by v8interceptor
ExCon90 wrote:I also recall reading that back in the Mid to late 90's when Amtrak was working to expand Express parcel/package service that encountered some major pushback from the big freight railroads who pointed out that Amtrak was using the Class 1's own tracks to compete with them and their LCL carrier customers. At one point during that time Amtrak proposed a whole new network of what would have been "Mixed trains" made up mostly of material handling cars..David Benton wrote:i would say this kind of traffic belongs on one railroad , Amtrak .Amtrak tried that, and it seems that what mostly happened was they increased their costs and delayed their passenger trains adding and dropping freight cars. Movement of LCL traffic today requires through movement between intermodal terminals several hundred miles apart on schedules suited to shippers' requirements, independently of passsenger-train requirements. Traditionally, the type of shipments we are talking about were freight; they moved on freight rates in freight trains, as distinguished from express, which moved at higher rates in passenger trains, or, when volume justified it, in exclusive mail-and-express trains at passenger-train speeds. The "LCL" shipments of today are gathered and distributed over the road and move between intermodal terminals by rail. "Back in the day" the gathering and distribution were done on local freight trains, and those days aren't coming back.