SD60MAC9500The AC has benefited local surface traffic. However the prime reason the AC is underutilized is due to changes in the logistics chain. T
I thought the A.C. was a great idea when it was built. Mostly because I am a cement and rebar junkie......
But, I really really have grown averse to pitchmen thinking the only thing standing between them and the promised land is $10,000 spent for architectural renderings to use as bait in wooing a public commitment to their dreams.
Put another way, if New Market tax incentives had existed back in PT Barnum's day, I seriously doubt he would have ever entered the circus business.
Here's what I believe:
The argument that the A.C. improved the quality of life in the neighborhoods it traverses, is hyperbole. I've driven those neighborhoods myself, and the most noteworthy improvement is that now there is a gulch subdividing the blight and sprawl.
The container traffic on the old Harbor line never bothered me. So the claimed urgency to build the A.C. in order to get the traffic off of it looked like a solution in search of a problem, from day one. I used to actually think it was cool seeing live freight crossing up over Hawthorne Blvd there at 190th street.
Once the Canadian lines pick east coast merger partners, most of the business still going to LA will shift north of the border anyway, so why set ourselves up for a second round of disappointment? Ashes to ashes,...etc.
SD60MAC9500 A service case exist.. It's not about why it can't work. HOw do we make it work?
SD60,
I think you are trying to say that a service case exists. I am embarrased to say that I spent half of last nignt thinking about this move. I think you are right that about 8,000 containers per day move from Port to IE. I planned on 1800 per day.
My best guess is that truck cost is about $500 based on a 7 hour round trip at $75 per hour. I could be off a bit, but the fact is easy to find if anyone cares.
Here is my estimate of rail costs using 6 sets of 100 box trains.
Crew of 2 BNSF or UP men @ $250 for 8 hours $ 500 trip.
Fuel 2 units of 2000 HP, 600 gallons at $3 $1800 trip
Engine wet lease 2x$1000/3 trips/day $ 700 trip
Car hire $6/slot/day 3 trips/day $ 200 trip
Trackage rights at $.50 per loaded mi on 90 mi. $4500 trip
Overhead at profit on Op cost at 100% $3200
Total $10,900, say $11,000 per trip is $110 per box line haul
Now the hard part - Terminal costs assumed to be $75 per lift at 4 per round trip, is $300 per box
IE dray not over 15 miles 3 hours at $70, say $200.
Total per box is $110 + 300 + 200 = $610 before the hard parts
What equipment? Existing 40' double stack or very light single axle spine cars in blocks of 9? Probably cost a couple of million to create and test new car design which would deliberately not be interchangeable.
Terminals. Do they exist now, if so will the owners let them displace long haul (good) traffic for short haul (bad). I would not. How many million would they cost in capital driving what lease/operating costs. This makes my $75 per lift suspect. It is the terminal costs that will keep this notion dead absent some public investment.
Congestion - I figured cycle time as an hour to load, 2 hour run time, an hour to unload, two hours back. Crew time on to off duty 8 hours. Three turns per day for each train. We need 6. To get three turns per day can not stand any more than an hour per trip delay. Can class I roads perform to that standard? If not rail operating costs go up.
What are the Poor Mexican Truckers going to do? Simple enough, they will lower the rate to hold the business until they get their tractors repossessed. Shippers will use them until they drop.
I would not consider investing in this if I were UP or BNSF.
Terminal costs are the killer, not any labor savings that may be associated with the Harbor Line. Look at where the costs are!
Mac
Convicted OneOnce the Canadian lines pick east coast merger partners, most of the business still going to LA will shift north of the border anyway, so why set ourselves up for a second round of disappointment? Ashes to ashes,...etc
Thankfully that won't happen, certainly not with the current STB.
Acronym check- IE? Inland ….something?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy SidingAcronym check- IE? Inland ….something
Empire
charlie hebdoThankfully that won't happen,
We must remain ever-vigilant in our forward thinking?
YoHo1975Would this make more sense if the inland ports were Barstow (BNSF) and Las Vegas (UP)? Presumably BNSF could add a ramp at Barstow relatively cheaply (RELATIVELY) compared to breaking new ground. Granted, the run back to Riverside and San Bernardino has it's own set of issues.
The market is the strip and restuff facilities in the IE, so Vegas and Barstow are irrelevant.
Inland Empire - San Bernadino/Riverside Counties.
And a lot of the dist facilities in the IE are being replaced by facilities in Phoenix and Kingman-now that Cali wants to use "emission-free" trucks.
"Inland Empire"--what a misnomer. That's like calling the south side of Chicago "South Beach".
The concept was more relevant back in the days of the Spanish crown land grants.
Last several decades it's been more used to satirize Los Angeles' insistence upon being the bully in all matters of Southern California .
Convicted One ... Mostly because I am a cement and rebar junkie......
... Mostly because I am a cement and rebar junkie......
greyhounds OK, let us think outside the box here. Yes, I know. It won’t work because (insert multiple reasons here). What we’ve got is: 1) an underutilized rail asset that was unfortunately built with public money and, 2) a whole lot of trucks moving over highways also built with public money. Taxpayer dollars competing with themselves! What to do? A 60-mile haul is way too short for rail to be efficient. Or is it? We might consider using container chassis versions of these: Prototype History (trainweb.org) Port handling would be little changed, and you could string them together in “Trains” of say 10, or 15, or maybe 20. Power them with one of these: Brandt | R4 Railcar Mover Take the containers directly from the port to the destination warehouse. We won’t have to worry about highway weight limits if we can do that. Heck, the operator (only one per train) can just drive the Brandt home after his/her shift. OK, what I’d like is suggestions on how to make it work. What I’m expecting is a lot of reasons why it can’t possibly work.
CN tried something similar between Montreal and Toronto back in the 1990s. The equipment proved to be unreliable and ended up being rescued by normal locomotives on a regular basis.
http://tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2012/04/cns-ecorail.html?m=1
Profit/loss/demand aside, some lessons about what not to do regarding equipment could probably be learned from this failed experiment.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
PNWRMNM SD60MAC9500 A service case exist.. It's not about why it can't work. HOw do we make it work? SD60, I think you are trying to say that a service case exists. I am embarrased to say that I spent half of last nignt thinking about this move. I think you are right that about 8,000 containers per day move from Port to IE. I planned on 1800 per day. My best guess is that truck cost is about $500 based on a 7 hour round trip at $75 per hour. I could be off a bit, but the fact is easy to find if anyone cares. Here is my estimate of rail costs using 6 sets of 100 box trains. Crew of 2 BNSF or UP men @ $250 for 8 hours $ 500 trip. Fuel 2 units of 2000 HP, 600 gallons at $3 $1800 trip Engine wet lease 2x$1000/3 trips/day $ 700 trip Car hire $6/slot/day 3 trips/day $ 200 trip Trackage rights at $.50 per loaded mi on 90 mi. $4500 trip Overhead at profit on Op cost at 100% $3200 Total $10,900, say $11,000 per trip is $110 per box line haul Now the hard part - Terminal costs assumed to be $75 per lift at 4 per round trip, is $300 per box IE dray not over 15 miles 3 hours at $70, say $200. Total per box is $110 + 300 + 200 = $610 before the hard parts What equipment? Existing 40' double stack or very light single axle spine cars in blocks of 9? Probably cost a couple of million to create and test new car design which would deliberately not be interchangeable. Terminals. Do they exist now, if so will the owners let them displace long haul (good) traffic for short haul (bad). I would not. How many million would they cost in capital driving what lease/operating costs. This makes my $75 per lift suspect. It is the terminal costs that will keep this notion dead absent some public investment. Congestion - I figured cycle time as an hour to load, 2 hour run time, an hour to unload, two hours back. Crew time on to off duty 8 hours. Three turns per day for each train. We need 6. To get three turns per day can not stand any more than an hour per trip delay. Can class I roads perform to that standard? If not rail operating costs go up. What are the Poor Mexican Truckers going to do? Simple enough, they will lower the rate to hold the business until they get their tractors repossessed. Shippers will use them until they drop. I would not consider investing in this if I were UP or BNSF. Terminal costs are the killer, not any labor savings that may be associated with the Harbor Line. Look at where the costs are! Mac
Don't feel embarassed you contributed useful information to this thread. I appreciate you breaking down the terminal cost. I mentioned earlier BNSF is planning a new IM terminal in Colton (which is recieving funding from the CHSRA due to a land exchange in Vernon, CA). UP is starting its Colton Ramp this year. Majority of the boxes that will be moving through these facilities are domestic 53' boxes transloaded in the IE. All that needs to happen is an agreement between Pacific Harbor Line, ACTA, The Ports, and the C1's. Also there's no need for custom equipment. We're using exisiting rolling stock.
After all this the main problem seems to be a terminal to land these boxes from the ports via rail. That is the core issue. So whether at BNSF, or UP or if the ports of LA, and LB decide to build an IE Inland Port themselves. That will be part of the equation that solves the problem.
Convicted One SD60MAC9500 The AC has benefited local surface traffic. However the prime reason the AC is underutilized is due to changes in the logistics chain. T I thought the A.C. was a great idea when it was built. Mostly because I am a cement and rebar junkie...... But, I really really have grown averse to pitchmen thinking the only thing standing between them and the promised land is $10,000 spent for architectural renderings to use as bait in wooing a public commitment to their dreams. Put another way, if New Market tax incentives had existed back in PT Barnum's day, I seriously doubt he would have ever entered the circus business. Here's what I believe: The argument that the A.C. improved the quality of life in the neighborhoods it traverses, is hyperbole. I've driven those neighborhoods myself, and the most noteworthy improvement is that now there is a gulch subdividing the blight and sprawl. The container traffic on the old Harbor line never bothered me. So the claimed urgency to build the A.C. in order to get the traffic off of it looked like a solution in search of a problem, from day one. I used to actually think it was cool seeing live freight crossing up over Hawthorne Blvd there at 190th street. Once the Canadian lines pick east coast merger partners, most of the business still going to LA will shift north of the border anyway, so why set ourselves up for a second round of disappointment? Ashes to ashes,...etc.
SD60MAC9500 The AC has benefited local surface traffic. However the prime reason the AC is underutilized is due to changes in the logistics chain. T
The physical appearance of; Vernon, Southgate, Compton, Watts, Lynwood, is a problem of the indviduals living in that community. No else..
Your feelings about improvements are subjective to the AC. While it didn't bother you you're only one of thousands of other commuters on the road. I'm from the LA area I remember as child being stopped for 15-20 minutes by long Southern Pacific stack trains and oil cans creeping to the Ports and Carson alongside Alameda Street. While I enjoyed it and it didn't bother me. Whether it be my Dad or Mom who were driving and countless others they had schedules. So you need to consider that factor with public improvements. In that regard the AC significantly reduced surface congestion in those areas..
OK my take on this project after reading up on it.
First, this was done to reduce car emissions waiting at railroad crossings. It is just beyond my comprehension why the full cost of the project was assessed to the railroads. Seems to me that it should be 50/50 minimum. Take the Californians out of the project accounting / project management and you won't end up with a boon doggle. So first slice the debt in half and assess 50% to automobile users in the LA basin.
Second, almost $50 per container as a charge is very steep, slash that after you slash the debt load that needs to be recovered. I have this weird feeling that a drop in the per container fee will entice more traffic or trains.
Third, 40 mph top speed while in the trench.....are you joking? If possible given the infrastructure bump that up to 55 mph. It may not be possible but even a 5-10 mph increase would be positive.
Fourth, open this up to all trains that want or have a desire to use the corridor including switch jobs and locomotive moves. Develop a seperate tarriff factor for those.
..........and Walla, a financially sustainable project.
CMStPnP....and Walla, a financially sustainable project.
Surely you mean "Voila!"?
charlie hebdo CMStPnP ....and Walla, a financially sustainable project. Surely you mean "Voila!"?
CMStPnP ....and Walla, a financially sustainable project.
Thought it was Walla Walla
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
charlie hebdoSurely you mean "Voila!"?
Oops! probably should have used that.
One more thing I want to add is the LA Basin is somewhat geographically unique in that it is a surrounded by mountains in three directions like a bowl.....so it has a tendency to trap / accumulate smog. So they have a bigger issue meeting EPA requirements than other large cities.
CMStPnP charlie hebdo Surely you mean "Voila!"? Oops! probably should have used that. One more thing I want to add is the LA Basin is somewhat geographically unique in that it is a surrounded by mountains in three directions like a bowl.....so it has a tendency to trap / accumulate smog. So they have a bigger issue meeting EPA requirements than other large cities.
charlie hebdo Surely you mean "Voila!"?
That's certainly true. Maybe people have forgotten how brown the air was there before the took action? It didn't get cleaned up by itself or through social altruism by the automakers.
That's certainly true. Maybe people have forgotten how bad and brown the air was there before the took action? It didn't get cleaned up by itself or through social altruism by the automakers.
Is the Alameda Corridor "underutilized" or "under capacity"? They aren't the same thing...
SD60MAC9500 In 2006 train count stood at 60/day. Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day.
In 2006 train count stood at 60/day.
Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day.
Judging traffic by train count alone is not a good practice today. It has been pointed out many times on this forum that railroads are running fewer, but longer trains. Do you have a container count from 2006 vs today? That would be a better judge of what is going on.
An "expensive model collector"
SD60MAC9500In 2006 train count stood at 60/day. Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day.. A few things have worked against the Alameda Corridor and derailed plans to make it the premier route for freight from San Pedro Bay.
Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day.. A few things have worked against the Alameda Corridor and derailed plans to make it the premier route for freight from San Pedro Bay.
Are the railroads paying their share on train count, car count or container count?
What is being counted matters.
n012944 SD60MAC9500 In 2006 train count stood at 60/day. Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day. Judging traffic by train count alone is not a good practice today. It has been pointed out many times on this forum that railroads are running fewer, but longer trains. Do you have a container count from 2006 vs today? That would be a better judge of what is going on.
My argument is not judging by train count alone. Train count is not the core of my argument. Go back to my OP and click on the first referenced link for TEU information. Also concerning the Alameda Corridor is owned by the ACTA, not the Class 1's. Tolls are assessed per TEU and another toll is collected on non intermodal rolling stock as well. This is just an example not actual information. Out of those average 60trains/day in 2006 let's say 50 on average were stack trains which carried 6 million TEU's that year. Today's count of 28/day. Maybe 20 are stack trains. If those 20 stack trains/day only carry 2 million TEU's in a year. Do you see where the shortfall in revenue would be?
BaltACD SD60MAC9500 In 2006 train count stood at 60/day. Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day.. A few things have worked against the Alameda Corridor and derailed plans to make it the premier route for freight from San Pedro Bay. Are the railroads paying their share on train count, car count or container count? What is being counted matters.
SD60MAC9500 In 2006 train count stood at 60/day. Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day.. A few things have worked against the Alameda Corridor and derailed plans to make it the premier route for freight from San Pedro Bay.
acta.org
SD60MAC9500 n012944 SD60MAC9500 In 2006 train count stood at 60/day. Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day. Judging traffic by train count alone is not a good practice today. It has been pointed out many times on this forum that railroads are running fewer, but longer trains. Do you have a container count from 2006 vs today? That would be a better judge of what is going on. My argument is not judging by train count alone. Train count is not the core of my argument. Go back to my OP and click on the first referenced link for TEU information. Also concerning the Alameda Corridor is owned by the ACTA, not the Class 1's. Tolls are assesed per TEU and another toll is collected on non intermodal rolling stock as well. Example. Out those 60trains/day in 2006 let's say 50 were stack trains which carried 6 million TEU's that year. Today's count of 28/day. Maybe 20 are stack trains. If those 20 stack trains/day only carry 2 million TEU's in a year. Do you see where the shortfall in revenue would be?
My argument is not judging by train count alone. Train count is not the core of my argument. Go back to my OP and click on the first referenced link for TEU information. Also concerning the Alameda Corridor is owned by the ACTA, not the Class 1's. Tolls are assesed per TEU and another toll is collected on non intermodal rolling stock as well. Example. Out those 60trains/day in 2006 let's say 50 were stack trains which carried 6 million TEU's that year. Today's count of 28/day. Maybe 20 are stack trains. If those 20 stack trains/day only carry 2 million TEU's in a year. Do you see where the shortfall in revenue would be?
Considering all the reports of vessels being delayed from docking at West Coast ports that includes the one(s) connected to the Alameda Corridor - what is the REAL HOLD UP?
Can't containers be unloaded from vessels fast enough? There is not enough on site storage before final forwarding? Final forwarding of the containers is too slow or is artificially constrained?
There appears to this East Coaster that there are a number of problems in the efficient operation of West Coast ports.
BaltACDthere are a number of problems in the efficient operation of West Coast ports.
Perhaps the ships captains are warry that Pacific Harbor Line engineers will try to ram their ships?
Convicted One BaltACD there are a number of problems in the efficient operation of West Coast ports. Perhaps the ships captains are warry that Pacific Harbor Line engineers will try to ram their ships?
BaltACD there are a number of problems in the efficient operation of West Coast ports.
Ships are more likely to ram the docks.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/tanker-strikes-csx-coal-pier-in-baltimore-causing-over-5mil-in-damages#:~:text=Tanker%20Strikes%20CSX%20Coal%20Pier%20in%20Baltimore%20Causing%20Over%20%245Mil%20in%20Damages,-Published%20Aug%2031&text=On%20Saturday%2C%20August%2025%2C%20a,released%20from%20a%20local%20hospital.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/oocl-vessel-blamed-for-crane-collapse-at-taiwan-port
BaltACD SD60MAC9500 n012944 SD60MAC9500 In 2006 train count stood at 60/day. Fast forward to 2021 train count now stands at 28/day. Judging traffic by train count alone is not a good practice today. It has been pointed out many times on this forum that railroads are running fewer, but longer trains. Do you have a container count from 2006 vs today? That would be a better judge of what is going on. My argument is not judging by train count alone. Train count is not the core of my argument. Go back to my OP and click on the first referenced link for TEU information. Also concerning the Alameda Corridor is owned by the ACTA, not the Class 1's. Tolls are assesed per TEU and another toll is collected on non intermodal rolling stock as well. Example. Out those 60trains/day in 2006 let's say 50 were stack trains which carried 6 million TEU's that year. Today's count of 28/day. Maybe 20 are stack trains. If those 20 stack trains/day only carry 2 million TEU's in a year. Do you see where the shortfall in revenue would be? Considering all the reports of vessels being delayed from docking at West Coast ports that includes the one(s) connected to the Alameda Corridor - what is the REAL HOLD UP? Can't containers be unloaded from vessels fast enough? There is not enough on site storage before final forwarding? Final forwarding of the containers is too slow or is artificially constrained? There appears to this East Coaster that there are a number of problems in the efficient operation of West Coast ports.
Chassis pool's are having a hard time getting the empties needed to move loads out of the ports. The main factor is the human element. Shortage of Draymen and low staff at the ports due to COVID.
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