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For the record, my undergraduate degree, now 43 yeas old, was in Business Logistics. and a lot of things have changed in that time.
During the years when I was a student, it had already become apparent that the railroads, still sinking in financial and infrastructural difficulties that had begun after World War II, and would last for another 20 years, were not suited for most of the high-value and consumer-oriented goods that would dominate the new economy. Also, that the practice of distributing consumer products in central warehouses in districts close to "downtown" was similarly vulnerable. Trucking lines were confined by a regulatory straight-jacket which required them to operate in a pattern similar to the railroads, and the handling of small, infrequent, high-value shipments called "express", while available, commanded a considerably higher price, when expressed in relative terms and indexed for inflation.
Many of these concerns have since been addressed, with the completion of the Interstate Highway System as the linchpin. The concern over the high cost of both economic oversight and a rigid network of facilities spawned a call for deregulation, which forced the trucking industry to re-orient itself -- often at very great cost to some participants -- and eventually paved the way for a rebound by the freight railroads, beginning around 1985.
So I'd like to hear some input from other regulars here on their thoughts on how the distribution of the physical goods used in the conduct of our daily lives might further evolve.
One personal concern I would like to see addressed in particular is highway safety, since the pressures for smaller and more-efficient vehicles, driven mostly by individual incentives ($$$) clashes directly with a trend toward larger highway freight vehicles and, for reasons I'll be glad to address as the discussion unfolds, can't be resolved with a return to door-to-door rail transport. Sooner or later, I believe that a grass-roots expression of those concerns, along the lines of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) will have to emerge.
A second is the growing interest in "self-driving" automobiles, spawned mostly by the experiments funded by visionary institutions like Google and, while showing continued progress and promise, will not be as easy to implement, particularly at the local level, as what is being sold to a mostly young and not-technically-familiar audience. The further implementation of such a system would, by definition, have major implications for freight moves, which would involve the greatest amount of both direct physical and "dollars-and-cents" benefit.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 02-22-2015 at 04:42 AM..
Railroads are a very efficient and good way of hauling freight, and the longer the haul the more this is correct. Trucking will have the advantage only for quite short distances (roads go just about everywhere when rails do not).
I have always wondered why the railfans keep trying to revive the dead horse of passenger rail service, which lacks both the speed of air travel and the door-to-door flexibility of road transport. Instead, train buffs should focus on what railroads do incredibly well--haul freight.
"High speed (passenger) trains and railroads" (sic) indeed. Why not high speed freight trains and railroads?
The obvious problem with rail is that it does not offer flexibility and timeliness for most modern logistics functions. It is good at transporting bulk goods cheaply. It is not as good at transporting large finished goods to retailers and it cannot transport smaller finished goods.
Trains can transport ore to a steel mill via track adjacent to the mill. It can transport large finished tubes, but they can't be delivered to the end user, just the rail depot. You're not going to use rail to transport your ipad, box of frosted flakes, etc, and that is where they bulk of our freight is trending.
A couple of trends that I think may have an impact on how we view trucks is the increasing efficiency of smaller scale and flexible manufacturing and logistics. Companies like Exel rely upon rail to get grain to a flexible food processing facility where someone's cereal and snacks are made. Instead of that food being shipped by truck from Michigan or Illinois, it can be made in a metro, which reduces need for interstate trucking.
The broad acceptance of 3D printing is a long ways off, but there will come a day when resins and plastics required for this could be shipped and warehoused in bulk at large facilities adjacent to rail corridors. The printing of goods from those resins will occur locally, which should reduce interstate highway burdens. The advantages to adopting this type of a system is that the core ingrredients that go into the printing are the same across a wide variety of products, so reduced demand for some products can be offset by increases in others. It is easier to manage the supply chain with all of these hedges in place.Timeliness becomes less of a factor and rail is a preferable delivery method.
Railroads are a very efficient and good way of hauling freight, and the longer the haul the more this is correct. Trucking will have the advantage only for quite short distances (roads go just about everywhere when rails do not).
I have always wondered why the railfans keep trying to revive the dead horse of passenger rail service, which lacks both the speed of air travel and the door-to-door flexibility of road transport. Instead, train buffs should focus on what railroads do incredibly well--haul freight.
"High speed (passenger) trains and railroads" (sic) indeed. Why not high speed freight trains and railroads?
Because they are honestly clueless about how rail is setup in the United States and look at Europe and see how it is go "why aren't we just like Europe with rail?" Failing to see the US heavily utilizes rail for shipping goods across the country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago76
The obvious problem with rail is that it does not offer flexibility and timeliness for most modern logistics functions. It is good at transporting bulk goods cheaply. It is not as good at transporting large finished goods to retailers and it cannot transport smaller finished goods.
Trains can transport ore to a steel mill via track adjacent to the mill. It can transport large finished tubes, but they can't be delivered to the end user, just the rail depot. You're not going to use rail to transport your ipad, box of frosted flakes, etc, and that is where they bulk of our freight is trending.
A couple of trends that I think may have an impact on how we view trucks is the increasing efficiency of smaller scale and flexible manufacturing and logistics. Companies like Exel rely upon rail to get grain to a flexible food processing facility where someone's cereal and snacks are made. Instead of that food being shipped by truck from Michigan or Illinois, it can be made in a metro, which reduces need for interstate trucking.
The broad acceptance of 3D printing is a long ways off, but there will come a day when resins and plastics required for this could be shipped and warehoused in bulk at large facilities adjacent to rail corridors. The printing of goods from those resins will occur locally, which should reduce interstate highway burdens. The advantages to adopting this type of a system is that the core ingrredients that go into the printing are the same across a wide variety of products, so reduced demand for some products can be offset by increases in others. It is easier to manage the supply chain with all of these hedges in place.Timeliness becomes less of a factor and rail is a preferable delivery method.
Actually we do heavily utilize trains to transport frosted flakes I live in Harrisburg PA and Kellogg's has a facility in Lancaster PA where they make frosted flakes cereal and it's transported by rail across the country. The same way laptops, smart tvs, mail (it's shocking how much mail is moved via rail especially things like catalogs), etc. and that is through containers moved by trains. Your confusing raw material transport thinking that is all trains can transport and that is not the reality of how things are today in fact hauling containers is about 20-25% of a rail roads business. Containerization is here to stay and is going to keep increasing like it has for a decade now. Ever since well cars came out transporting containers especially 53 ft North American containers has gotten cheaper and cheaper. Intermodal has and will continue to be the fastest growing segment of the transportation industry for the foreseeable future due to double stacking.
As far as Interstate Highway burdens go due to Domestic/North American Intermodal the burden to highways is lessened. However it will not be entirely removed regardless of what the CSX commercials try and imply.
You will still have local truck drivers in daycabs running around between rail yards and receivers and shippers delivering goods loaded onto containers. So You will still have tractor trailers on the road. You will just have a lot less long haul truck traffic. Which is good since it also deals with the shortage of commercial truck drivers since less young people want to go into that line of work. Not to mention local driving jobs pay more then long haul trucking jobs due.
For the record, my undergraduate degree, now 43 yeas old, was in Business Logistics. and a lot of things have changed in that time.
During the years when I was a student, it had already become apparent that the railroads, still sinking in financial and infrastructural difficulties that had begun after World War II, and would last for another 20 years, were not suited for most of the high-value and consumer-oriented goods that would dominate the new economy. Also, that the practice of distributing consumer products in central warehouses in districts close to "downtown" was similarly vulnerable. Trucking lines were confined by a regulatory straight-jacket which required them to operate in a pattern similar to the railroads, and the handling of small, infrequent, high-value shipments called "express", while available, commanded a considerably higher price, when expressed in relative terms and indexed for inflation.
Many of these concerns have since been addressed, with the completion of the Interstate Highway System as the linchpin. The concern over the high cost of both economic oversight and a rigid network of facilities spawned a call for deregulation, which forced the trucking industry to re-orient itself -- often at very great cost to some participants -- and eventually paved the way for a rebound by the freight railroads, beginning around 1985.
So I'd like to hear some input from other regulars here on their thoughts on how the distribution of the physical goods used in the conduct of our daily lives might further evolve.
One personal concern I would like to see addressed in particular is highway safety, since the pressures for smaller and more-efficient vehicles, driven mostly by individual incentives ($$$) clashes directly with a trend toward larger highway freight vehicles and, for reasons I'll be glad to address as the discussion unfolds, can't be resolved with a return to door-to-door rail transport. Sooner or later, I believe that a grass-roots expression of those concerns, along the lines of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) will have to emerge.
A second is the growing interest in "self-driving" automobiles, spawned mostly by the experiments funded by visionary institutions like Google and, while showing continued progress and promise, will not be as easy to implement, particularly at the local level, as what is being sold to a mostly young and not-technically-familiar audience. The further implementation of such a system would, by definition, have major implications for freight moves, which would involve the greatest amount of both direct physical and "dollars-and-cents" benefit.
The foreseeable future for increasing freight being transported by rail is containerization specifically 53ft intermodal rail containers in North America. Like you said a lot of problems have either worked themselves out hauling freight via rail like well cars being a prime example.
The major increase in intermodal I can see happening is hooking the ports and rail roads together even more then they are now. Some ports currently have tracks on them so you can take international containers directly off the ships and put them right on a train and then have the train take them to where the nearest intermodal terminal is to the final destination. So hooking ports and trains together would be the next logical step for the ports that aren't connected with train tracks currently. It would mean an expansion of most ports though which could get pricy but considering the benefit to it the federal government would chip in the money like it has on recent rail projects across the country like crescent corridor.
The other major things that need to happen in regards to intermodal transport or even just rail transport regardless is making it quicker by means of it not needing to stop or slow down as much and fix areas where it currently gridlocks. Chicago is perfect example of a city that needs rail in it fixed badly due to gridlock and the stupidity with commuter rail interfering with freight rail. It's a serious issue because not only does it slow down freight transport to a crawl it allows people to try and rob containers when they are stopped in Chicago. People will literally climb on trains in Chicago cut seals and bolts and try and steal goods off the train why it is stopped. So far things like War-Loks have prevented the theft of very valueable freight but it has been causing issues with theft and attempted theft in general. So the gridlocks really need to be fixed.
As far as safety goes shipping chassis really need to be improved. The ones used by international shipping companies most of whom are Chinese are giant pieces of **** to blunt. They use tube tires, the chassis usually have problems with them they will get someone hauling an international container a ticket and the companies that are in charge of maintaining those chassis are the shipping companies themselves and they tend not to give a damn if they are safe or not. The rail road chassis tend to be much better maintained then international shipping container chassis and the rail road chassis don't use tube tires and the newer ones have auto tire inflation features making blowouts which can be dangerous less likely to happen So as far as safety goes via intermodal shipping container chassis are the big item on the list. The other issue is with how international freight is loaded in containers. They don't load freight evenly hardly ever so it's not uncommon for a driver hauling an ocean container to be leery going around corners hoping the thing doesn't tip over. Again this is specific to international containers and not domestic/north american 53 ft rail containers.
"High speed (passenger) trains and railroads" (sic) indeed. Why not high speed freight trains and railroads?
Actually, "high speed freight" got a tryout in the late 1960's when the Santa Fe system operated something called the "Super C" (named after the passenger flagship Super Chief) It was scheduled from Chicago to Los Angeles in 40 hours, same as the passenger schedules. It never caught on, and the biggest single customer was the Postal Service. It was withdrawn around 1978.
The Chicago - L. A mainline, now operated by Warren Buffet's Burlington Northern Santa Fe and usually refered to as "the Transcon" now sees about 80-90 moves daily -- close enough to full capacity that there can be problems if one train suffers a major breakdown and others need to pass, or if one of the two tracks is taken out of service. Major improvements might come someday, but the entire industry is waiting to see the effect of the PANAMX project -- widening and deepening of the Panama Canal that might divert a lot of import traffic to East Coast ports.
Below is a link which serves to illustrate just how dense the traffic has become.
I've watched the BNSF trains moving a whole bunch of double-stacked freight through Pomona(?) CA on their way out to the desert. I've also driven across the country and was caught off guard by the sheer number of trucks on the road.
A lot of the bigger ports have been working hard on improving their railhead, their ship to rail facilities, and on double stack clearance projects. PANYNJ put a lot of work into their PIDN project which is a series of ship-to-barge facilities within 100 or so miles of NYC that are fed by the Port of Newark/Elizabeth. The Virginia Inland Port is fed by Norfolk. Another one near Harrisburg, PA would be fed by Baltimore. Erie, PA is also working on a barge/rail/truck facility. Intermodalism is more or less the future of freight in the US.
More and more freight will be moved from coastal ports closer to their destinations via rail and then off-loaded on to trucks for final delivery. As long as rail has fuel and labor savings sufficient enough to cancel the cost of the container moves then it makes sense. The only thing holding rail back is that, unlike the interstates, it's a private network. There are minor subsidies but it's not enough to cover the major capital outlays to build the network quickly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NickB1967
I have always wondered why the railfans keep trying to revive the dead horse of passenger rail service, which lacks both the speed of air travel and the door-to-door flexibility of road transport. Instead, train buffs should focus on what railroads do incredibly well--haul freight.
There's a lot of work being done on freight now and I wouldn't assume that "railfans" a) don't know about it or that they b) don't care about it. In terms of passenger service I think you either misunderstand the argument . . . or you're deliberately misrepresenting it. Virtually all pro-HSR sources say that HSR is ideal for trips under 400 miles and that flying is better for trips beyond that. Or, to put it another way, your connecting flight from DC to Philly is ridiculous and it's not saving you any time or money, and the sheer volume of short-hop connecting flights like that is a major source of the air traffic problems in the Northeast. A few airlines already codeshare with Amtrak in the NEC because it saves them money. Also, if you've ever driven from New York to DC, there's no question that even moderately fast rail like Acela is not only significantly faster than driving but also time competitive with flying.
Also, the beauty of intermodalism is that train stations like 30th St. have a few hundred spaces for Hertz, Avis, Budget, etc underneath the station . . . and a taxi rank right outside the front door.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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The challenge for railroads is the NIMBY attitudes becoming more and more vocal with the gentrification of cities with intermodal facilities and tracks running through. Much of the media attention is dedicated to the fear of disaster from oil tanker cars burning in a crash or derailment, but the development of condos near tracks/yards with the noise and crossing delays affecting their sales is more of a factor.
When it comes to passenger rail, high speed is a big benefit for commuters. When it comes to Amtrak, it's still hard to compete with the private vehicle. We visit Portland from Seattle often and can make it there in 3 hours, and if we don't do a lot of driving while there, the round trip can be made on one tank of gas. Amtrak is over 4 hours each way, and at least $34 each person, $26 if ticketed two weeks in advance. For more than one person car is much less expensive even at $4/gallon for gas.
Actually we do heavily utilize trains to transport frosted flakes I live in Harrisburg PA and Kellogg's has a facility in Lancaster PA where they make frosted flakes cereal and it's transported by rail across the country. The same way laptops, smart tvs, mail (it's shocking how much mail is moved via rail especially things like catalogs), etc. and that is through containers moved by trains. Your confusing raw material transport thinking that is all trains can transport and that is not the reality of how things are today in fact hauling containers is about 20-25% of a rail roads business.
Intermodal freight is growing and it is something that railroad companies are keen to emphasize. Why wouldn't they? They're marketing their services. When you get down to it, it still represents a very small proportion of all rail freight. It is also something of a temporary stopgap for a lot of different types of goods until other changes are implemented.
It's a lot cheaper to ship the ingredients for those Frosted Flakes across the country from various sources, drop them in a contract manufacturing facility outside of LA, and let that manufacturer produce the frosted flakes, cheerios, etc for Southern California, Vegas, and Arizona. It's also a lot easier to ship a bunch of cardstock on pallets in containers to satellite box making plants that perform the laser cuts and printing on the boxes before sending them to businesses who use those boxes within 100 miles of the box plant. It will also be easier to simply 3D print a lot of plastic forms in a local area. Ultimately, it is likely that we are 3D printing things like fabricated components for housing locally.
That's where we are headed on supply chain.
Rail will still have a place in this for certain types of electronic components, cars, paper goods, textiles, etc.
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clashes directly with a trend toward larger highway freight vehicles and, for reasons I'll be glad to address as the discussion unfolds, can't be resolved with a return to door-to-door rail transport. Sooner or later, I believe that a grass-roots expression of those concerns, along the lines of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) will have to emerge.
