Intermodal Trains: a few questions

[Anonymous]

For the industries living (and dying) by the "just-in-time" method of inventory management, it certainly does...

Well if they are willing to wait three weeks on a container ship to get to the USA across the pacific and then get all sweaty and lathered over 24 lost hours.... something is seriously bent wrong in the minds of the industry.

I loved the McDonalds analogy to the diet soft drink someone posted. Outstanding. I dont eat McFatty. I prefer to story buy and cook my meals at home (Or at least microwave them LOL)

[dldance]

So 24 hours matter, when it takes over three weeks to ship?  I don't doubt you, but it just seems counter-intuitive?

Gabe

So, just one of his customers generates about $700,000 per hour in revenue.  24 hours = $1.6 million.  Yes - it matters.

dd

[gabe]

So 24 hours matter, when it takes over three weeks to ship?  I don't doubt you, but it just seems counter-intuitive?

Gabe

So, just one of his customers generates about $700,000 per hour in revenue.  24 hours = $1.6 million.  Yes - it matters.

dd

I guess what I do not understand is that the customer operates on a zero-based inventory?

Once again, I am sure you are right, and am not arguing with you.  I am just having trouble with the concept.

Gabe

[Murphy Siding]

So 24 hours matter, when it takes over three weeks to ship?  I don't doubt you, but it just seems counter-intuitive?

Gabe

So, just one of his customers generates about $700,000 per hour in revenue.  24 hours = $1.6 million.  Yes - it matters.

dd

With scheduling that tight, what happens when something breaks down during the ocean voyage, or the train trip?  Is there a great big fan involved for something to hit?

[Anonymous]

Yes the Fan is the customer.

If they dont get that widget the USA sits idle or find the widgets elsewhere.

Those who "lost" the widgets for whatever reason are the ones that get splattered. If the captian of the ship sank it, the shipping company gets splattered along with the brokers who arranged and promised delivery.

Which is why I feel it's easier to have the widgets made right here at home, gotta find a way to put all of those new immigrants to work in someplace other than farm fields.

[dldance]

So 24 hours matter, when it takes over three weeks to ship?  I don't doubt you, but it just seems counter-intuitive?

Gabe

So, just one of his customers generates about $700,000 per hour in revenue.  24 hours = $1.6 million.  Yes - it matters.

dd

I guess what I do not understand is that the customer operates on a zero-based inventory?

Once again, I am sure you are right, and am not arguing with you.  I am just having trouble with the concept.

Gabe

One of the most famous exports from Japan is the "Toyota Production System" also known as "Lean Manufacturing."  The goal of this system is Zero Inventory.  Now back to my client's customer - that 2,000 gallon ISO chemical represents about $6 million in inventory.  No way is that customer going to have 2 or 3 extras ISOs in line for processing. BTW my client's average trans-Pacific transit time is less than 10 days.  Ships move at different speeds.  He pays for fast ships.

dd

 

[Anonymous]

So 24 hours matter, when it takes over three weeks to ship?  I don't doubt you, but it just seems counter-intuitive?

Gabe

So, just one of his customers generates about $700,000 per hour in revenue.  24 hours = $1.6 million.  Yes - it matters.

dd

I guess what I do not understand is that the customer operates on a zero-based inventory?

Once again, I am sure you are right, and am not arguing with you.  I am just having trouble with the concept.

Gabe

One of the most famous exports from Japan is the "Toyota Production System" also known as "Lean Manufacturing."  The goal of this system is Zero Inventory.  Now back to my client's customer - that 2,000 gallon ISO chemical represents about $6 million in inventory.  No way is that customer going to have 2 or 3 extras ISOs in line for processing. BTW my client's average trans-Pacific transit time is less than 10 days.  Ships move at different speeds.  He pays for fast ships.

dd

 

No slow boat for this one then. The money is there to pay for fast ships.

I was thinking about those 20 dollar toasters that arrive to the walmart slightly abused and banged up from thier trip.

[Anonymous]

Time sensitivity is still an issue for intermodal, and running such absurdly long trains will only add to the time penalties.  Don't forget, all those containers disgourged from those ships have to be marshalled first and sorted, then and only then are they loaded onto the well cars.  And on the operating side of things, such long trains can only cause havoc to the other trains using the Transcon, including those time sensitive UPS trains.  I wonder how UPS feels about this spector of long double stacks potentially clogging up their priority trains?  Are there enough passing opportunities built into the Transcon to allow an Eastbound UPS to glide past a long eastbound double stack without losing speed? -FM

....want to try to rethink this? Unless a short ride in a bomber chassis is somehow equated to marshalling...

Not to pick on FM, but I have always found the contention that ship-generated intermodal was time sensitive very dubious.  UPS-generated intermodal on the other hand, there is no question that it is time sensitive.

Once you view the time it takes to get that countainer in to the port in China, loaded on the ship with all of the rest of the containers, the ship to cross the vast waters of the pacific, to wait for a berth in LA, be unload, and then placed on a train, the thought of saving a day or two by making the rail run time sensitive is akin to ordering a diet soft drink when you are eating a super-sized value meal at McDonnalds with a side of chicken nuggets.

Gabe

All intermodal has a vested interest in time sensitivity, some (UPS parcels) more than others (Walmart widgets).  If BNSF wants to *maximize* the efficiency of moving Wallyworld's widgets via longer trains, then it can only interfere with the efficiency of moving UPS's parcels. 

The question is, which one pays the huge mark-up, UPS or Wallyworld's widgets?  The second question is, why endanger the premium priced move to more economically facilitate the low margin move?

[edblysard]

Gabe,

From the moment the container seal is snapped in place to the moment the container is opened at the WalMart distribution center, a "clock" starts and the container is tracked.

The time it takes to load onto the ship, the ocean transit time, the time required to unload and drop on a boogie truck or straight to the railcar is a known, anticipated part of the shipping time.

You don't have to "marshal" the containers...they are already sorted, stacked and inventoried in the ship, already assigned a train, down to the car they go in.

Container shipping and operations are the most efficient type of railroading, in that every single movement of the box is already planned, and its movement is refined down to within a few minutes.

The shipping lines who own and operate the ship can tell you where in the ship the container is, how much the container weights, when it will hit the railcar,  down to the expected departure time of the train, from the moment the door closes on the box at its point of origin.

The lift operators have a computer generated "map" of the containers; they can drop one on average in 30 seconds or less from the ships hold to platform, truck or railcar it will travel on.

The shipping lines pay a stiff penalty if they delay these things even to a time frame as small as 30 minutes.

The stevedore company in charge of unloading them also works on a clock, and pays if they miss the trains scheduled departure time...zero tolerance there for the most part.

Both BNSF and UP have mobile repair crews that can swap out wheels, replace brake shoes, do pretty much anything to the railcars, while the other cars in the same train are being loaded.

 

The shipping lines have it down to the point they can tell you how much money they allocate in fuel cost to each container, depending on where it is picked up and delivered to and how much it weights, and the total transit time for that one box from any given point in transit to any given point you choose...you can log on and track your container and it's ETA to your load out facility, and usually that ETA is accurate to within a hour...not too shabby.

 

If FM had done real research, he could, (but most likely wouldn't) have told you that these things are scheduled so tight, and run on such a demanding time frame, that they would have made the old Santa Fe passenger trains look sloppy.

BNSF has such a tight time frame on these things they almost squeak!

I have listened on the radio to the TD3 Spring dispatch center shut down the hump operations at Strang yard, so they can give a bunch of green boards to the stack train headed to Barbors Cut...think about that, shutting down the hump crew so a stack train can make up 25 minutes time by not running under restricting signals.

 

We run a small stack train out to Barbors Cut, an intermodal terminal on the Houston ship channel.

If our crew isn't standing trackside to relieve the BNSF crew when they pull in to Pasadena, we get a nasty call from the BNSF corridor manager, followed by an equally nasty call from the local BNSF trainmaster.

If we don't have the train checked in at the gate to Barbors Cut at the required time, not early and defiantly not late, but right on the dime, we don't get paid for the move.

The facility manager has an employee who stands at the gate, and notes the exact time the nose of the locomotive passes the gate...their clock to load the ships starts right then.

BNSF is serious about stack trains.

[Anonymous]

I would have several really beefy company officials hand me paperwork and order me to catch the Maresk or whatever ship at the Port pronto. No lunch, no breaks no nothing. Just get down to the ship right away.

Sometimes that port is 250 ground miles to the south in Norfolk or Portsmouth.

As long as they grab the box with the crane and gets it onto the ship, Ive done my job.

We also relied on the shipyard to really quickly change out the load and grab another box. I think one yard in Chester PA was absolutely elite in thier work. It would take less than 40 minutes to drop a box, dump the chassis, grab another, get it inspected and have a new box put on and back on the interstate. For me, Chester was the very best.

It was a bit of trust to sit in the yellow box while a big crane roared towards your chassis with a swaying box that weights a great deal and slams it down just so.

Not like some shipping lines in Baltimore where the inspectors would leave 70 trucks idling while they took thier 1 hour lunch with another 100 due by dinner time.

Railyards inland were even more demanding, only they knew exactly where everything was and will be within the hour. It was up to the driver (Me) to be in the right place at the right time with the right trailer or box.

Grabbing number 1501414 when you should be getting 1504141 will get you royally chewed out.

[Anonymous]

Gabe,

From the moment the container seal is snapped in place to the moment the container is opened at the WalMart distribution center, a "clock" starts and the container is tracked.

The time it takes to load onto the ship, the ocean transit time, the time required to unload and drop on a boogie truck or straight to the railcar is a known, anticipated part of the shipping time.

You don't have to "marshal" the containers...they are already sorted, stacked and inventoried in the ship, already assigned a train, down to the car they go in.

Container shipping and operations are the most efficient type of railroading, in that every single movement of the box is already planned, and its movement is refined down to within a few minutes.

The shipping lines who own and operate the ship can tell you where in the ship the container is, how much the container weights, when it will hit the railcar,  down to the expected departure time of the train, from the moment the door closes on the box at its point of origin.

The lift operators have a computer generated "map" of the containers; they can drop one on average in 30 seconds or less from the ships hold to platform, truck or railcar it will travel on.

The shipping lines pay a stiff penalty if they delay these things even to a time frame as small as 30 minutes.

The stevedore company in charge of unloading them also works on a clock, and pays if they miss the trains scheduled departure time...zero tolerance there for the most part.

Both BNSF and UP have mobile repair crews that can swap out wheels, replace brake shoes, do pretty much anything to the railcars, while the other cars in the same train are being loaded.

 

The shipping lines have it down to the point they can tell you how much money they allocate in fuel cost to each container, depending on where it is picked up and delivered to and how much it weights, and the total transit time for that one box from any given point in transit to any given point you choose...you can log on and track your container and it's ETA to your load out facility, and usually that ETA is accurate to within a hour...not too shabby.

 

If FM had done real research, he could, (but most likely wouldn't) have told you that these things are scheduled so tight, and run on such a demanding time frame, that they would have made the old Santa Fe passenger trains look sloppy.

BNSF has such a tight time frame on these things they almost squeak!

I have listened on the radio to the TD3 Spring dispatch center shut down the hump operations at Strang yard, so they can give a bunch of green boards to the stack train headed to Barbors Cut...think about that, shutting down the hump crew so a stack train can make up 25 minutes time by not running under restricting signals.

 

We run a small stack train out to Barbors Cut, an intermodal terminal on the Houston ship channel.

If our crew isn't standing trackside to relieve the BNSF crew when they pull in to Pasadena, we get a nasty call from the BNSF corridor manager, followed by an equally nasty call from the local BNSF trainmaster.

If we don't have the train checked in at the gate to Barbors Cut at the required time, not early and defiantly not late, but right on the dime, we don't get paid for the move.

The facility manager has an employee who stands at the gate, and notes the exact time the nose of the locomotive passes the gate...their clock to load the ships starts right then.

BNSF is serious about stack trains.

Someone want to remind Ed B that the heavy containers go on the bottom, the lighter ones on top?  Same for well car, same for the ship's hold.

So to state that the containers are normally sorted on the ship ready to go directly to the well cars is a rather miseducated statement, but par for that course....

There was talk in the shipping trades a while back regarding the concept twin-lifting containers directly from ship to railcar to avoid the marshalling yards and to cut the cost per lift in half (think longshoreman wages), but of course that would require (1) the pre-double stacked containers to be pre-weight distributed, and (2) a logistical game plan presented in a tight formation to prevent any flusterclucking foulups.  For #1 to work, you must have two 40's of relatively equal weight distribution - you can't have the heavy-on-bottom/light-on-top pre-stacked arrangement on the ship because that would throw the ship's weight distribution out of kilter.  And you can forget about trying to pre-stack the two-20's-on-the-bottom/one-40-on-top arrangement......

Thus, only if you have a shipload of homogenous container loads can you use the direct twin-lift concept.

Of course, if railroads would just revert back to single stacking container trains, then direct ship-to-rail container transfer could become the norm.......hey, if train length is no longer an issue, then single stack could make a comeback in the USA......

....yeah right, when pigs fly.......

.....or when open access is instituted on the US rail system and all these rail execs end up flipping burgers while the trucking companies dominate rail operations!

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

FM seems to have missed Ed's point, that modern container shipping is planned so carefully as to build up its efficiencies.  A lot of advance planning is obviously needed, and I'm sure that the other factors that FM mentions in his posting are considered as well.  Nothing happens unless it's planned.

[Anonymous]

FM seems to have missed Ed's point, that modern container shipping is planned so carefully as to build up its efficiencies.  A lot of advance planning is obviously needed, and I'm sure that the other factors that FM mentions in his posting are considered as well.  Nothing happens unless it's planned.

Actually, how would such "careful planning" explain the constant port delays?  If a dozen ships are sitting at anchor for a week waiting for an open berth, something's amiss.  If the delays are related to lack of expediant transfer capacity, doesn't that fall onto the railroads' shoulders?

I'm just wary of this obsession railroads have with maximizing their load factor (via longer and longer trains), while the inevitable delays due to these long slow trains end up being forced upon the other aspects of the supply chain, and the chain overall ends up less efficient.  We've seen it in the grain hauling business.........

[edblysard]

No David,

Ships at anchor and awaiting a berth are not in the purview or under control of the railroads management...if your ship is delayed for its berth time, that is the problem of the local port authority...and unloading delays are the direct responsibility of the stevedore company, who, like the port authority, don't work for the railroad.

Just like the City of Houston, the Cities of Long Beach and LA own, operate and manage their docks...not the railroad.

If you had read at least one or two newspapers, maybe even watched the national news once in a while, you would have read or heard about several cities attempting to sell/turn management and part ownership of their port operation and docks/ intermodal facilities over to a group of Saudi investors...

 

But that's ok, everyone here already knows you dislike railroads, how they are run and managed, what they do, and what you wish they would do.

We understand you are going to cast railroads, BNSF in particular, in a disparaging light, even at the expense of facts and reality.

 

If they were to deliver the Flat Earth Weekly directly to your doorstep, you would still complain, it is who you are and what you do.

FM seems to have missed Ed's point, that modern container shipping is planned so carefully as to build up its efficiencies.  A lot of advance planning is obviously needed, and I'm sure that the other factors that FM mentions in his posting are considered as well.  Nothing happens unless it's planned.

Actually, how would such "careful planning" explain the constant port delays?  If a dozen ships are sitting at anchor for a week waiting for an open berth, something's amiss.  If the delays are related to lack of expediant transfer capacity, doesn't that fall onto the railroads' shoulders?

 

[Anonymous]

No David,

Ships at anchor and awaiting a berth are not in the purview or under control of the railroads management...if your ship is delayed for its berth time, that is the problem of the local port authority...and unloading delays are the direct responsibility of the stevedore company, who, like the port authority, don't work for the railroad.

Just like the City of Houston, the Cities of Long Beach and LA own, operate and manage their docks...not the railroad.

If you had read at least one or two newspapers, maybe even watched the national news once in a while, you would have read or heard about several cities attempting to sell/turn management and part ownership of their port operation and docks/ intermodal facilities over to a group of Saudi investors...

 

But that's ok, everyone here already knows you dislike railroads, how they are run and managed, what they do, and what you wish they would do.

We understand you are going to cast railroads, BNSF in particular, in a disparaging light, even at the expense of facts and reality.

 

If they were to deliver the Flat Earth Weekly directly to your doorstep, you would still complain, it is who you are and what you do.

Again, saving this one for the moderator - once again it is Ed B who initiates the personal attacks.

What Ed is oblivious to is the fact that it takes more than twice as long to load a double stack train as it does a single stack train, and the longer the train the longer the wait to get it loaded and out of the yard.  It is this dedication to the long slow concept that is causing all the delays at ports.  Again, double stack is good for the railroads in a circumspect way, but is bad for the supply chain.  The ships are having to wait precisely because of the way railroads operate in the port cities.  For proof, look at the European port operations - their port congestion problems are much less becaue the open access railroads are very expedient, using mostly short fast single stack trains.  (Yeah, I'm sure we'll get a note from John B with an example or two of just the opposite, notwithstanding.)

Hey, that's all right!  Everyone knows that the Class I's hate the USA, otherwise why would they continue to subsidize imports on the backs of domestic shippers?  And frankly, BNSF is it's own worst enemy on the PR front with the hard wired arrogance it displays toward American rail shippers.  That's fact, that's reality, and there's nothing disparaging about pointing this out.

[Limitedclear]

No David,

Ships at anchor and awaiting a berth are not in the purview or under control of the railroads management...if your ship is delayed for its berth time, that is the problem of the local port authority...and unloading delays are the direct responsibility of the stevedore company, who, like the port authority, don't work for the railroad.

Just like the City of Houston, the Cities of Long Beach and LA own, operate and manage their docks...not the railroad.

If you had read at least one or two newspapers, maybe even watched the national news once in a while, you would have read or heard about several cities attempting to sell/turn management and part ownership of their port operation and docks/ intermodal facilities over to a group of Saudi investors...

 

But that's ok, everyone here already knows you dislike railroads, how they are run and managed, what they do, and what you wish they would do.

We understand you are going to cast railroads, BNSF in particular, in a disparaging light, even at the expense of facts and reality.

 

If they were to deliver the Flat Earth Weekly directly to your doorstep, you would still complain, it is who you are and what you do.

Again, saving this one for the moderator - once again it is Ed B who initiates the personal attacks.

What Ed is oblivious to is the fact that it takes more than twice as long to load a double stack train as it does a single stack train, and the longer the train the longer the wait to get it loaded and out of the yard.  It is this dedication to the long slow concept that is causing all the delays at ports.  Again, double stack is good for the railroads in a circumspect way, but is bad for the supply chain.  The ships are having to wait precisely because of the way railroads operate in the port cities.  For proof, look at the European port operations - their port congestion problems are much less becaue the open access railroads are very expedient, using mostly short fast single stack trains.  (Yeah, I'm sure we'll get a note from John B with an example or two of just the opposite, notwithstanding.)

Hey, that's all right!  Everyone knows that the Class I's hate the USA, otherwise why would they continue to subsidize imports on the backs of domestic shippers?  And frankly, BNSF is it's own worst enemy on the PR front with the hard wired arrogance it displays toward American rail shippers.  That's fact, that's reality, and there's nothing disparaging about pointing this out.

Hey FM, I heard they had a shootin' in your own private Idaho. Glad to see you are still here, otherwise who could we lampoon...FOFLMAO...

Well, it's nice to see that some things never change, you are still living in your little fantasy world of OA and no BNSF. What did you say you got a degree in again?

The Class 1s carry whatever makes them money, hardly subsidizing anyone...but, nice try...

How is tilting at windmills going? You actually hit one yet? No, well, color me shocked...

LOL...

LC

[snagletooth]

More than twice as long to load a double stack? Longer yes, but not by much. They usually make one sweep down, with somone following setting upper pins, then make another sweep back. Or even when they don't, the time it takes to grab another, the man has the pins set. it only takes less than a minute to load a container. The fastest way is to use two cranes following each other, with a pin setter in between. I've personally seen them load/unload a train in under an hour that way.

[greyhounds]

What Ed is oblivious to is the fact that it takes more than twice as long to load a double stack train as it does a single stack train, and the longer the train the longer the wait to get it loaded and out of the yard.  It is this dedication to the long slow concept that is causing all the delays at ports.  Again, double stack is good for the railroads in a circumspect way, but is bad for the supply chain. 

No Dave.  The supply chain would have snapped years ago without the stacks.  Capacity is tight in places now, it would be overwhelmed without the stacks.

As to taking longer to load a longer train, it doesn't have to.  It all depends on the resources assigned to the task.  The BNSF can load 400 containers just as fast as it can load 100 containers, if it assigns more lift equipment and personel to the task.

And, going back to your previous postings, the "cross subsidy" exists only in your mind.  The BNSF isn't selling any service below incremental costs - and unless something is being sold below incremental cost there is no "cross subsidy".  Whatever you think of railroad management, they are not collectively stupid.  They would have to be collectively stupid to sell any ongoing service at a price below their incremental costs.  It's just something else you've made up and, unfortunately for you, you actually believe.

[edblysard]

Lets see if I read you right..

Moving more stuff faster and cheaper is bad for the supply chain?

Wow, and all this time....

  Again, double stack is good for the railroads in a circumspect way, but is bad for the supply chain.  

[beaulieu]

Another factor FM hasn't grasped is that if his logic were true, the same could be said for an 8000 TEU containership vs. a 4000 TEU containership.

The Dutch have studied container port design very throughly, and they have decided that it is best not to load containers direct from ship to train but rather to buffer each process using robot shuttle vehicles. Also their next container quay will be designed to have a much higher dock surface, and the shuttle vehicles will be as close to the ship's side as possible. The idea is to minimize both hoist distance and traverse distance for the container spreader on the container crane. They want the container crane to move the container no further than necessary, either horizontally or vertically.

[Anonymous]

I think containerships are going to be MONSTERS, and we better get ready for them. I dont know anything about them specifically enough to stand up to cross-examination but I expect Containerships to increase in tonnage capacity two to four times while lengths might double and speeds double.

If one of those shows up in Baltimore I dont think it will fit. They might have to actually build a new port somewhere else and have the boxes brought in to be sorted.

I worry that we will outsource all of our production and when other nations feel that they are taking the time to outsource THIER domestic needs the way we did, all the containers are going to dry up. I have seen about 20 years with this and I dont know how long we can keep this going.

[snagletooth]

I know there are ALOT of truckers online here, how many drove duoble axle sea bisquits, besides me, ya! Not MANY, yeah?! ya'll don't know! 6 years, I did! Thats a LONG TIME in intermodal. The average being 6-10 months. I drove for PTI.Pennsylvania Truck Lines. Polish Truck Lines, we called it. The same Pennsyalvania RR. trucks. The Cunninghams owned it. The stories there need there own web site, yea! 0k are a laugh!!Logs books are a luagh Cowboy truckin', yeehaa!!!! I'm not belittleing  Triple digiters, just the yahoo's that think they got the cure!!!

  It's a different world. we were, and probebly still are, considered the "SCABS" of the bissuness!

We haul, regardeless of weight, anything they throw at us! Cowboy truckin' And ya'all wanna do what? Idiots!!! I love All truckers, GOD knows how many, despite our differences, helped me, kept me goin', makin' money, RIGHT? Pay forward, the motto!!!! ya' bastards think ya gotm the cue? !!! Try livin' in a 3x6 for a while, for 30cnt a mile!!

Chickens Hualers(you'll all know), I'll love ya all, wish I made it that big! 72 in a Keny was the best I got. You know we hauled YOU KNOW IT! I'll drive a fork for now on!!  Do I really got to take this from someone who THINKS they know something? Tell me?

Futuremodal, you need to change you're handle, cause you no nothing about past, present, or even the future of intermodal! 

[nbrodar]

If I remember, I'll ask our intermodal guy about single vs double stack load time.

Nick

[JSGreen]

Even if the intermodal bellies sat there ready to go as soon as the last container is dropped onboard, it seems that double stacking them would save time overall....given the finite time it would take to pull out the full train and respot some more empties...or, an inbound load.  If you have to hook up an engine, air up the lines, test the brakes, and THEN  pull it out, it would take more time yet.  So it would seem intuitive that the overall thoughput for doublestacking would be greater than two sets of single stacks...even given the same amount of people and equipment to do the job.  Is this in fact the case?

[n012944]

What Ed is oblivious to is the fact that it takes more than twice as long to load a double stack train as it does a single stack train, and the longer the train the longer the wait to get it loaded and out of the yard. 

A single stack train would take up twice the track capacity that a double stack train uses for the same amount of boxes.  Capacity that is just not out there.  But why let facts get in the way of your argument.

Hey, that's all right!  Everyone knows that the Class I's hate the USA, otherwise why would they continue to subsidize imports on the backs of domestic shippers? 

The more I read your posts, the more I think that you are just a troll. Saying off the wall stuff looking for reaction.

 

Bert

[Anonymous]

No David,

Ships at anchor and awaiting a berth are not in the purview or under control of the railroads management...if your ship is delayed for its berth time, that is the problem of the local port authority...and unloading delays are the direct responsibility of the stevedore company, who, like the port authority, don't work for the railroad.

Just like the City of Houston, the Cities of Long Beach and LA own, operate and manage their docks...not the railroad.

If you had read at least one or two newspapers, maybe even watched the national news once in a while, you would have read or heard about several cities attempting to sell/turn management and part ownership of their port operation and docks/ intermodal facilities over to a group of Saudi investors...

 

But that's ok, everyone here already knows you dislike railroads, how they are run and managed, what they do, and what you wish they would do.

We understand you are going to cast railroads, BNSF in particular, in a disparaging light, even at the expense of facts and reality.

 

If they were to deliver the Flat Earth Weekly directly to your doorstep, you would still complain, it is who you are and what you do.

Again, saving this one for the moderator - once again it is Ed B who initiates the personal attacks.

What Ed is oblivious to is the fact that it takes more than twice as long to load a double stack train as it does a single stack train, and the longer the train the longer the wait to get it loaded and out of the yard.  It is this dedication to the long slow concept that is causing all the delays at ports.  Again, double stack is good for the railroads in a circumspect way, but is bad for the supply chain.  The ships are having to wait precisely because of the way railroads operate in the port cities.  For proof, look at the European port operations - their port congestion problems are much less becaue the open access railroads are very expedient, using mostly short fast single stack trains.  (Yeah, I'm sure we'll get a note from John B with an example or two of just the opposite, notwithstanding.)

Hey, that's all right!  Everyone knows that the Class I's hate the USA, otherwise why would they continue to subsidize imports on the backs of domestic shippers?  And frankly, BNSF is it's own worst enemy on the PR front with the hard wired arrogance it displays toward American rail shippers.  That's fact, that's reality, and there's nothing disparaging about pointing this out.

Hey FM, I heard they had a shootin' in your own private Idaho. Glad to see you are still here, otherwise who could we lampoon...FOFLMAO...

Well, it's nice to see that some things never change, you are still living in your little fantasy world of OA and no BNSF. What did you say you got a degree in again?

The Class 1s carry whatever makes them money, hardly subsidizing anyone...but, nice try...

How is tilting at windmills going? You actually hit one yet? No, well, color me shocked...

LOL...

LC

Man, I have just got to see those compromising pictures of Bergie that LC has which allow him/her to continue on this forum! 

[Anonymous]

Another factor FM hasn't grasped is that if his logic were true, the same could be said for an 8000 TEU containership vs. a 4000 TEU containership.

Another factor beaulieu hasn't grasped is that the larger containerships have fewer port options than the smaller ships, which means more stuff has to be transloaded to truck, railcar, or short sea barge for those smaller capacity ports now bypassed by the larger containerships.  Ultimately, it is the shipper who pays for those delays.

Besides, Freud would suggest the real reason for the mega containerships has more to do with the physical inadaquacies of the ship owners than with supply chain efficiencies!

The Dutch have studied container port design very throughly, and they have decided that it is best not to load containers direct from ship to train but rather to buffer each process using robot shuttle vehicles. Also their next container quay will be designed to have a much higher dock surface, and the shuttle vehicles will be as close to the ship's side as possible. The idea is to minimize both hoist distance and traverse distance for the container spreader on the container crane. They want the container crane to move the container no further than necessary, either horizontally or vertically.

This is where bi-modal chassis would work well.  And don't the Dutch trains still use single stack?

 

[Anonymous]

If I remember, I'll ask our intermodal guy about single vs double stack load time.

Nick

If you get the chance, ask him if they've even studied using RailRunner chassis to decrease load time.

[Anonymous]

Even if the intermodal bellies sat there ready to go as soon as the last container is dropped onboard, it seems that double stacking them would save time overall....given the finite time it would take to pull out the full train and respot some more empties...or, an inbound load.  If you have to hook up an engine, air up the lines, test the brakes, and THEN  pull it out, it would take more time yet.  So it would seem intuitive that the overall thoughput for doublestacking would be greater than two sets of single stacks...even given the same amount of people and equipment to do the job.  Is this in fact the case?

Consider the prospect of direct ship to rail loading using a single stack system (spine cars or RailRunner chassis).  If you can effectively do this, you eliminate most of the damage-causing handling, you eliminate at least two dock workers (e.g. $$), you eliminate the need for the inland repositioning terminal, and if using the RailRunner chassis as your single stack system, you actually end up with a better load factor than double stack, not to mention eliminating the need for a de facto intermodal terminal at the destination.  Single stack trains would also have better center of gravity.

Yes, you would have to have a single stack train that is twice as long as a double stack train for the same amount of containers, but the point is to make the supply chain more fluid by making the trains more flexible for the customers.  And if BNSF can put together a 10,000 foot double stack train as a one-time show off piece, surely they could be running 10,000 foot single stack trains without incident.

And because it takes less time to offload a single stack train, the cycle time for the single stack is less than that for the double stack.

[nbrodar]

I had a rather fascinating conversation with our intermodal guy today.

There is virtually no difference in loading time between single and double stack.  The main difference is you need an extra person to apply and lock the IBCs.

The biggest consumer of time is the sorting of the boxes into destination blocks.  The boxes must be sorted into destination blocks, and then sub-destinations within those blocks.

Nick