Question on fluidity in Chicago

[charlie hebdo]

There's a lot of old,  "all or nothing" thinking on display. 

[charlie hebdo]

BaltACD

 

 

CMStPnP

greyhounds

Why do people have a problem with this? 

It's kind of stupid.........is my problem with it.

The solution here is a pretty simple one though probably costly as well.   The railroads solved it with  UNION PASSENGER STATIONS.     Do the same deal with the container yard concept.    Have one per city served by all the railroads and shift the containers within the yard between railroads instead of cross town.   Seems to me that would be a major cost cutter and carbon emission saver here.

 

 

And as we have seen in Chicago - even a 'Union Station' did not bring ALL the carriers and all the rail traveling public to a single station.  Grand Central, LaSalle Street, Dearborn Street, IC Central Station a until the creation of Amtrak, and I belive Northwestern Station is still in use for METRA commuter service.

 

Yes it is.  Until 1955 it hosted all the City Streamliners as well as the 400 Fleet. 

[BaltACD]

tree68

 

Overmod

I thought it was Robert R. Young, and decidedly mid-century. 

Duly noted.  

The sentiment remains.

And the carriers that operated 'through car' services through both Chicago and St. Louis only provided that service for a few years as the demand didn't benefit the bottom line in black ink.

[tree68]

Overmod

I thought it was Robert R. Young, and decidedly mid-century.

Duly noted.  

The sentiment remains.

[Overmod]

tree68

Borrowed freely from an early 20th century editorial...

I thought it was Robert R. Young, and decidedly mid-century.

And that it led to the determination that very little passenger traffic actually valued going through Chicago, and the traffic that did wouldn't cover the cost to provide the service...even as a few cars, triweekly...

which is much of the point being made about the containers.

[tree68]

A hog can get through Chicago without changing cars.  Apparently a container can't...

Borrowed freely from an early 20th century editorial...

[BaltACD]

CMStPnP

greyhounds

Why do people have a problem with this? 

It's kind of stupid.........is my problem with it.

The solution here is a pretty simple one though probably costly as well.   The railroads solved it with  UNION PASSENGER STATIONS.     Do the same deal with the container yard concept.    Have one per city served by all the railroads and shift the containers within the yard between railroads instead of cross town.   Seems to me that would be a major cost cutter and carbon emission saver here.

And as we have seen in Chicago - even a 'Union Station' did not bring ALL the carriers and all the rail traveling public to a single station.  Grand Central, LaSalle Street, Dearborn Street, IC Central Station a until the creation of Amtrak, and I belive Northwestern Station is still in use for METRA commuter service.

[CMStPnP]

greyhounds

Why do people have a problem with this?

It's kind of stupid.........is my problem with it.

The solution here is a pretty simple one though probably costly as well.   The railroads solved it with  UNION PASSENGER STATIONS.     Do the same deal with the container yard concept.    Have one per city served by all the railroads and shift the containers within the yard between railroads instead of cross town.   Seems to me that would be a major cost cutter and carbon emission saver here.

Granted consolidating the yards into a central location would be difficult and getting everyone access would be difficult.    So perhaps the sheer cost and effort there is what is preventing this from happening.    However, I see this as something the railroads created via their competitive nature and not pushing back to figure out which way would be best so that everyone could benefit but instead having Class I carrier tunnel vision.

I don't know what can be done at this point or if making it a Federal Project would be agreeable or might help.    Seems to me you would need a lot of land to accomplish possibly some new rails as well.

[BaltACD]

Considering the multiplicity of destinations both within the Chicago area as well as final destinations of interchange traffic - it can be exceedingly difficult to aggregate a sufficient block of traffic that warrants being interchanged as a all rail block between carriers.

To even load such a block at a origin location requires a high level of dedication and skill with the loading plan.

[Gramp]

Makes good sense.

 

[daveklepper]

Understand.   Thanks~

[greyhounds]

CSSHEGEWISCH

daveklepper Are there still trailers and containers being drayed on streets in Chicago for  "thruough intermodal sevice?"   Most definitely.  I live just south of Clearing (about a mile from the crest of the hump) and not too far from Clyde and I see plenty of them on the road for interchange. A

 

As someone who has had experience with the rubber tire interchange of “Through Intermodal Service” in Chicago, I’m convinced that the people who object to it just don’t understand rail transportation.  Aggregation and sorting are involved, often with multiple occurrences of such during a “Through Intermodal Service”. 

 

The street interchange works fine and is, when used, the most efficient method available.  Otherwise, it wouldn’t be used.  It is a wonderful example of rail-truck integration using each mode to its best advantage.

 

As an example, I’ll cite a decent railroad customer that ships three northbound container/trailer loads per day out of Memphis.  The railroad ends at Chicago (OK, guess the railroad I’m talking about.)   One of the loads goes on by another railroad to the Twin Cities.  One goes on by another railroad to Toronto.  And the third load is a split delivery with half going to Chicago and half going on to Milwaukee by highway.

 

To keep these loads off the street in Chicago the railroad would have to assemble three blocks on the train leaving Memphis, and that’s just for these three loads.  If there were loads going to Seattle, they’d need to assemble an additional block for Seattle, etc. 

 

There just isn’t enough freight to every possible destination to justify making a block for every possible destination.  And if there was, they’d have to get the train broken up and put a crew/engine on each block to move it to the receiving carrier.  That would be time consuming and add extra expense.

 

It’s far more efficient and expeditious to just load everything out of Memphis as a “Chicago” load.  At Chicago, the freight is unloaded from the railcars and put on the street.  The Twin Cities load is taken to the proper rail terminal in a few hours, loaded in the right block on the right train, and forwarded to destination.  The Toronto load is similarly handled.  The Chicago/Milwaukee load is delivered by a driver to both receivers.  It all works fine and expedites the freight movement.  Why do people have a problem with this?

 

A qualification!  If a decent sized block for a destination can be aggregated at origin that block can stay on the rail for transfer in Chicago in an efficient and expeditious manner.   We’d do that with LTL loads from Yellow Freight moving out of E. St. Louis to Seattle routed ICG-Chicago-BN.  We got a solid 10 loads per day and would use a switch crew to move them on flatcars to the BN’s Cicero intermodal terminal.

 

It all depends on the volume and aggregation situations.

 

 

[rrnut282]

Unfortunately, I see human nature compensating for any and every improvement in transit times CREATE creates.  

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

daveklepper

Are there still trailers and containers being drayed on streets in Chicago for  "thruough intermodal sevice?"

 

Most definitely.  I live just south of Clearing (about a mile from the crest of the hump) and not too far from Clyde and I see plenty of them on the road for interchange.

[charlie hebdo]

I'm not sure about the current situation,  but they used to be moved by roads from a UP Global yard in Rochelle (~80 miles due west)  to other yards in the city. 

[daveklepper]

Are there still trailers and containers being drayed on streets in Chicago for  "thruough intermodal sevice?"

[CMStPnP]

So I am curious with the various rail projects around Chicago.   Are we going to see a meaningful increase in speed of freight handling through the city or are more projects going to be needed?   I am thinking the projects in the works now are too small to have any real impact and Chicago will still remain a city of major freight rail congestion...........which is kind of sad, that it is not being addressed in a more meaningful way.