Murphy Siding Euclid BC2 That now makes sense. That is pretty damning. I wonder how Euclid can turn this so he can continue to carry EHH's water for him. I think the conflicting letters are strange. It’s just my opinion. Don has offered a theory that makes sense, as you say. However, it may or may not be the actual explanation. Even if his theory is correct, the explanation still seems a little strange. I notice that the second letter, while thoroughly retracting the rather comprehensive position of the first letter, offers no comment on what the STB had asked for. Instead, it offers to respond to those issues only if the STB asks again. I think that too is a little strange. Here is another theory: There is disagreement among CSX management about what Harrison is doing, and they all can write letters. No mystery there. That's why they wrote the letter. It is self-evident
Euclid BC2 That now makes sense. That is pretty damning. I wonder how Euclid can turn this so he can continue to carry EHH's water for him. I think the conflicting letters are strange. It’s just my opinion. Don has offered a theory that makes sense, as you say. However, it may or may not be the actual explanation. Even if his theory is correct, the explanation still seems a little strange. I notice that the second letter, while thoroughly retracting the rather comprehensive position of the first letter, offers no comment on what the STB had asked for. Instead, it offers to respond to those issues only if the STB asks again. I think that too is a little strange. Here is another theory: There is disagreement among CSX management about what Harrison is doing, and they all can write letters.
BC2 That now makes sense. That is pretty damning. I wonder how Euclid can turn this so he can continue to carry EHH's water for him.
That now makes sense. That is pretty damning. I wonder how Euclid can turn this so he can continue to carry EHH's water for him.
I think the conflicting letters are strange. It’s just my opinion. Don has offered a theory that makes sense, as you say. However, it may or may not be the actual explanation. Even if his theory is correct, the explanation still seems a little strange. I notice that the second letter, while thoroughly retracting the rather comprehensive position of the first letter, offers no comment on what the STB had asked for. Instead, it offers to respond to those issues only if the STB asks again. I think that too is a little strange. Here is another theory: There is disagreement among CSX management about what Harrison is doing, and they all can write letters.
No mystery there. That's why they wrote the letter. It is self-evident
Yes it is self-evident and not mysterious. So what is your point in mentioning it?
Euclid Murphy Siding Euclid BC2 That now makes sense. That is pretty damning. I wonder how Euclid can turn this so he can continue to carry EHH's water for him. I think the conflicting letters are strange. It’s just my opinion. Don has offered a theory that makes sense, as you say. However, it may or may not be the actual explanation. Even if his theory is correct, the explanation still seems a little strange. I notice that the second letter, while thoroughly retracting the rather comprehensive position of the first letter, offers no comment on what the STB had asked for. Instead, it offers to respond to those issues only if the STB asks again. I think that too is a little strange. Here is another theory: There is disagreement among CSX management about what Harrison is doing, and they all can write letters. No mystery there. That's why they wrote the letter. It is self-evident Yes it is self-evident and not mysterious. So what is your point in mentioning it?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Well there are two letters to consider. I don't think there is any question about what the letters mean. One letter approves of Harrison's changes and the other one does not. They both intend to represent the viewpoint of Toyota of Canada.
Euclid They both intend to represent the viewpoint of CSX.
They both intend to represent the viewpoint of CSX.
Of course, you mean Toyota Canada...
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...
Yes that is what I meant.
tree68 Euclid They both intend to represent the viewpoint of CSX. Of course, you mean Toyota Canada...
A second, more recent, letter always over rules whatever was stated in the first.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
EuclidI think the conflicting letters are strange.
I don't. I just think it's fairly typical of what happens in large organizations.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd Euclid I think the conflicting letters are strange. I don't. I just think it's fairly typical of what happens in large organizations.
Euclid I think the conflicting letters are strange.
Oh sure. I think it is definitely typical. Conflicting letters are just the symptom of conflicting positions and beliefs.
I just think it is a bit strange for such a substantial conflict to end up presented in writing to the public.
I think the conflict is more incidental than intentional on the part of Toyota Canada's management, but to me some of the 'resolution' is in the language. There are marketing buzzwords in the consultant's letter that are highly suspicious to me; the countermanding reveals as few details in a public record as possible, and that's the kind of result I'd expect from relatively high-level management passed through legal-department review. Don's hypothesis about lack of actual content review of the October 3 response before it was sent sure fits this picture...
But the important thing is not that there were two letters, it's what is in the 'acting' latest one. While I don't know the 'substance' of what Toyota Canada management is willing to share about PSR and their experience with it, it is certainly poor enough, in enough ways, to take the rather drastic step of disavowing rather than just modifying the prior letter. I don't think I can remember this being done with a communication of this kind to the STB before.
I've dealt with the head of Toyota logstics NA before not just the Canada side. For a while we had a nice little contract we hauled 30 lb aluminum slugs from a mill to a wheel casting plant near Georgetown KY. Well we started having problems servicing the contract aka meeting delivery times and that was causing issues for the wheel plant. I sent in all our data to Toyota showing it was on the supplier of the Aluminum itself that was the problem aka delaying our trucks for 4-6 hours at a time while at their plants. Needless to say Toyota called up Alcoa and demanded action. Alcoa told them to shove it. Toyota pulled their contracts. It was about 150 loads a year not much but a decent rate. Now the aluminum is coming in from Canada and we don't run there.
I believe, and someone can check my facts on this, that Toyota was the very first Japanese auto manufacturer to "invade" the USA market, as long ago as 1960 if I remember correctly, perhaps a few years earlier. They, and VW, and MG, who entered the USA market earlier, prompted the "Big Three" to finally produce compact cars. I think the first of those were in 1962, Plymouth Valient, Chevorlet Corvair, and Ford Falcon. Please correct the dates if I am off.
I think it is a little more complicated than that -- on the other hand, the accounts I read when in school attributed 'competitive pressure' almost solely to VW, with a strong 'second' to the Rambler (from the 1954 creation of American Motors, and restyled in 1958) and at least some of the impetus was due, or said to be, to the same business downturn and changing taste against oversized cars that killed the Edsel division of Ford.
The Corvair was a design of 1959, specifically intended as a 'superior' American response to the Volkswagens, especially the Karmann Ghia. It famously included German swing axles and Tatra-like rear weight bias, which when coupled with typical American tire pressure led to disaster (so compellingly related in Unsafe at Any Speed, published in 1965 after GM had solved the problems with the car). The MGs other than sports cars were never more than a niche vehicle here; we have at least one MG fan following the forums who may comment on this. And the original Japanese cars that came here were relatively pathetic before the 'quality control' revolution inspired by Edwards Deming took hold; you almost found yourself looking around the back to see where the key went, and getting into something like a Subaru 360 or Honda 600 was terrifying in that era (they are much more normal-looking now that we are used to tiny cars!)
The Falcon as I recall was introduced in 1960, and it was by far the most successful of the early compacts. At the time that was largely attributed to its being more 'normal' than the relatively complex and innovative 'Vair. The Chrysler 'A-body' was in development from 1957, before the business downturn gathered momentum, and while those cars featured some very good engineering they also had remarkably baroque Exner styling.
In the cases of the 'big three' design for compacts naturally occupied a couple of years before introduction, so the Japanese car introduction here was more a co-exploitation of changing taste, perhaps enhanced by the 'second-car' economy first exemplified by the Nash Metropolitan.
There are a couple of other interesting areas, one of which was the light truck market that opened up with the VW 'microbus' family, another being downsizing of the Lincolns in 1961. All this was 'settled science' long before the first Japanese forays into the American domestic market, and I think the real effects start after the oil shock of the early 1970s when Japanese quality control had become good while American unionized production by contrast was something of a joke.
Thanks for the historical analysis. I am sure you have a good memory of the facts invovled. In October or Novemenber 1963, I bought a 1964 Corvair Monza, trading in a 1954 Ford Mainline that had 116,000 miles on it. On the advice of Chuck Dietricht, Bolt Beranek and Newman's automobile expert, I had the shock-absorbers replaced by appropraite Konis, and a suspension stabilizer bar added. This was done at Porter Chevrotlet in Cambridge, where it was a modification they were accustomed to making. Later, when the Monza Spyder with turbocharging came out, an attempt to make the Corvair competitve with Porsche as well as VW, I had a Spyder dashboard panel installed so I could see engine RPM, but did not even think of turbocharging. I drove the car until 1970 and enjoyed driving it. It handled at least as well as any car I have ever driven. And it was great in snow.
And I frequently drove BBN's VW Microbus, enjoyably, and even more, a lady-friend's Karmon-Gia VW. Once got to drive a Merecedes Gull Wing, Miami - Jacksonville. Client's car. Talked me out of taking the train with that bit of a bribe. I once drove a Cadillac from Talahassee to Jacksonville. I was on the line to purchase a bus ticket at the Greyhound Station, the Gulf Wind's schedule not in any way convenient, and two men approached me. They said they both needed their cars in Jacksonvile but would like to go in one car and would like me to drive the other. Those were more innocent days, of couse, and I agreed. I simply followed them, and took a taxi from their hotel to mine.
Another flat week. Train speed up 0.1 mph. Dwell up 0.4 hrs. Cars on Line up 100.
oltmannd Another flat week. Train speed up 0.1 mph. Dwell up 0.4 hrs. Cars on Line up 100.
daveklepperIt handled at least as well as any car I have ever driven. And it was great in snow.
The problems with early Corvairs, as with Tatras, was not so much in their normal handling as what happened to them when some physical limits were exceeded (and in some cases those were unexpectedly low, like the longitudinal stability of Porsches in forward motion). Other cars with swing axles, notably Mercedes, showed some of the same behavior -- it was just not complicated with poor tires and excessive weight at the rear.
What would happen is this: many people inflated their tires only as far as the usual pathetic excuse Americans used at the time to help obtain a 'marshmallow ride', around 24psi.* Now the Corvair, with excessive weight distribution on the rear, had some ridiculous bonebusting pressure recommended for those rear tires, and drivers tired of jouncing probably took them down to the 'right' pressure for good riding. At that point, cornering would push the little tires over on their sidewalls and the swing axle would deflect (as it normally does) taking the wheel over to tuckunder. At some point without advance warning to the driver the tire would scrub sufficient to let the edge of the rim contact the road, at which point the whole shebang would abruptly catapult down and allow the car to start rolling over. It wouldn't matter at that point where you could crank the steering wheel to point, physics would take over, and you can see what the big equalizing bar on the rear would do. Better wheels and tires was another thing that helped.
Chevrolet of course completely solved it in '65 by going to full independent shafts. With those the car had full independent suspension at all four corners, as fully 'European world class' as any car sold in America then. Right at that point it began to make sense to put Yenko-style power on one ... but of course out came 'Unsafe at Any Speed' with Nader fulminating about the treatment he got from GM, and that was it as far as meaningful sales for so complex and unusual a car. That was a pity, because the bugs were out of it by then (except perhaps for that ridiculous drive to the cooling fan), and yes, it would have been very good in snow.
*(As late as 1976 that was the Cadillac recommended pressure for the front wheels of the Eldorado with Vogue Kevlar tires, which resulted in their moaning at even normal cornering speeds until I took them up to 35psi; I actually had a police officer in Tenafly prepared to give me a ticket for speeding/going too fast for conditions until I told him to clock me on his radar as I went around a corner with the tire noise audible!)
I owned a 82 Corvair Monza coupe 80hp and a 4 speed. Drove it hard and felt the swing axles creating the jacking effect. Installed a 'camber compensator bar' on the rear suspension and the jacking effect was eliminated. My biggest problem with the Corvair was the bearing for the cooling fan - had to replace it two times before I traded the car in on a Triumph TR4a with IRS.
When I went through the Skip Barber Racing School (now bankrupt) in 1988 one of their mottos was 'A squealing tire is a happy tire'.
Switched to Michelen tires and followed recommended pressures.
oltmanndAnother flat week. Train speed up 0.1 mph. Dwell up 0.4 hrs. Cars on Line up 100.
Roughly, if the average train speed is ~20 MPH, then going to 20.1 MPH (+0.5%) would require a run of at least about 1,600 mi between yardings to make up for that lost 0.4 hr. Heck, I don't think the CSX system is over 1,600 mi. in any direction, so a train isn't likely to get that far between 2 yards.
"Bottom of line" (as a legal immigrant former co-worker would say) - net, it's a tiny bit worse - but not getting better at all.
- PDN.
We have noticed CSX is not underpowering their freights around here. Almost all longer manifest freights are now running by here with 3 - 4400 HP locos all working. As well the IM trains are higher powered. So maybe that is the only reason that train speed is slightly up ?
Saw a freight come through Utica this past weekend. IIRC, six units, the last (GP38) possibly dead-in-tow, but the fifth unit was definitely on-line and working.
Heard a freight hit the nearby defect detector (Whitesboro) with over 700 axles...
Sounds like CSX is taking a page out of the William Deramus operating manual.
tree68 Saw a freight come through Utica this past weekend. IIRC, six units, the last (GP38) possibly dead-in-tow, but the fifth unit was definitely on-line and working. Heard a freight hit the nearby defect detector (Whitesboro) with over 700 axles...
Unless the rule was just recently changed, CSX has had a 24 "powered axle rule" for a long time, limiting which units are allowed to be online. This is based on 24 axles worth of SD40-2s, so the big heavy ES44AHs are worth 8 or 9 powered axles to this count, along with porportional increases for the AC4400s, SD70s, etc.
So while the fifth unit may have been online, it is most likely that a unit or two in front of that one was isolated, and it's rare to have four 6-axles online because they'd all have to be SD40-2s...usually only 3 are allowed to be online according to this rule. The supposed purpose of the rule is to prevent pull-aparts from too much power application.
SaturnaliaUnless the rule was just recently changed, CSX has had a 24 "powered axle rule" for a long time, limiting which units are allowed to be online.
Given EHH's propensity for running big trains, setting aside such a rule would not be out of the realm of possibility. The occasional broken coupler is probably worth the risk in the minds of both EHH and his handlers.
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