Hemphill's January column - Government dole

[Anonymous]

A Revenue Ton-Mile (RTM) is one ton of freight transported for one mile for which the freight transporter receives remuneration. The amount of revenue received is totally unrelated to the physical measure of work done. For coal, the revenue per ton-mile may be one cent; for pillows, it may ten cents. All Class One railroads measure their RTMs as a normal part of accounting and report those statistics to the Surface Transportation Board. They are in the public domain and are used by a variety of organizations such as the Eno Foundation, Reebie & Associates and many others. The AAR "Railroad Facts 2004 Edition" cites Eno as the source for its page32 table entitled "U.S. Intercity Revenue Freight Ton-Mile Distribution By Mode."

All credible sources of freight transportation statistics with which I am familiar use RTMs (among other measures), and when they do, they use the common definition I gave above. A ton of coal hauled one mile for one cent by rail is one RTM. A ton of computers hauled one mile by truck is one RTM. Pricing, differential or other, is irrelevant to this purely physical measure.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

David,

I've been following this thread, and had a few questions.

Looked at you'r bio, and noted you state that you are a "transportation researcher" and the inventor of the "stack and a half"

Question one: What company or university are you doing the research for?
and
Question two: Which railcar maker makes your stack and a half?.
Last,
Question three: Which railroads use it?

Thanks,
Ed

I'll email you

[arbfbe]

Well, even Joisey has to look at that option.

http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=12172

Alan