greyhounds SD60MAC9500 Greyhounds remember the Cold Train service out of Quincy, WA that went belly up due to NT congestion? That terminal was in a good location for Wilbur-Elllis Basin growers. Majority of produce is grown east of the Cascades. So there's no doublestack restrictions. Even with produce grown west of the Cascades, that can use Stevens Pass or the Columbia River Gorge route which has no DS restrictions. Yes, that's correct. But you don't want to drag empty equipment, with no revenue, thousands of miles westbound. A trucker running with a revenue load both ways will beat you. Your're going to have some empty miles. As will the trucker. But the need is to minimize them. The westbound loads will go in to Seattle/Tacoma/Portland. They're part of the system that is required.
SD60MAC9500 Greyhounds remember the Cold Train service out of Quincy, WA that went belly up due to NT congestion? That terminal was in a good location for Wilbur-Elllis Basin growers. Majority of produce is grown east of the Cascades. So there's no doublestack restrictions. Even with produce grown west of the Cascades, that can use Stevens Pass or the Columbia River Gorge route which has no DS restrictions.
Yes, that's correct.
But you don't want to drag empty equipment, with no revenue, thousands of miles westbound. A trucker running with a revenue load both ways will beat you.
Your're going to have some empty miles. As will the trucker. But the need is to minimize them. The westbound loads will go in to Seattle/Tacoma/Portland. They're part of the system that is required.
Cold Train actually had pretty lucrative backhaul of refrigerated/frozen foods, and dry freight to the PNW.
Shadow the Cats ownerThe biggest problem with trying to have two way service from any carrier involving a reefer trailer or container or a railcar is the FSMA or Food Safety Modernization Act of 2005. That has a whole host of requirements and regulations that are expensive if you break them. Imagine what the financial pain for a railroad could be if a railroad provided reefer car wasn't cleaned properly before a load of potatoes that are made into French fries for McDonald's. Those fries ended up with say listeria or ecoli in them and they trace it back via the FSMA regulation to the railroad. A lawyer would have a freaking field day in court with that case. The standards that are required to be met well most trailers used by the mega fleets are traded in after 3 years. Why to not have the headaches of dealing with older equipment and those regulations.
If a trucker can go west with a revenue load in a trailer, and they do, a railroad can go west with a revenue load.
If the trucker can't have westbound revenue the railroad has the trucker beat, no question about it.
SD60MAC9500Cold Train actually had pretty lucrative backhaul of refrigerated/frozen foods, and dry freight to the PNW.
Yes, they had a good business plan. And it was working.
But a "Polar Vortex" just destroyed BNSF service on their Great Northern route. To the extent that they abolished all Z trains. The railroad couldn't meet the schedules so they abolished the schedules. The BNSF did what they could.
Cold Train had its expenses continuing, but its revenue declined significantly. It was a good try, but you can't beat Mother Nature.
jeffhergert Does TOFC equipment that's capable of circus loading/unloading still exist? I haven't seen any in years. The last 89' TOFC flats that I remember seeing, and that's also been a long time, no longer had the bridge plates. They had to be loaded/unloaded by lifting the trailer. Jeff
Does TOFC equipment that's capable of circus loading/unloading still exist? I haven't seen any in years. The last 89' TOFC flats that I remember seeing, and that's also been a long time, no longer had the bridge plates. They had to be loaded/unloaded by lifting the trailer.
Jeff
CP's small fleet of Expressway/Iron Highway flatcars might be the only such equipment left, unless they were scrapped after the Toronto-Montreal service was abolished a few years ago.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD60MAC9500 SD70Dude Maybe this is a bit off-topic, has anyone ever tried to design a loading system that could pick up standard strength trailers without damaging them? You can do that with current lift equipment. They need specialized "shoes" to be equipped on the spreaders arms. To lift trailers that lack lifting pads and reinforced side rails for IM service.
SD70Dude Maybe this is a bit off-topic, has anyone ever tried to design a loading system that could pick up standard strength trailers without damaging them?
Maybe this is a bit off-topic, has anyone ever tried to design a loading system that could pick up standard strength trailers without damaging them?
You can do that with current lift equipment. They need specialized "shoes" to be equipped on the spreaders arms. To lift trailers that lack lifting pads and reinforced side rails for IM service.
Really!? Wow, learn something every day. Shows how much I know about intermodal terminal ops.
So why isn't this done more? To me it's almost seemed like a big obstacle to convincing truckers to try TOFC was the need for stronger trailers that could be picked up, and of course the associated weight penalty that is the subject of this thread. And now I find out that's a non-issue. And it also eliminates any need for circus loading and specialized equipment like Iron Highway.
Anyway, here's the sort of train we'd like to see, a mixed freight with reefers, containers, and some other carload traffic behind them. No reason this couldn't be replicated again today.
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=46466
SD70DudeAnd now I find out that's a non-issue.
A more correct method of lifting is to provide it where the trailer is designed to take vertical stress: at the bogie or its attachment points and at the landing gear or kingpin area, with balance arrangements longitudinally and laterally. There are some interesting proposed designs to do this with straddle loading, the fun now being that you need specialized 'shoe' alternatives and the straddle arms have to traverse laterally to achieve correct balance -- this was too expensive and fiddly, and the consequences of 'wrong' operation rather immediate and sometimes unforgiving, to implement on 'production' equipment in the heyday of PiggyPackers and the like.
It is at least theoretically possible to incorporate a center sill construction and shielding under a van trailer that is of adequate strength to accept a pivoting underlift of the kind used for the original and improved CargoSpeed systems (not the Adtranz CargoSpeed btw) -- the idea there is to have the underlifts running in a continuous pit below the running rails, detect the correct balance moments, and lift and turn the trailer from below. This is much more difficult if not impossible to do with any arrangement that engages the side rails if the repositioned trailer is to be driven off the equipment cleanly.
If there were an easy answer to trailer lift it would have been developed in the era that TOFC, especially in pockets or on spine equipment when air resistance at higher speeds was more of a design consideration. That it effectively was not, in any long-term cost-effective sense, should guide any sober appraisal of the technology.
SD70Dude SD60MAC9500 SD70Dude Maybe this is a bit off-topic, has anyone ever tried to design a loading system that could pick up standard strength trailers without damaging them? You can do that with current lift equipment. They need specialized "shoes" to be equipped on the spreaders arms. To lift trailers that lack lifting pads and reinforced side rails for IM service. Really!? Wow, learn something every day. Shows how much I know about intermodal terminal ops. So why isn't this done more? To me it's almost seemed like a big obstacle to convincing truckers to try TOFC was the need for stronger trailers that could be picked up, and of course the associated weight penalty that is the subject of this thread. And now I find out that's a non-issue. And it also eliminates any need for circus loading and specialized equipment like Iron Highway. Anyway, here's the sort of train we'd like to see, a mixed freight with reefers, containers, and some other carload traffic behind them. No reason this couldn't be replicated again today. http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=46466
A few reason why it's not done more often. The time it takes to equip the lifting arms with the shoes to handle non-IM trailers. Non-IM trailers are still suspetible to lifting damage especially when loaded. Another consideration is the installation of what's called an antihook plate. This is installed between the kingpin and landing gear. This is meant to eliminate damage to the cross members under this section of the trailer. It protects air, and electrical lines during transit. All this leads to increased lift time.
Occasionally you'll see new non-IM trailers in transit on TOFC trains. These are empties.
I would be highly interested to see construction details and tare weights for IM trailers being built now, as we're getting to an era where engineering and design analysis is comparatively cheap and the use of materials previously considered exotic for trailer construction may be considered -- particularly if both low tare and long service life are recognized by owners to be financially important.
Overmod I would be highly interested to see construction details and tare weights for IM trailers being built now, as we're getting to an era where engineering and design analysis is comparatively cheap and the use of materials previously considered exotic for trailer construction may be considered -- particularly if both low tare and long service life are recognized by owners to be financially important.
This is just an approximation. A trailer spec'd for intermodal service will probably weigh in an additional tare of 1200-1800lbs.
Apart from trailer spec and operational considerations, TOFC was a great tool that allowed railroads to provide door to door service to their customers. Economics killed off TOFC entirely in Canada and have greatly diminished its use in the United States. With the exodus of manufacturing to Asia, there was less of a need for TOFC, replaced by a growing demand to move containers in huge volumes from ports inland to the big box stores. Also, TOFC in the earlier days was hampered by the regulatory framework of the day that encouraged competition between the modes instead of encouraging alliances between truck and rail. The truckers were loathe to work with their arch rivals, the railroads, and vice versa.
SD60MAC9500A trailer spec'd for intermodal service will probably weigh in an additional tare of 1200-1800lbs.
Overmod SD60MAC9500 A trailer spec'd for intermodal service will probably weigh in an additional tare of 1200-1800lbs. is that for the current generation of lighter-weight vans, too? That looks like the range for older regular vans. I'm concerned that much of the 'lightening' might be in rack bracing, deck stiffness, and other places that don't facilitate sill or underlift.
SD60MAC9500 A trailer spec'd for intermodal service will probably weigh in an additional tare of 1200-1800lbs.
is that for the current generation of lighter-weight vans, too? That looks like the range for older regular vans. I'm concerned that much of the 'lightening' might be in rack bracing, deck stiffness, and other places that don't facilitate sill or underlift.
From some of the weights I've seen online for; Strick, Hyundai Translead, and Great Dane. That seems to be the range. My numbers could be off though. Consider the last gen of Triple Crown RoadRailers only had a 800lb tare difference from OTR trailers.
UlrichTOFC was a great tool that allowed railroads to provide door to door service to their customers.
I had not recognized that boxes had become commoditized like mineral traffic. Likewise trailer traffic might have become commoditized, but now with a savings of fuel and driver hours representing 'enough' of an advantage for many services in many lanes.
Of course I thought Expressway was one of those services, and despite being run and marketed astutely it is gone. Perhaps a retasked approach to TOFC that plays to its relative strengths and overcomes some of the practical difficulties (including skilled/experienced rail-mode loading and unloading) will now find a niche that 'pays' by PSR standards...
Plus the carriers out there that do provide OTR services still for their customers may also not even want to deal with the railroads and the headaches that are there. If you're a good OTR carrier that treats your driver's decently and pays well you will have enough business to survive and grow. How by offering better quality of service for your customers and better quality of life for your driver's. A good solo driver that wants to run long distance can beat the overall service time for any intermodal train. Let alone a team. A team can be anywhere in the continental USA from Chicago in under 48 hours. The fastest service on the BNSF is 3rd morning delivery after the train leaves Chicago to the west coast. Yes some carriers use a mixture of intermodal and OTR. But the majority of all carriers still refuse to be bound by railroad service levels. For products like paper and other long lasting products rail is fine however when it comes to speed OTR will beat it every time.
Shadow the Cats ownerA good solo driver that wants to run long distance can beat the overall service time for any intermodal train. Let alone a team. A team can be anywhere in the continental USA from Chicago in under 48 hours. The fastest service on the BNSF is 3rd morning delivery after the train leaves Chicago to the west coast. Yes some carriers use a mixture of intermodal and OTR. But the majority of all carriers still refuse to be bound by railroad service levels. For products like paper and other long lasting products rail is fine however when it comes to speed OTR will beat it every time.
Shadow the Cats owner Plus the carriers out there that do provide OTR services still for their customers may also not even want to deal with the railroads and the headaches that are there. If you're a good OTR carrier that treats your driver's decently and pays well you will have enough business to survive and grow. How by offering better quality of service for your customers and better quality of life for your driver's. A good solo driver that wants to run long distance can beat the overall service time for any intermodal train. Let alone a team. A team can be anywhere in the continental USA from Chicago in under 48 hours. The fastest service on the BNSF is 3rd morning delivery after the train leaves Chicago to the west coast. Yes some carriers use a mixture of intermodal and OTR. But the majority of all carriers still refuse to be bound by railroad service levels. For products like paper and other long lasting products rail is fine however when it comes to speed OTR will beat it every time.
Adding to Greyhounds response. I mentioned Cold Train above.. BNSF was only 10-12 hrs. behind team drivers. Mind you this is across the Hi-Line which is not as fast as the Southern Transcon.. IIRC from some information years ago. Somebody can correct me on this. One of the fastest BNSF Z train times recorded was under 45hrs. Trains can very well beat truck on certain lanes. When the capacity is available to run such fast freight.
It's not just the speed advantage it is the flexibility of the OTR industry. This situation has happened to several of my hubbies friends that haul produce. They will be loaded with a single product for larger grocery chains or warehouse clubs. While in transit to their original distribution center be directed to a different location due to sales being higher at this centers stores and they needed more product.
Also transit time isn't the only thing customers look at they're also looking at total time till they actually get the product in their hands. 12 hours may not seem like much but if you're a business that needs a product in stock or your shutdown it can be millions of dollars in losses.
Shadow the Cats ownerIt's not just the speed advantage it is the flexibility of the OTR industry. This situation has happened to several of my hubbies friends that haul produce. They will be loaded with a single product for larger grocery chains or warehouse clubs. While in transit to their original distribution center be directed to a different location due to sales being higher at this centers stores and they needed more product. Also transit time isn't the only thing customers look at they're also looking at total time till they actually get the product in their hands. 12 hours may not seem like much but if you're a business that needs a product in stock or your shutdown it can be millions of dollars in losses.
Back in the day (basically before the Interstate system) where railroads had the market share of perishables (and finished lumber) moving from the West Coast to the Eastern markets, much of the product was shipped to the SHIPPER at a Eastern location via a spcified circuitous route (with the number of Class 1 carriers - such a routing was easy). When the product departed origin it had yet to be sold to the ultimate consignee. While the cars were in transit the marketing arm of the Shipper was active in the various Eastern markets for the product(s) in attracting actual buyers. Once the deal was made, reconsignment and diversion orders were initated for the car(s) to move them on a more direct route to the real consignee.
The system made the railroads the 'traveling warehouse' for both the shipper and the ultimate consignee and allowed the consignee to operate on a much shorter decision path than if they had to contract for the product from its actual origin.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I think a variant of this system is still operating, and to an extent a couple of the PSR operating 'economies' kinda-sorta facilitate it -- you could as easily flat-switch or even block-swap cars to run them around a few days as PSR seems to be doing fairly often "by mistake" judging by some posts here.
But one of the railroad's theoretical high-value propositions comes from the idea of slow and inexpensive transit but highly reliable ultimate scheduled delivery... something that "PSR" ought to provide relatively readily if implemented by railroaders instead of finance dweebs.
To my knowledge, very high speed service coupled with tight schedule assurance has never really 'paid enough' as a service to justify the progressive increased cost. Someone here probably knows the full detail of the UPS Z-train testing with borrowed Genesis locomotives... I note UPS does not run anything faster than the usual 70mph that normal locomotives are governed for.
Even the promise of reliable container loads delivered 'between business days' at multiple points between Pot Yard and Boston didn't produce the prospective revenue to build the specialized fleet and then run and maintain it properly and safely. For speed it is difficult to beat good team drivers in a 'custom critical' vehicle, and this is the type of vehicle that I think will benefit early from the general electrified fuel-cell-equipped transition-toward-level-4-autonomous near future.
Now, along the general lines of the weed party that was the genesis of the Roosevelt Island tram, I saw a couple of pictures of 'train ferries' in books of the early '70s, before the HPIT craze... and had an alternative version of the overnight container train, in which various trucks with sleeper cabs and drivers on short time could quickly get aboard some kind of... well, in those days it was a skeleton frame or spine car with kangaroo pockets... at some logical Lorton-like gathering point associated with a regional cross dock facility and be whisked slowly overnight to a comparable location in the New England area... free of pesky tolls, potholes, aggravating traffic, etc. With the availability of cheap well cars and lift equipment and all the crap with e-logs, driver shortage, insurance issues and increasingly rapacious governments we might be coming to a point that this becomes an attractive block operation...
OvermodTo my knowledge, very high speed service coupled with tight schedule assurance has never really 'paid enough' as a service to justify the progressive increased cost. Someone here probably knows the full detail of the UPS Z-train testing with borrowed Genesis locomotives... I note UPS does not run anything faster than the usual 70mph that normal locomotives are governed for
Santa Fe, in the late 1980's, built a new yard adjacent to the 'then new' UPS facility at Willow Springs, IL. Fred Fraley wrote a Trains feature story about it. It still functions well for BNSF.
Anyone interested in learning about the modifications that are recommended for private non-TOFC trailers here's a link:
http://www.aar.com/pdfs/Recommended_Modifications.pdf
That document is expressly NOT for trailers in TOFC service.
Do you have a copy of M-931 that you can link, or a summary of design requirements in that standard? AFAIK that still represents 'state of the art' in commercial TOFC compatibility standards.
Overmod That document is expressly NOT for trailers in TOFC service. Do you have a copy of M-931 that you can link, or a summary of design requirements in that standard? AFAIK that still represents 'state of the art' in commercial TOFC compatibility standards.
I corrected the previous post. No I don't have a link. M-931 specifications can be found in the AAR Intermodal Equipment Manual (2018). It will cost you $187.00 for that information.
https://aarpublications.com/section-i-intermodal-equipment-manual-2018g.html
BaltACDBack in the day (basically before the Interstate system) where railroads had the market share of perishables (and finished lumber) moving from the West Coast to the Eastern markets, much of the product was shipped to the SHIPPER at a Eastern location via a spcified circuitous route (with the number of Class 1 carriers - such a routing was easy). When the product departed origin it had yet to be sold to the ultimate consignee. While the cars were in transit the marketing arm of the Shipper was active in the various Eastern markets for the product(s) in attracting actual buyers. Once the deal was made, reconsignment and diversion orders were initated for the car(s) to move them on a more direct route to the real consignee.
This was literally my grandfather's job at the FW&D/CB&Q/BN. He was the guy handling all of the in motion re-routing of grain coming into Amarillo and redirecting the sold product the right direction and shuffling off the unsold to the next guy down the line to repeat the process.
I know I'm late to the show, but here goes...
The last 7 years of my working career were at CSX Intermodal before I retired in 2015. Reading through this thread has a lot of good ideas in it, but generally lack both engineering issues and the 'real world' of things.
I got a laugh out of the 'depressed track' using a straddle type container transport. My first thought was 'what about a winter blizzard?'. Putting a shed roof over an entire intermodal yard would not only be unreasonably costly, cause collisions of vehicles with shed roof support beams, but also have an exhaust issue. And don't forget the 1/2 mile or so 'ramp' down on each end of the intermodal yard for the cars to be spotted or pulled. Where is all the real estate going to come from?
Speaking of snow...one of the bigger 'laughs' the railroaders and me, a railfan, got was when CSX decided that little small solar panel powered 'night lights' should be placed atop the same tie as the switchstands to aid conductors and yard crew in locating them. Worked GREAT in Jacksonville, I'm sure! But one inch of snow??? Where'd they go?
Lowering the tare weight of the chassis is problematic as well. They have to be able to withstand roughly 15 years of 'abuse' by truckers that don't care how many curbs they run over or potholes they hit as they know the odds are they'll never pull a load under that chassis again in their lifetimes...or life of their employment at the drayage company...OOs included. I'd guess we had about 25% 'turnover' of truckers each year at the ramp I was at...both employees and owner operators. The chassis also have to be strong enough to handle at least a 100% overload on them! The newest packers we had were equipped with a scale to tell the operator how heavy was the load. The manager of our yard jockeys who spent 6-8 hours per day loading/unloading trains said he's seen the scale go over 100,000 pounds a couple of times through the years! Never mind that that far exceeds any 18 wheeler limits for highway travel anywhere in the country as far as I know. One time received an older container in the bottom of a bucket car one day that the packer picked up the sides, front, back, and roof of a container, but the entire floor and its load was still in the bucket car! It was a load of junked automobile engine blocks!
Don't forget for one second, either, that a chassis or trailer only needs to be able to support the load without bending/breaking. When they hit a good sized pothole, the 'drop' isn't so serious, but the sudden upward jolt can effectively add 50% or more to the apparent weight of the load. Think about the fast elevator rides you've had...a bit of weightlessness descending, but feeling a bit 'heavier' when starting upwards. Simply put, the chassis and containers have to be 'heavy duty' enough to withstand outright ABUSE and still be usable for at least 15 years or more! It's the same reason that railroad equipment is extra heavy duty...all weather, extreme loads, and 'abusive' applications of brakes and slack run in, rough joints, etc.
Now throw in the cost of construction. Aluminum is lighter, but it costs several times more per ton than steel. It is also isn't as strong as steel, ie, less tensile strength. So you need more aluminum to get the same strength as steel. I'll let the mechanical engineers out there figure out the exact numbers. Additionally, aluminum pits and corrodes significantly due to road salt, far more damage than painted steel gets.
I witnessed the transistion from 'heavier' and older containers with vertical aluminum U-channels to hold the plywood interior and its thin steel sheathing securely to the new style wavy-style sides and front. Less cost to build, less cost to repair if damaged. Win-win all the way around. Remember, the business world these days is far more driven by keeping costs to a minimum than getting the best long-term 'bang for the buck'.
One of the 'secrets' to building a good container is the strength and weight of the rear doors. Each door has two lock rods to ensure both a tight fit and to keep the container from 'racking' from side to side. I'd guess each door weighs about 200 pounds or more and if it's windy when you open them, HANG ON! Should the container rack even a little bit, the doors won't open easily and may need a prybar to open them.
The lifting posts, 40' apart on ALL containers 40' and longer are the strongest part of a container. They have to be! Considering that the twist lock that gets inserted by the packer (identical in size and shape as an interbox connector (IBC) used when double stacking) each have MAYBE 6 square inches of lifting area (an inverted T shape) excluding the 2" diameter rod (the vertical part of the T). Times 4 lifting points. That works out to about 25,000 pounds PER LIFTING POINT for an overloaded container! Specially hardened steel is required for the packer and the twist lock areas at top and bottom of each container. Soft steel such as the frame of a autombile or even the frame of a highway tractor won't cut the mustard.
Then we get to trailers. They've gotten lighter through the years, and all aluminum construction has been tried with limited success, from my experience. At the ramp, we got a chuckle every time the then new trailers with 'wings' on their underside started coming in the gate. The wings were far enough in that the lifting pads (feet) of the packer didn't break them. But the 'first generation' of those wings on trailers of several companies were too low to the ground and many of them had chips, cracks, and broken-out areas in their fiberglass composition from grounding out on RR crossings and/or backing over sidewalks several inches higher than the street pavement they were being backed in from. About a half block from our ramp, there was a company with 3 loading docks each about 60 feet back from the sidewalk. I'd drive past it every day to/from work and saw a number of broken 'wings' there. After a couple years, the 'wing' companies figured out they had to make the bottom 4-5 inches of the wings with rubber instead of fiberglass. DUH!
Other companies tried putting collapsible pop-up/open 'wings with a roof' on the back end of their trailers. I don't think I have EVER seen those work properly and either stay open or stay closed when they're on the train or the highway!
Then we get to Prime refridgerated trailers. They're in a class all by themselves. They were the first of the aluminum-frame trailers to come through our gates. Within a couple of weeks everybody got an email from Jacksonville (directed to the packer operators) to use extreme care when placing the lifting pads under them. It turned out that the 'beefed up' 'lifting area' of each trailer was quite short...about 8" long vs 12" (I'd guess) lifting pads on the packer. What was happening is that the side rails were being bent because they weren't picked up 'exactly right'. Another problem with their lifting pad placement is that the front left side pad was directly in front (side) of the landing gear cranks. If the lifting pads of the packer got 'too deep' of a bite, they'd damage the landing crank shaft and/or the gear mechanism inside requiring superman to be able to raise and lower the landing gear, if it worked at all! As we 'intermodal service represenatatives' (clerks) at the time had to personally inspect EVERY incoming container, chassis and trailer (we gave UPS a 'free pass' as their overly-fastidious drivers would catch any defects BEFORE they hooked on to them!) for damage or leftovers inside an 'empty' unit, we were specifically instructed to check the siderail undersides of every PRIME trailer coming in to check for damage. If Prime trailers were found to be damaged when picked up at the other end, CSX got stuck for the repairs. So we had to record any of those damages if present when the trailers came in the gate to make sure CSX didn't have to pick up the repair tab.
And lastly, I will always remember the first Fedex Ground trailer that we got. Fedex never used CSX much at all while I was there. It was one of the older 53' trailers that had seen its better days. I got a call on the radio from the packer operator that night when he tried lifting it up asking what to do? It turned out that the entire 8-wheel bogey ('truck' in RR terms) was still on the ground when he lifted up the trailer! I jumped in the company truck and drove up there and took a couple pictures with the company camera to document it and instructed the operator to carefully put it back down. Thankfully, he hadn't moved the packer after picking up the box, so it went back down exactly as it was. Needless to say, the Fedex trailer didn't get a train ride. I called my manager and he called Jacksonville to deal with it. It was well over a year before I saw another Fedex come in our gate.
New ideas and new heads are always welcome at growing businesses. But sometimes the 'real world' interferes with their being implemented.
bratkinsonI know I'm late to the show, but here goes...
We make progress by trial and error.
bratkinsonI got a laugh out of the 'depressed track' using a straddle type container transport. My first thought was 'what about a winter blizzard?'.
You'd have done better with this concern if discussing the enhanced CargoSpeed approach, which uses not only a depressed track between aprons but a series of barney cars running below rail level which carry the underlift and swivel arrangements. More careful attention needs to be given to drainage as well as snow and ice buildup in this arrangement, but it is not rocket science (at least I never considered it to be) to design for even relatively heavy blizzard conditions or Canadian-level ambient temperatures... if you realize the need for reasonably all-weather facility access or at least maintaining yard-operation capacity even when conditions would not allow truck traffic in or out of the facility.
This is not to disparage the remainder of what you posted, or your experience as one of the senior authorities here.
bratkinsonSpeaking of snow...one of the bigger 'laughs' the railroaders and me, a railfan, got was when CSX decided that little small solar panel powered 'night lights' should be placed atop the same tie as the switchstands to aid conductors and yard crew in locating them. Worked GREAT in Jacksonville, I'm sure! But one inch of snow??? Where'd they go?
Why have yard lights? The sun is out half the time!
We get snow, and it covers up the clearance point reflectors. But when there isn't snow, they do help a lot. Not everything needs to be 100%.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
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