Like someone else said recently, COFC is no longer high value but just the new boxcar. The OP is getting really good with his vague "I know something that you don't" hints that he thinks we really care about---we don't.
croteauddIntermodal is the next to die as ‘time value of money’ conscious shippers start zeroing in on time.
Now yes, the place where the gains would be made is in faster 'interfacing' between moving modes. I had a system in 1978 that would load and unload a 60-car rake of skeleton flats with ISO series 1 containers in under seven minutes. (You could do stacks with it, too, but only in India...) I had a similar system in the 1990s that would allow gang unloading and then gang-loading of trailers on kangaroo flats in not much longer time -- something immensely facilitated by autonomous low-profile yard dogs.
Your undiscussed yard system would have to be very competent indeed to beat what can be practically done with reasonable intermodal equipment.
croteauddHave fun kicking all this around! (Nothing more will be said, no answering questions, no nothing!)
I don't even know what we would kick around. What are we atalking about?
Meanwhile I just got done working in a yard jammed pack with cars for industries (with many more in the pipeline) that have no space - and that includes a fairly healthy number of boxcars.
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
Nothing to see - nothing to comment upon. Another dead idea. No money in dead ideas.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Over three decades ago the elevator brought me up to the patent attorney’s floor. In his office, it took only a few seconds to draw him a new type of yard. At seeing it for only two or three seconds more, he exclaimed, ‘There is money in this!’ What he didn’t know was that what I drew him already exists in another rail form, so can’t be patented!
Retirement is blissful and I no longer try to get people’s attention. A fast sorting facility is only presented herein to get railroaders and railfans to think! Can you imagine a whole train sorted in just a few hours and then the cars being on their way instead of cars being in a hump yard for 24 hours or more?
We all follow a dying industry! In 30 years, I don’t think there will be boxcar traffic. Nor petroleum tank cars. So, the miracle sorting facility is eternally dead. Intermodal is the next to die as ‘time value of money’ conscious shippers start zeroing in on time.
Have fun kicking all this around! (Nothing more will be said, no answering questions, no nothing!)
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