So, in this thread we have discussed multiple smaller TOFC ramps and indivdual customer-loaded containers on wheels loaded from team tracks - sounds like concepts straight from Jeff Wilson's historical railroading books "Express, Mail & Merchandise Service" and "Piggyback & Container Traffic". Don't get me wrong, I think they were great concepts for their time, but somehow they didn't seem to transtition well to the post 1970 commercial landscape. Maybe they can have another go at expanding Amtrak Express...
ruderunnerErik, my thinking is that drayage of the smaller containers could be done by the customers themselves. Class 6 trucks are cheap and could handle a smaller containers.
Oh, for sure!
The smaller trucks, think of two axles with no trailer, could handle a small container. And the drayage could be done by the customers themselves.
But that wouldn't maximize the profitability of short haul intermodal, and would be a fatal error. The relative importance of drayage costs increases with the shortness of the haul. And dray costs are THE determining factor in the competitive success of shorter haul intermodal vis a vis over the road trucking.
If the railroad shifted the responsibility for the drayage to the customer it would be establishing a terminal to terminal rate. Such a charge is automatically wrong in two ways. It will simultaneously overcharge freight with a higher drayage cost while undercharging freight with a lower drayage cost. Bad news either way.
The overcharge will divert freight to motor movement that could contribute to the railroad's bottom line. The undercharge will leave money on the table that could contribute to the railroad's bottom line. A terminal to terminal rate cannot be "Right". And that's what you'd have if you left drayage up to the customer. No way to be "Right" with the price.
A railroad can do the "Right" pricing in partnership with a trucker, on a door to door basis. But it can never do "Right" pricing on a terminal to terminal basis.
There is a simple, yet high investment solution.
Instead of draying the boxes to the railroad, build highly concentrated distribution center/logistics parks facilities at or very closely to the railroads. These would be very similar to airports in concept in which industry would locate at these locations.
The concept is already in place....Willow Springs UPS sort center is located on the BNSF.
Drayage costs would be dramatically reduced and manufacturers/distributors could take advantage of state of the art facilities (highly automated). The companies which choose not to invest in the facilities will be able to utilize the traditional truckload service. The companies at the "logistics centers" will be able to realize transportation and chain logistics savings.
All it takes is real estate and $$$.
Same concept could be done in Clear Lake, Iowa. Build consolidated loads of multiple producers for concentrated deliveries. Sort of like a shuttle elevator.
Ed
I believe BNSF also has the Alliance Logistics Park, the Joliet Logistics Park, and the Kansas City Logistics Lark In Operations. They might not have those exact names, but they are in operation. They are pretty much set up as described above.
Here's an update on a new short-haul intermodal service in the PNW that was first announced earlier this year, Portland-to-Seattle:
http://www.capitalpress.com/Business/20180503/container-business-grows-at-portland-intermodal-facility
Google Port of Portland for some background on how it lost most of its container biz a while back, and how it's slowly getting some of it back.
Wrong equipment - period. Roadrailer container chassis. Forget lifting equipment. Forget circus style loading. Forget tare wight of heavy TTX equipment. A seaborne company invented the container and implemented container carriage on railroads. Maybe a seaborn company will order Roadrailer container chassis and charter its own trains for the linehaul efficiencies of rail without the terminal costs and time delays. TTX - no. Raodrailer - yes.
SAMUEL C WALKERRoadrailer container chassis.
They were called RailRunners, and you will do well to study their design, history, and more importantly reasons for general nonacceptance in detail.
Why you would think the tare weight of an underframe plus ISO oceangoing container structure would be less than that of a van RoadRailer is a mystery to me. Perhaps you've chosen not to read the lettering on the vehicles and do the corresponding math.
SAMUEL C WALKERWrong equipment - period. Roadrailer container chassis. Forget lifting equipment. Forget circus style loading. Forget tare wight of heavy TTX equipment. A seaborne company invented the container and implemented container carriage on railroads. Maybe a seaborn company will order Roadrailer container chassis and charter its own trains for the linehaul efficiencies of rail without the terminal costs and time delays. TTX - no. Raodrailer - yes.
Totally bogus dude. And I worked in marketing for RoadRailer.
The intermodal container concept was developed by the New York Central Railroad in the early 1920s under the leadership of its president, Alfred Holland Smith. He started with the railroad as a messenger boy at age 14 when his father died and earned his way up to presidency of the NYC.
That railroad, and other competing rail lines, were rapidly expanding container service until they were stopped in their tracks by the stupid fools of government regulation. I've been though this before and I'll go over it again if required.
Containerization was not developed by Malcom McLean of Sea Land, or any other "Seaborn" company. McLean was the first to be allowed by the damn government to really use it, but the railroads beat him by 35 years or so to the concept.
And!
In all these years no one, anywhere on Planet Earth, has figured out how to use RoadRailer chassis to move containers in an economically viable method. You can design the hardware to do it, but making the benefits exceed the costs just hasn't worked.
One Roadrailer container chassis was built in 1980. Triple Crown Services never attempted to serve the market. Inherent problem to use of Roadrailer was it was against a national interstate system. It is very difficult to compete against an interstate highway system limited to a region and a single railroad company.
SAMUEL C WALKEROne Roadrailer container chassis was built in 1980. Triple Crown Services never attempted to serve the market. Inherent problem to use of Roadrailer was it was against a national interstate system. It is very difficult to compete against an interstate highway system limited to a region and a single railroad company.
I might as well reply to this.
As I have stated, I worked for RoadRailer in marketing. Before I did that I worked for the ICG in intermodal marketing. The ICG attempted to establish the 1st commercial freight operation using RoadRailer equipment in 1980. Only one person in the ICG Intermodal Department thought it would work. Unfortunately, that person was the VP Intermodal and he forced it through. It lasted one year. And By God we tried. We were calling every potential customer we could identify from state manufacturers directories. We bought research data from Transearch. We did everything we could think of to make it work. RoadRailers were just too limited in what they could be used for.
Later, when I was at RoadRailer, we tried to sell that thing to anyone in the world. I don't remember, but it was a lot, how many people from Canada, Europe, China, India, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, wherever, I took out to dinner at Gino's Steak House in the Chicago south suburbs. Then I'd take them over to the NS Calumet Yard at 103rd and Stony Island in Chicago to show them how a RoadRailer train was put together. (The people from India could be a problem, since they could be vegetarians. But Gino's served them a very good vegy meal while I enjoyed my expense account steak.)
We had a container chassis design for them. Nobody was interested. Sometimes, what seems like a good idea just doesn't work.
The problem with RoadRailers was not, as was stated, that they competed with a national Interstate network. The fatal problem was that they were positioned, by RoadRailer itself, to be incompatible with the existing rail business. The railroads were encouraged (required?) to operate RoadRailer only trains. And this made their use uneconomic.
There were other problems with containers on RoadRailers. First, containers come in various lengths. If you've got a 20 foot container to move and a 40 foot chassis what do you do? No, you can't just put it in the middle the engineers told me, it makes it unstable on the rail. Then there is the weight problem. Making a highway trailer in to a railcar, a la RoadRailer, ads weight. This decreases the payload capacity on the highway because of highway gross weight limits.
A chassis/container combination also ads weight. Making the chassis in to a RoadRailer would compound the highway weight issue.
Nobody in the world could figure out a way to make it work. And we sure tried.
There are a couple of other folks on this forum who have direct RoadRailer experience. If they want to chime in, I'll welcome their thoughts.
My boss looked into buying some of the old NS roadrailers a few years back. They weighed in over 1 ton heavier than our heaviest trailer we had in the fleet and those are 48 foot reefers. We are talking about a 53 foot trailer that has a tare weight of almost 18K lbs ready to roll down the road. Yes we could have reduced that somewhat by removing the nose extension and some other modifications but they are way to freaking heavy. We would have lost 2 tons of cargo per load on them. That is way to much weight to give up in cargo. When you have a hard weight limit your required to meet and if you can not haul as much as everyone else your not going to get that contract. They are great for hauling auto parts that are lightweight. But for normal loads of things like paper or other heavy weight items forget it.
So, the problem bascially was weight for the Roadrailer dry van. Engineer the weight out and the intermodal vehicle of Roadrailer might be more effecive to get and keep traffic of all sorts. Composite materials? As for a Raodrailer chassis beyond the prototype built in 1980, the solution would be to engineer out weight and be able to adjust length. It sounds like a bright mechanical engineering talent at Wabash National could figure it out. Many thanks for your insights.
SAMUEL C WALKERSo, the problem bascially was weight for the Roadrailer dry van. Engineer the weight out and the intermodal vehicle of Roadrailer might be more effecive to get and keep traffic of all sorts. Composite materials? As for a Raodrailer chassis beyond the prototype built in 1980, the solution would be to engineer out weight and be able to adjust length. It sounds like a bright mechanical engineering talent at Wabash National could figure it out. Many thanks for your insights.
However, in railroad operations weight has a additional function - keeping the vehicle on the rails. Many aspects of railroading rely on gravity to make things work. So in addition to the buff and draft loads that a 'Roadrailer' must be able to handle it must be heavy enough to stay on the rails.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
SAMUEL C WALKERSo, the problem basically was weight for the Roadrailer dry van. Engineer the weight out and the intermodal vehicle of Roadrailer might be more effective to get and keep traffic of all sorts.
You cannot cavalierly compare the two as if comparable, or ignore the practical effect of whatever tare weight is involved above the underframe in the intermodal version. Have you not studied anything about RailRunners? Even their Web site goes into detail on these issues (and some of the special considerations, as in Africa, that made their use cost-effective for a time).
As Balt indicated, any intermodal underframe, no matter how skeletal, has to have adequate tare weight to resist buff and draft, and more importantly to resist stringlining when in consist (and that includes "bimode" consists where all the RoadRailer traffic is relegated to the rear of a given train in a lane). This cuts into the permissible tare weight for the intermodal container or platform and its associated dunnage and internal securement, even as it is recognized that establishing a practical fleet of ISO series ex-marine containers for "railborne" RailRunner service inherently requires accepting the tare weight of oceangoing containers (which is substantial compared to dry-van structure) or incurring substantial cost to reduce that tare weight (which both makes the containers unfit for deck service and likely weakens them in some planes, notably rack).
I believe there have been several attempts at extremely-low-tare-weight 'container' systems (where the external vehicle is made as light as possible, essentially just a liftable structure enclosing pallets that do the actual "carrying" and involve a substantial portion of the protective packaging). The principal issue with these is that, to become 'competitive' with ISO-container intermodal, the capitalization and effective ongoing 'take rate' have to be substantial, and not just in limited lanes -- and they must produce a profit or service advantage that more than justifies the capital and risk, etc. put into them. I have never observed this in the time I have been watching the intermodal industry, even as some European swap-body companies have tried to float the idea.
Composite materials?
Study their cost and mechanical properties and come back when you can propose specific engineered examples with some numbers. You don't know enough yet to comment knowledgeably on this.
As for a Roadrailer [intermodal] chassis beyond the prototype built in 1980, the solution would be to engineer out weight and be able to adjust length.
I think you are implicitly insulting a number of people at Wabash National with a comment like this, although I doubt they are reading this thread. Did you think an intermodal RoadRailer would intentionally be built as a heavy 'dog' or without reference to the physical requirements?
More alarmingly, what would lead you to believe that making any underframe 'adjustable-length' would not impose a potentially-crippling weight penalty -- to say nothing of the safety implications should the variable-length mechanism become unlocked in transit? I will grant you that it is possible to do some limited adjustment of corner-casting transoms but the issue you're raising is accommodation of radically longer containers, with assumptions about weight distribution and dunnage that become far more serious for low-tare-weight solutions, as well as accommodation issues for containers that overhang their functional corner castings.
It sounds like a bright mechanical engineering talent at Wabash National could figure it out.
I think you'd be right, but you overlook the other 'shoe' -- that the bright mechanical-engineering talent at Wabash National did figure it out, and in between the laws of physics and the realities of finance determined that it could not be made to pay.
(As a separate note: I believe there are now several discussions of the RoadRailer development that explain exactly where the increased tare weight is necessary, and what the structures are. One often-ignored point about dry vans in intermodal service is that most of them are not designed to be lifted, and in fact are likely to be damaged if anything other than slow, very steady, and knowledgeable control is used the entire time the lifting apparatus is near the trailer in question. Even providing the necessary structure to permit a loaded trailer to be forked somewhere other than under the bogie and kingpin, for example by inflatable pads equipped with load cells, involves some additional tare weight (which, as Shadow's owner indicates, translates directly into lost revenue every run). So far, the 'where's my big savings?' has predominated.
Now, I think there is bright mechanical-engineering talent out there now that is looking into just this, the practical development of a dry van that can be efficiently sideloaded quickly and positively on and off skeleton intermodal equipment. Note that as soon as you have this the use of Fuel-Foiler style underframes (where the trailer bogie wheels ride in 'kangaroo' pockets and the frontal resistance can be reduced) becomes practical, whereas it was not so before. My own opinion is that perimeter-frame well-style cars are more practical than 'spine' cars, in part because rapid parallel loading and unloading is possible with them. But I see relatively little upside for the idea of RoadRailing container underframes used for any practical lanes of 'container' service.
As another former industry pro who made a living trying to figure out solutions to these kinds of problems, let me assure you all that Greyhounds knows what he's talking about.
I don't usually follow these discussions in real time; rather, I occasionally check in on them. When I started reading this one, I wondered how long it would be before it devolved into a discussion on equipment technology. I've always been amazed at how many college-educated people have put so much effort into trying to find a technological solution for a problem where the main issue is not the equipment, but rather the fixed cost of drayage and terminal operations. Having said this, though, I do see the long-term potential for one hugely disruptive technology - autonomous vehicles - to change this radically.
But back to the present and short-term future, I'm also a little surprised that no one - not even Greyhounds - has mentioned another key factor that limits short-haul intermodal opportunities: lane balance. This may not be too big a problem in big, high-volume lanes with many shippers, such as Chicago-Memphis, LA-Bay Area, or Toronto-Montreal, but it can be a deal killer in small, one-industry town scenarios where the inbound and outbound flows often don't match at all. Here again the flexibility of truck is a major advantage. If truckers can't achieve balance by finding loads directly back to their original starting point, they do it by triangulating, or even running 4 or 5-point "loops". Rail networks offer far fewer opportunities to do this.
Greyhounds has repeatedly introduced the necessity of lane balance - both routine and long-term unstable - as a critical factor in intermodal transport, particularly with respect to RoadRailers. He may have seen no need to restate the obvious in a discussion strictly concerning the obligate containerized version of mark 2 RoadRailer service. That makes it no less important to keep always 'at the fore' the right recognition and understanding of lanes that cost-effectively balance availability and utilization within the wider excess profitability of the bimodal system.
CNSFback to the present and short-term future, I'm also a little surprised that no one - not even Greyhounds - has mentioned another key factor that limits short-haul intermodal opportunities: lane balance. This may not be too big a problem in big, high-volume lanes with many shippers, such as Chicago-Memphis, LA-Bay Area, or Toronto-Montreal, but it can be a deal killer in small, one-industry town scenarios where the inbound and outbound flows often don't match at all. Here again the flexibility of truck is a major advantage. If truckers can't achieve balance by finding loads directly back to their original starting point, they do it by triangulating, or even running 4 or 5-point "loops". Rail networks offer far fewer opportunities to do this.
Oh, Memphis to Chicago was a problem for us. The truckers were running balanced with revenue loads south and north. But there were more loads going south than coming north. So we got the imbalance along with hauling non revenue empty equipment north.
Now, a problem is something that can be solved. It was once explained to me this way: A prisoner who is going to be hung in the morning doesn't have a problem. He has trouble and is in dire straights. But he doesn't have a problem because he can do nothing as a solution.
We viewed the 500 mile Memphis - Chicago lane as a problem to be solved. We needed the equipment loaded with revenue freight in both directions. Anyone with a basic knowledge of economics can see the issue. There was more demand southbound than northbound but the supply was the same. (We couldn't just let the TOFC trailers pile up in Memphis.) That meant the supply and demand curves for northbound freight intersected at a lower price than the supply and demand curves for southbound freight intersected. We had to charge less to move a load from Memphis to Chicago than we did to move a load from Chicago to Memphis.
The very idea of doing this caused an old, traditional pricing guy to develop a case of the vapors. It simply wasn't done. And it wasn't going to happen on his watch. He relented when it was explained that the alternative was his early retirement.
Anyway, we reduced the northbound rate. This, and other things made possible with deregulation, allowed us to fill the intermodal trains with revenue loads in both directions.
I view balance as a problem to be solved. The near impossiblity of having as many loads in to Sioux City as there are outbound loads should be manageable. It should not be a solid barrier precluding the development of the market.
There are very few transportation companies in the world that do not have to reposistion empty equipment. This includes trucking companies. These empty miles do have a cost but they have no offsetting revenue. So the empty miles need to be minimized. But no one can eliminate all empty miles. Such non revenue miles need to be ruthlessly managed and minimized, but they cannot be eliminated. (The last time I checked JB Hunt over the road trucking was running one of eight miles empty with no revenue.)
Look at it this way: Both Denver and the Twin Cities have significantly more inbound freight than outbound. A look at the freight rates will tell you that. Every carrier is willing to make quite a deal to get a revenue load out of Denver.
But Sioux City needs equipment. And it's not that far from Denver (or the Twin Cities). Load east from Iowa then back (a dry load in a reefer works fine) to the inbound points, then repo the empties to Sioux City or Storm Lake, wherever. It'll take a 3rd party to do this. But, By God, the railroads can do this. And they're going to have to learn to do this. The sooner the better.
Not all dry freight can or will move in refers. It will take some work to make the Twin Cities/Denver/Sioux City triangulation work.
For instance, not all freight moves out of large metropolitan areas with intermodal terminals....one is still back to the drayage costs. Now, factor in the triangulation factor and you have a problem (to solve).
Here is a real challenge....lots of bottles moving into Denver area (think beer). Lots of bottles produced in St. Louis area and moved to Denver. How can one incorporate the St. Louis - Denver move intermodally and haul meat out of Iowa?
BTW, the wife and I were stopped by a CSX intermodal last night here in NW Indiana on the old B&O. I didnt catch the symbol, but we were stopped for quite a while. After awhile she said to me "you counting?" "Yep".
331 containers later, we proceeded....mostly domestics. Damn, that was an impressive train. Figure $700 per container and revenue around $231,000. Lots of big Orange, XPO, and probably 50 JBH. Obviously end of month patterns pushed the volume up, but still...that is an impressive demonstration of intermodal strength and trust....and probably reality of a driver shortage.
MP173BTW, the wife and I were stopped by a CSX intermodal last night here in NW Indiana on the old B&O. I didnt catch the symbol, but we were stopped for quite a while. After awhile she said to me "you counting?" "Yep". 331 containers later, we proceeded....mostly domestics. Damn, that was an impressive train. Figure $700 per container and revenue around $231,000. Lots of big Orange, XPO, and probably 50 JBH. Obviously end of month patterns pushed the volume up, but still...that is an impressive demonstration of intermodal strength and trust....and probably reality of a driver shortage. Ed
Imagine waiting for 331 trucks & trailers at a traffic light?
Okay, perhaps the need for balance was one of those "goes without saying" things that most participants here understood already. I guess the essence of my point is that there are a whole bunch of planets, of which balance is one, which have to be in almost perfect alignment for short-haul intermodal to work. When you're dealing with cross-continent linehauls measured in the thousands of kilometres, you can absorb quite a bit of inefficiency - one in eight empty miles, several days dwell on the equipment at the difficult end waiting for a backhaul load, out-of-line dray moves, etc, etc, - and still make a profit. Not so when you've only got 500-750 kms of linehaul to work with. The margins are there, but only if everything works perfectly on a consistent basis.
My assessment of the situation is that everyone involved - not just the "stupid, lazy" railroads, but also shippers and truckers such as J.B. Hunt - have studied short-haul intermodal repeatedly and concluded that, while it could be done, it probably isn't worth the effort under current market conditions. Remember that we're talking about people here. Wherever there's a buck to be made, someone's bound to figure out a way to make it.
MP173Here is a real challenge....lots of bottles moving into Denver area (think beer). Lots of bottles produced in St. Louis area and moved to Denver. How can one incorporate the St. Louis - Denver move intermodally and haul meat out of Iowa?
I wouldn't.
An empty bottle in results in a full bottle out. I'd just go for the outbound beer loads. If you've got in and out from the same facility just haul the freight and send 'em a bill.
I know CP just shut down their Montreal - Toronto lane. But railroads do offer "Short Haul" intermodal services. Examples include the BNSF Chicago to Kansas City and St. Paul. Both under 500 miles.
As CNSF pointed out, "We're dealing with people here". It's not easy for a railroad marketing person to stick his/her neck out and advocate taking a risk on developing new business. There will be failures. And the advocate will take the blame. The reality that there is no success possible without a real risk of failure is foriegn to railroad culture. So risk is avoided.
An oil man was once quoted as: "If we're not getting some dry holes we're not being agressive enough looking for oil." It's the same with market development. If you have no failures you're not being agressive enough. You can't be foolish, but you have to take prudent risks. My experience is that the rail industry excessively avoids risks at a cost to growing their business.
Putting intermodal terminals at places such as Sioux City and Storm Lake then trying to triangulate equipment in is going to involve taking risks and applying intensive mangement. It won't be easy, but I can be done. Terminals at those places will minimize dray expenses. But someone is going to have to stick their own neck out to get it done, and I see the reluctance to do that as the main barrier.
Lane balance I think you refer to what we call Trade, the ratio of loads moving in and out of a marketlace. You do a full market analysis before hand to determine the trade ratio and if you're in a backhaul or headhaul situation. For the most part too you'd only consider FTL/FCLs as your primary unit (I don't subscribe to the TEU being a great measure anymore as it doesn't accurately portray rev units) but now we get into the trade balance and repositioning strategies... with that you're now thinking why not move an LTL/LCL or multistop to get my box somewhere else? But of course from the RR perspective, the majority of their traffic is from the IMC or their joint equipment programs -- so why do they really care, moving equipment is moving equipment (although not priced the same). They just want to have a good trade balance on a per train basis, and if not build into the lane pricing an encompassing move (which they do) on the per mile basis. Also the RR owned box fleets are typically leased or brokered out by 3PLs so regardless of the logo on the side they're really just builting supplemental capacity in certain lanes that they aren't building the actual volumes on. You'll see the RR owned box love-hate relationship come and go as they buy en mass and then also dump en mass boxes (which have a relatively short lifespan just by virture of what they are and how they are handled). Don't forget in your techno improvements the intermediate step between now and autonomous vehicles is platooning... Hunt's already signed on you should see that in the next 5 - 10 years.
greyhounds,
Would the meat shipments be railed to, say, Chicago, and then disseminated to other trains for delivery to multiple destinations?
GrampWould the meat shipments be railed to, say, Chicago, and then disseminated to other trains for delivery to multiple destinations?
Which points out that there are different types of short-haul lanes. CP's Toronto-Montreal service was truly a standalone lane for trailers moving between those two metro areas. But when I worked a bit on the Ashley Furniture operation back in the '90's, it was a short-haul leg in and out of Arcadia WI which connected to a number of longer-haul intermodal lanes radiating out of Chicago. And, of course, the division of the US rail network into eastern and western carriers creates a whole batch of short-haul lanes which would otherwise be part of longer-haul transcontinental lanes, as you see in Canada. (Not that there are many loads moving intact all the way between Vancouver and Halifax.) Each scenario has its own unique complexities, but when I was a rail marketer it always seemed to me that the short-haul appendages on our own system represented the lowest-hanging fruit.
Case in point: when I was at CN, we had a substantial daily volume of traffic being drayed between Toronto and the Windsor area, which is at best a 4-hour run each way over a frequently congested highway. It was all moving on rail between Toronto and western Canada - nice profitable long-haul traffic, but with this expensive driver-consuming dray. I always felt there was no good reason why we couldn't figure out how to set up a workable rail shuttle to Windsor, but we never did. Why not? Well, in Canada CN is it's own door-to-door retail arm. They were our trucks, our drivers, and we were already getting full door-to-door revenue for doing the work. Yeah, maybe we could have saved ourselves $50 a load in cost and freed up a bunch of driver hours with a well-tuned rail shuttle operation, but you know, there were other fires burning, it would have required investment and considerable management attention for the first year or so, and we would have ultimately had to give at least some of our savings to the customers anyways. So in the end (looking at you, greyhounds), no one ever felt it was worth sticking their neck out for such relatively small gains given the risk.
That's the idea. Once they get to Chicago the meat loads can be forwarded "Everywhere East" on existing trains. Adding good revenue loads to existing trains is money in the bank.
And! While a train is running between Sioux City and Chicago the railroad might as well add shorter haul Chicago destination loads to the consist. As long as there is terminal capacity the marginal cost of doing this will be low.
See below
Ulrich Pick pallets up by truck.. have them transferred to a BOXCAR at a transload facility.. let the railroad haul the boxcar to wherever it needs to go... move the pallets from the boxcar back onto a truck for last mile delivery to receiver. I know that's how it was done years ago.. worked well then.. can work well again today and into the future!
Pick pallets up by truck.. have them transferred to a BOXCAR at a transload facility.. let the railroad haul the boxcar to wherever it needs to go... move the pallets from the boxcar back onto a truck for last mile delivery to receiver. I know that's how it was done years ago.. worked well then.. can work well again today and into the future!
When they resize boxcars to 8'6" interior width then we might see something happen..Until then boxcars are 2 1/2 pallets wide. Too much dunnage for load securement. Also in order to maximize the volume of a box car, lump loading is preferred, which is time consuming and expensive. Hence if boxcars were dimensioned as such; W 8'6" x H 18'. Moving pallets, roro racks, etc. between trailer/boxcar would be a big benefit. Yet even if these improvements took place. How many recievers actually have spurs left for boxcar L/U? Not too many from what I see..
SD60MAC9500ow many recievers actually have spurs left for boxcar L/U? Not too many from what I see..
Russell
What about import-export short-haul? Between dock, direct to-or-from ship, railroad to 300 - 500-mile distant intermodal terminal? Should be profitable and reduce highway congestion around ports.
Dave, here's one example, which I previously posted above:
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