Moving tons by truck and tons by rail are certainly different things anyhow and the data should be taken for what it is worth -- simply movement.
LTL / Truck / FTL likely lumped together into this reporting. They mention multiple modes, but is that rail - truck (Aka intermodal)? Is it pipeline-rail? Is barge-truck? No clear basis for those figures. What about drayage to a crossdock and reloaded in a truck? Are the tons counted twice? Remember the same material can be trucked several times... a raw material produced into a component added into a device added into a final product. How many tariff shifts can you incur in those moves?
What about a movement out of a broken machine part somewhere then re-trucked back to a plant (we'd call that a service move)? That counts-- flatbed is a large chunk of those 'truck' moves. You'd be very unlikely to rail something out to be repaired and then rail it back unless the feasiblity of it was driven by the cost factor (economics).
I truck product to an RDC and warehouse for a few weeks then I retruck that same product. Two seperate moves, each at 20 tons... so is that 40 tons reported? Yes. Again, the modality of logistics is that trucking is more flexible, quicker and easier. Moves under 100 miles, 250 miles, ect can be redistribution moves, and make up a lot of that data.
Ive used FHA / BTS data several times professionally, it must be refined and evaluated only after put into appropriate context.
My conclusion-- the initial premise of a near-demise of freight rail is flawwed inhereniently. The advantages of rail vs truck vs pipe vs all water vs air are unique and extremely difficult to replace. I've seen entire plants lose rail service and that was the deciding factor in their ultimate closure as the economics changed entirely.
Statistical equivalent of 'activity based accounting' whereas the activtiy is movement by mode.
tree68 ATLANTIC CENTRAL Lithonia Operator Warren Buffet is a pretty smart guy. Fairly recently he bought BNSF lock stock and barrel. He must not be as pessimistic as some folks here. Exactly. To me, PSR sounds like a return the idea of running freight trains on an efficient schedule, like a passenger train. You'd think so, but you need people to do that. ATLANTIC CENTRAL Do you tell the transit bus or the subway when to pick you up? Actually, the "Dial-a-Ride" program in Phoenix, AZ, does exactly that. My late mother was a regular user. ATLANTIC CENTRAL PSR might be just what the railroads need to figure out a good way to handle Intermodal efficiently? Run the same train the same time and have the "passengers" show up and get on board. Sheldon While it's commonly acknowledged that the freight railroads don't run on a schedule, they do come pretty close. Many originating trains get called at the same time each day, and contract requirements for premium service, like the package services, hew pretty close to the line. When watching the Deshler railcam, I can pretty much count on the "taco" (taconite ore) train coming through southbound within 20 minutes of 10:30 PM. I have an early 1960's ETT from NYC - prominently displayed on the back page is "Operation Sunset," which touted the need to make necessary connections so trains moved "on time." The desired departure times for various trains were listed on the illustration. That could certainly return. It's been the opinion of some that PSR has less to do with precision scheduled railroading than it does with moving money to the bottom line where it can be harvested by activist investors. As has been noted here, many of the people necessary to run an efficient railroad and to grow the business have been let go. It's also been observed here that once the chief proponent(s) of PSR leave a given railroad, it doesn't take long for management to start rolling back some of the actions taken by the PSR management.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Lithonia Operator Warren Buffet is a pretty smart guy. Fairly recently he bought BNSF lock stock and barrel. He must not be as pessimistic as some folks here. Exactly. To me, PSR sounds like a return the idea of running freight trains on an efficient schedule, like a passenger train.
Lithonia Operator Warren Buffet is a pretty smart guy. Fairly recently he bought BNSF lock stock and barrel. He must not be as pessimistic as some folks here.
Warren Buffet is a pretty smart guy. Fairly recently he bought BNSF lock stock and barrel. He must not be as pessimistic as some folks here.
Exactly. To me, PSR sounds like a return the idea of running freight trains on an efficient schedule, like a passenger train.
You'd think so, but you need people to do that.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Do you tell the transit bus or the subway when to pick you up?
Actually, the "Dial-a-Ride" program in Phoenix, AZ, does exactly that. My late mother was a regular user.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL PSR might be just what the railroads need to figure out a good way to handle Intermodal efficiently? Run the same train the same time and have the "passengers" show up and get on board. Sheldon
Sheldon
While it's commonly acknowledged that the freight railroads don't run on a schedule, they do come pretty close. Many originating trains get called at the same time each day, and contract requirements for premium service, like the package services, hew pretty close to the line.
When watching the Deshler railcam, I can pretty much count on the "taco" (taconite ore) train coming through southbound within 20 minutes of 10:30 PM.
I have an early 1960's ETT from NYC - prominently displayed on the back page is "Operation Sunset," which touted the need to make necessary connections so trains moved "on time." The desired departure times for various trains were listed on the illustration. That could certainly return.
It's been the opinion of some that PSR has less to do with precision scheduled railroading than it does with moving money to the bottom line where it can be harvested by activist investors. As has been noted here, many of the people necessary to run an efficient railroad and to grow the business have been let go.
It's also been observed here that once the chief proponent(s) of PSR leave a given railroad, it doesn't take long for management to start rolling back some of the actions taken by the PSR management.
Honestly, I don't know a lot about it, only a little bit I have read.
ATLANTIC CENTRALDo you tell the transit bus or the subway when to pick you up?
ATLANTIC CENTRALPSR might be just what the railroads need to figure out a good way to handle Intermodal efficiently? Run the same train the same time and have the "passengers" show up and get on board. Sheldon
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...
We also don't have real stats on Intermodal ton miles.. How is drayage calculated? There is no discerning data to see real numbers..
BaltACD greyhounds 3) Marketing, market research, and market development are glaring weak points with the railroads. They simply do not have the culture to do it. They don't really know what they don't haul and, if they do know, they rarely have a good idea on how to develop the business. And what foces they did have in those areas were axed with the implementation of PSR. I don't know how PSR roads intend to 'grow the business' when they have eliminated the majority of their marketing and sales forces whose resons for existing was to grow the business.
greyhounds 3) Marketing, market research, and market development are glaring weak points with the railroads. They simply do not have the culture to do it. They don't really know what they don't haul and, if they do know, they rarely have a good idea on how to develop the business.
And what foces they did have in those areas were axed with the implementation of PSR. I don't know how PSR roads intend to 'grow the business' when they have eliminated the majority of their marketing and sales forces whose resons for existing was to grow the business.
The roads that have seen the light have had to start spending money on things that were delayed or cannibiliazed in order to start growing their business. They may not have abandoned totally all tenets of PSR, just the worst parts of it.
I think the decimation of sales and marketing forces began before PSR.
Jeff
Exactly. To me, PSR sounds like a return the idea of running freight trains on an efficient schedule, like a passenger train. Do you tell the transit bus or the subway when to pick you up? PSR might be just what the railroads need to figure out a good way to handle Intermodal efficiently? Run the same train the same time and have the "passengers" show up and get on board.
+1
It's like a siege mentality, trying to hold on, certainly not trying to grow the business.
greyhounds3) Marketing, market research, and market development are glaring weak points with the railroads. They simply do not have the culture to do it. They don't really know what they don't haul and, if they do know, they rarely have a good idea on how to develop the business.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OK, from a former railroad and heavy truck manufacturer marketing guy, three primary thoughts:
1), Take those numbers with a grain of salt. Nielsen (market research firm) gets scan data from grocers and can reasonably well deduce Kraft's market share of the cheese market. It can also pretty well determine the size of the overall cheese market. I'm not aware of any such data that exists for freight movement.
When I was in marketing for Navistar (truck manufacturing) I sat through a presentation from Transearch (transportation market research company). They told us that the amount of coal moving by truck was increasing greatly. We had access to most truck registration data and we didn't see a corresponding increase in purchases of trucks suited for this work at any manufacturer.
Digging down we found that Transearch was defaulting to truck. They took rail tonnage from a 2% waybill sample. This depended on the waybill providing accurate weight information. It doesn't. They took barge movement tonnage from Corps of Engineers data. Again, this required accurate knowledge of how much was in the barge.
They calculated how much coal was mined in each area, subtracted the rail and barge totals, and assumed the rest moved by truck. Thus, their data showed a litteral explosion of coal movement by truck. This just wasn't happening.
You've always got to question the numbers, understand how they're derived, and try to get them in to context.
2) While I've seen some short haul rail moves work on bulk commodities, the railroads just cannot be competitive on general freight with trucks for shorter hauls. The rails have terminal costs that the trucks don't have and that's the killer. To realistically determine market share you first have to get a realistic definition of the market. As an example, Chicago-Milwaukee, at around 85 miles, is not a potential rail market for general freight. While a whole lot of freight moves on such lanes, it's just not reasonable to expect rail to be competitive in such cases. Such volume and revenue should be excluded from any competitive market definition and calculation of market share. The railroads are not, and cannot be, competitive on such lanes. It can't be fixed so don't worry about it. (Although one person crews would help in numerous specific cases.)
3) Marketing, market research, and market development are glaring weak points with the railroads. They simply do not have the culture to do it. They don't really know what they don't haul and, if they do know, they rarely have a good idea on how to develop the business.
243129 charlie hebdo And where did I say that? Citation, please. Or is that just your own introjection in operation?
charlie hebdo And where did I say that? Citation, please. Or is that just your own introjection in operation?
daveklepper Charlie, BNSF still is a customer-focused railroad and not a bottom-line-focused railraod. And UP cannot be entirely bottom-line focused and still roll out Big Boy and continiue an active steam program and continue double-tracking the Sunset. If you are talking only about CSX and NS, you might have a point. But if the two Eastern Class I's are weakened sufficiently by not investing in the future, at some point the two Westerners will get together and decide which gets which or how the total Eastern trackage will be divided betwen them. The mergers will then be approved by the STB to insurer a healthy survival of the industry. And possibly the managements of NS and CSX will read this posting and understand the warning. If, indeed, it is necessary, and others are probably in a better position to know than me or you.
Charlie, BNSF still is a customer-focused railroad and not a bottom-line-focused railraod. And UP cannot be entirely bottom-line focused and still roll out Big Boy and continiue an active steam program and continue double-tracking the Sunset. If you are talking only about CSX and NS, you might have a point. But if the two Eastern Class I's are weakened sufficiently by not investing in the future, at some point the two Westerners will get together and decide which gets which or how the total Eastern trackage will be divided betwen them. The mergers will then be approved by the STB to insurer a healthy survival of the industry.
And possibly the managements of NS and CSX will read this posting and understand the warning. If, indeed, it is necessary, and others are probably in a better position to know than me or you.
UP on their employee's site has had two installments, I'm expecting more about PSR. The first was "is PSR driving away business?" The second was, "Is PSR leading to more derailments?"
It's like they are trying to convince the work force that PSR is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I wonder though, if they aren't trying to convince themselves that PSR isn't going to hurt the railroad long term.
The rumor going around, heard from local managers no less, is that there are going to be more cuts in the first quarter. That BlackRock wants to run the stock price up. (Maybe with the anticipation of dumping some of their holdings?} It's been said that the plan being called "Unified Plan 2020" may mean that once the first quarter is done, they'll declare success and then they can start focusing on growth.
One can only hope.
charlie hebdoAnd where did I say that? Citation, please. Or is that just your own introjection in operation?
I feel your pain.
PJS1 The weight, value, and ton-mile statistics are interesting. But they are not the most important numbers. They are found in the financials. Do the railroads make money doing what they do irrespective of what the alternative modes do? This is the most important metric for a stock corporation. The financials for the nation’s freight railroads are solid. They are making money. Whether they continue to do so will depend in part, at least, on whether executive management can scale their operations for the current as well as potential future market demand. They have done so in the past; there is no reason that they cannot do so again and again if need be. As is the case for every business that I know of, change is inevitable. Management can adept, or it will go out of business. Based on what I have read, especially the financials, I am confident that the nation’s freight railroads will continue to play a significant role in moving the nation’s freight.
All you say is important. But unsaid is the degree to which a corporation's allocation of resources reflects a forward-looking vision, aka, investment. Also, examine the revenue stream and what segments it comes from? How many are shrinking and what is the plan to sustain, let alone see growth? A focus on cost cutting and containment is good for the short-term, but not enough for the future. Nor is a focus on bottom line, except for those with a short-term perspective. Corporate graveyards are littered with companies that did that. The stars of today lost money for years.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
And from a railfan perspective, the number of commuter opeations and rapid-transit lines and light-rail lines appears to be increasing each year.
Agree completely.
I also believe that passenger service can be profitabler but only with the station restaurant scheme. Plus of course inellligvence in emply hiring and managing, real cooperation from the freight railroads, intelligent use and maintenance of equipment, focused narketing on real travel desires, etc. The selling point for business travelers: Make your business trip a vacation trip. For leasure passengers: Your vacadtion begins when you board the train. But everything has to work for that to happen.
Can it wori under Amtrak? Yet te be proved.
I'm convinced UP could make it work Chiczago - St. Louis - Kansas City with speeds comperable to the NEC - and station restaurants.
charlie hebdo Forget metrics. I live near the UP West mainline. Many freights. A large number are still coal unit trains and entire trains of alcohol for adding to gasoline. Also trains of covered hoppers, auto rack trains and IM, both containers and trailers. Less of merchandise trains and oil. If coal continues to decline and hydrocarbon-powered vehicles decline, the numbers of unit coal trains and oil and alcohol trains will also decline. What will replace it?
Forget metrics. I live near the UP West mainline. Many freights. A large number are still coal unit trains and entire trains of alcohol for adding to gasoline. Also trains of covered hoppers, auto rack trains and IM, both containers and trailers. Less of merchandise trains and oil.
If coal continues to decline and hydrocarbon-powered vehicles decline, the numbers of unit coal trains and oil and alcohol trains will also decline. What will replace it?
Hopefully intermodal, and lots of it. To save fuel, improve highway safety, and help the environment. Sounds like a win,win,win to me?
But some millennial might have to wait a day longer for something..........
I find it interesting that according to the stats Mike posted, rail is only ~20% less than trucks. If rail is only carrying 8% of cargo, then trucks are only carrying, what -10-12% of total cargo?
And, as was noted, some significant percentage of that is "local." The bulk hauler taking the milk from the farm to the milk plant is moving a fair amount of weight, but probably less than 30-50 miles around here.
I would opine that most cargo moved in general manifest trains is that not suitable for things like IM. Witness the slab and coil cars seen in trains in Deshler on a regular basis.
Unless manufacturers figure out a way to gain all of their source materials locally, there will be need to move it by rail. Even the Utica Club brewery in Utica, NY gets shipments by rail...
I've kind of lost track of what we are trying to measure and why that's important to the discussion, I think we all agree that in the future, railroads will probably carry less, whether measured in $ or ton-miles, but they will still be around.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
I think you have to look at all the metrics. Is carrying 200 tons of coal better than carrying five hundred pounds of electronics? So we also need a measure of total revenue for carrying freight by mode.
To say the railroads carry 8% of the freight measured in weight, what does that mean?
If a truck carries one ton one mile, does it get the same credit as if it carried that ton 1000 miles?
Does the train that carries one ton 3000 miles get the same credit (in the stats) as our truck that carried that same ton only on its final mile to the destination.
I need to know what that 8% means.
It seems to me that a measure of weight without any data as to distance is meaningless.
Can the original poster direct us the source of that stat? Perhaps we could learn something about the methodology.
For now, it seems to me we should be comparing 39% to 32%.
There are gazillions of trucks making very short trips.
ATLANTIC CENTRALSo in addtion to your question, I want to know how Piggyback (intermodal) ton miles are measured in these figures? Who get credit for that rail/mile tonnage? Both?
My guess is that for the ton-mile stats, the ton-miles would be split between the two modes by the mileage each covers. I base this on the fact that for the value stats, they have another catagory of multi-modal, since they can't split the value by mode.
Another issue electric or driverless trucks will not help is road congestion, it might not be a big deal in Wyoming or Idaho, but is a huge issue in New Jersey, New York, Eastern PA, and many other parts of the country, L.A. Houston, Atlanta for example. Plus wear and tear on the roads. What might help is more favorable government policies towards rail like what New York City is doing to encorage more direct rail service to industry and distribution centers.( mostly in Brooklyn and Queens) Pennsylvana provides grants for companies to build new spurs, many other states do the same. New business does come on line when I started there were no unit Oil and Ethanol Trains, now this is a huge business for us. There is definitely a lot of oppourtunity to grow car load business as CSX's CEO Foote has pointed out recently and there will still be more intermodal growth in the long term. I still see new spurs coming on line and have seen some existing cutomers expand rail use. No one mentions this, but with PSR customers can now have 7 day a week service if needed, some companies are happily taking advantage of that.
James Sanchez
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Charlie says we are all too stupid to understand.
And where did I say that? Citation, please. Or is that just your own introjection in operation?
"It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future"
Yogi Berra
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Lithonia Operator MidlandMike Here is the modal share by ton-miles. 2017 latest data. TOTAL U.S. ton-miles of freight 5,084,101 Percent Air 14,417 0.28357 Truck 2,023,456 39.79968 Railroads 1,674,784 32.9416 Domestic water transportation 489,000 9.61822 Pipeline 882,444 17.35693 100 https://www.bts.gov/us-ton-miles-freight So, railroads don't trail trucks by very much in the ton-miles department. Isn't this statistic significant? Why isn't this fact getting more traction in this thread? This is not my area of expertise, for sure. But it would seem like ton-miles might be the best way to compare, regarding whether railroads have a future. In my view, railroads will be around for a very long time. Because Charlie says we are all too stupid to understand. So in addtion to your question, I want to know how Piggyback (intermodal) ton miles are measured in these figures? Who get credit for that rail/mile tonnage? Both? Sheldon
Lithonia Operator MidlandMike Here is the modal share by ton-miles. 2017 latest data. TOTAL U.S. ton-miles of freight 5,084,101 Percent Air 14,417 0.28357 Truck 2,023,456 39.79968 Railroads 1,674,784 32.9416 Domestic water transportation 489,000 9.61822 Pipeline 882,444 17.35693 100 https://www.bts.gov/us-ton-miles-freight So, railroads don't trail trucks by very much in the ton-miles department. Isn't this statistic significant? Why isn't this fact getting more traction in this thread? This is not my area of expertise, for sure. But it would seem like ton-miles might be the best way to compare, regarding whether railroads have a future. In my view, railroads will be around for a very long time.
MidlandMike Here is the modal share by ton-miles. 2017 latest data. TOTAL U.S. ton-miles of freight 5,084,101 Percent Air 14,417 0.28357 Truck 2,023,456 39.79968 Railroads 1,674,784 32.9416 Domestic water transportation 489,000 9.61822 Pipeline 882,444 17.35693 100 https://www.bts.gov/us-ton-miles-freight
Here is the modal share by ton-miles. 2017 latest data.
https://www.bts.gov/us-ton-miles-freight
So, railroads don't trail trucks by very much in the ton-miles department. Isn't this statistic significant? Why isn't this fact getting more traction in this thread?
This is not my area of expertise, for sure. But it would seem like ton-miles might be the best way to compare, regarding whether railroads have a future. In my view, railroads will be around for a very long time.
Because Charlie says we are all too stupid to understand.
So in addtion to your question, I want to know how Piggyback (intermodal) ton miles are measured in these figures?
Who get credit for that rail/mile tonnage? Both?
I think no such thing. I simply look at the data and draw my conclusions. You can draw yours. I refrained from personal attacks. But you??
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