. Ask any trucker, they would rather try landing a jumbo jet onto a Aircraft Carrier at night than but up with that frustration.

[Modelcar]

....Did railroads rip up too much of their plant in recent decades to satisfy bean counters and now find that having some that was done away with could be used to their advantage. I'm sure some was reduntant but lack of poor planning ahead seems to have turned around and bit them in many cases. How often to we read of sidings that were torn out and now presently we're hearing of trains sitting in sidings for miles and some without even crews, etc.....clogging the system here and there and it goes on and on.....Somehow don't railroads have to plan for the modern world. Other forms of transportation seem to be somehow doing at least part of that....

[Anonymous]

Mark's made a whole lot of sense. I'm not sure I understand why it is that railroads get treated like a public utility when it comes to rates. I also don't understand why it is that semis on the highway don't pay for the real costs of maintaining the Interstate system. And of course, I still haven't figured out why it is that airlines can afford to order new aircraft, but somehow can't make a profit without a US Government subsidy in carrying the mail.

We all want the good things in life that have to be transported some way or another, but we really don't want to pay for them.

Erik

[TH&B]

There are other solutions. Many shipments realy don't even need to be shipped or at least shipped very far. But alot of product just gets moved around alot all over the place before it finaly might reach a consumer. This is because of poor planning and last minute decisions. Raising the costs of truck traffic and rail traffic to its real direct costs would not in the long run raise consumer prices. Maybe it would raise in the short run but on the long run prices would go even further down.

One example is an industry using steel from a mill far away when there is a mill close by because the farther away mill is cheaper but only because it's dumping the steel and then being shipped by truck damaging our hiway at the public's cost.

Where I live there are alot of rock carying trucks on some of our hiways, why does rock have to travel 60mph? rocks fall off these sometimes overloaded trucks at speed. Aggregates belong on barges when possible or slow trains and if by truck it should be in safer trucks and at the real costs.
REAL costs will make REAL solutions.

[Randy Stahl]

I like to think that my family and loved ones will be safe on the highway! Iknow that if more trucks are crammed onto the interstates that safety is a thing of the past. Truckers usually survive a collision with a family car, the occupants of the smaller vehicles rarely survive. A rule of thumb on RRs years ago was to not mix lightweight and heavyweight equipment, especially on electric RRs. collisions between the 2 always have a big body count.
Randy

[Modelcar]

...Call it "bleeding heart contingent" or some other name, I for one do not wi***o see the building of "truck trains" on our interstates....Believe we have enough potential danger of mingling with present truck and passenger car traffic without upping the percentages. Of course the increased road damage is always a reason with more and heavier traffic. Interstates are crumbling fast enough as it is....But it is mind bogging why railroads won't increase capacity...if they really can to grab the additional business.

[Anonymous]

There is just one word for this idea. DUMB.

The doubles out there are unsafe enough so that many truck drivers won't drive them even with extra pay. Further, allowing doubles on rural highways and city streets is much less safe than on the interstates. Further, trucks damage our highways enough without adding more problems. Lets have the trucks pay for the damage they already do before we encourage further growth.

Truckers with their driver shortage, their own financial problems, their new HOS regulations and less efficient EPA tractors are having a problem of their own. Don't look now but there are not enough trucks now to handle just the existing truck business much less trying to pick up slack for the railroads.

LC

[Randy Stahl]

Yea,, your right RR managers are collectivly a bunch of idiots, Ill second that!!!!!
Randy

[Anonymous]

So far this year, the RR's have enjoyed tremendous volumes to the point of service drastically suffering on several of the class 1's, which the RR openly attributes to being "full." As a result of being full, the RR's have puffed up and have been very open in the trade press about taking rates up since they can be selective about the freight they move from this wealth of available freight. In some cases the RR has walked away from significant business (ie. Union Pacific - UPS freight) because some trains no longer fit their network... again, because they're full. RR's are hoping that this surge of freight will boost their fortunes to the point that they are the darlings of Wall Street. They're intentionally delaying capacity additions (ie. building more track) to capitalize on the traffic boom. Union Pacific was recently cited in the Wall St. Journal as a deterent to economic growth because they aren't able to deliver freight at the rate that the shipping market demands.

We've also read a great deal about the truck driver shortage in the U.S. and how the RR's also attribute their intermodal volume increase, in part to that situation.

There is a solution and railroaders big and small will gasp and blanch at the thought of it, but if the RR's can't handle the volume that is there and if there aren't enough drivers to handle the freight pulling single trailers, then why not let truckers pull double trailers (ie. double 48's or double 53's?)

I'm as "pro-railroad" as anyone that you will find, but there is an economic and logistical reality of getting this freight moved.

I know that there is a whole bleeding heart contingent that will cry that its unsafe to pull these longer combination vehicles, which is why you would restrict them to intercity moves on the interstate system with very specific restrictions to keep them off of local streets and state highways. (ie. they can operate on interstate highways but must be connected and disconnected within 1 mile of the interstate highway. Some Western states allow double 45's and 48's and I've driven among them many times with no concern whatsoever. Again, there would be a cry and hue over "its too dangerous" but that's protectionism under a veiled wrapper.

If the RR's can't do it... and they've publicly said that they can't, let someone else who can.