Shippers vs. Amtrak

But trucks wear out highways not cars. WE have a truck lane near here that is all broken up. Auto lane next to it still in great shape. Wear on pavement and subgrade is to the 4th power of weight on a tire. 4000# car = 500 # on each tire . 80.000 # TT = 4,444 # per tire. You add it up , or 4444 divided by 500 = 8 to the 4th power =4240 time more weight wear

Tadman wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:13 pmOoof, don't get me started on the incompetence of that setup. That is a handy little airport and it's like they don't want you to make a connection to the train.

It is utterly and totally useless as a connection for the airport. The station itself is actually well utilized AFAIK, as a commuter station into Boston. For airport traffic, they should set up a short train that just bounces back and forth between Providence and TF Green on a 30-minute headway. I'm not sure what the track arrangement looks like there though and if it would work for that.

electricron wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2019 3:38 pmTrucking firms pay the same fuel taxes as freight railroads. Diesel is taxed at a higher rate than gasoline in most of the USA.
Trucking firms pay property taxes on warehouses, operations and maintenance facilities, etc. They do not have to pay property taxes of right-of-ways open for public use, that railroads do. But trucking firms pay the same licensing fees for both tractors and trailers that railroads do not. Trucking firms also pay high excise taxes on rubber tires that railroads do not.
The government does not tax either railroads or trucking firms a toll to use most highways, but trucks pay a higher toll where there are tolls than passenger vehicles.

Trucks still come nowhere close to paying their own way.

Are excise taxes paid on retreads? Many trucking companies use retreads on the trailer. Also states and the federal government spend ~ $350 billion a year on highways and roads, well short of excise taxes collected each year.

I hadn't known that road damage varies with the 4th power of weight on tires. I guess that explains why truck lanes are so broken up.

One thing about most of this thread is that it seems to assume that there is an opportunity cost to the freight railroads for accommodating Amtrak. In the 70s the railroad business, especially in the northeast, was doing very poorly, so presumably the railroads were happy to have Amtrak. Before Amtrak, I have read that the Erie Lackawanna, although complaining about commuter losses, sometimes used passenger income to make payroll; its freight business wasn't doing it.

There was a column in this month's Trains showing how much UPs train volume has fallen in the last couple of years. The reasons seem to be a combination of lost coal traffic, the fad of PSR, which means rejecting low-margin but profitable traffic to improve operating ratios, and PSR's mantra of running fewer, longer trains.
It seems that railroads are able to raise rates for commodities that have to move by rail, but otherwise are losing business to trucks.

Richard Saunders wrote 2 books a few years ago, Main Lines and Merging Lines. He said that railroads now moved twice the tonnage that they did at the height of WWII. I wonder if that's still true.When you look at the weekly carloadings published in Railway Age, they are in the 500,000 range, which is about what they were in the fifties when I was a kid. Freight cars have gotten bigger, but the numbers now include "intermodal units." If these are individual containers or trailers, they probably hold less than a railroad car. It certainly seems that railroads have lost a lot of traffic to trucks, and for some reason they hardly seem to care.
All this is to say that in many cases there is probably plenty of room for an extra passenger train or two on many routes. (The apparently under utilized UP triple track main in Nebraska hosts exactly none, except for an occasional excursion.) But railroad managements seem to act as if their tracks are so congested with freight that they can't squeeze in a passenger train without paying for an extra track. I'm sure there are congested pieces of railroad, but I don't know how many.

New Zealand's Road user charges are reputed to cover 60 -80 % of the damage caused to roads by trucks.
For a heavy truck /trailer combo , It is around $330 USD per 600 Miles (1000 k.ms).Say 50 cents per mile. That is a bit more than $ 4000 per year, your 150 000 miles would cost $ 75 000.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/licen ... ces-type-h
Some of that goes to the Accident Compensation scheme, but the majority goes towards paying for road wear.

JoeG wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:21 amI hadn't known that road damage varies with the 4th power of weight on tires. I guess that explains why truck lanes are so broken up.

Yeah, trucks do the majority of the damage. What I don't quite understand is Michigan trucks that weight 82 tons versus the standard 40, but Michigan claims they are easier on the road because there are fewer, larger trucks, and they have lower axle loadings (i.e. an 82 ton truck with 11 axles versus a 40 ton with 5 axles). I just wonder how that impacts sections of the roads as they go over them.

There was a column in this month's Trains showing how much UPs train volume has fallen in the last couple of years. The reasons seem to be a combination of lost coal traffic, the fad of PSR, which means rejecting low-margin but profitable traffic to improve operating ratios, and PSR's mantra of running fewer, longer trains.
It seems that railroads are able to raise rates for commodities that have to move by rail, but otherwise are losing business to trucks.

I'd look at the numbers minus coal. Coal is just bad in every way for everyone. Global warming, pollution, health affects, and it badly beats up railroads with low profitability be grinding out massive tonnages. What is really concerning is losing business to trucks, because that has a negative affect on our country, our roads, and our economy.

It certainly seems that railroads have lost a lot of traffic to trucks, and for some reason they hardly seem to care.

The problem is that we've got a bunch of misaligned incentives. We've got railroads that are being run by Wall Street for short term profitability, shippers that will chase the cheapest prices to wherever, and trucks (and thus shippers) that are getting a partially free ride on our highway system versus trains that have to pay for their track and right of way maintenance and upgrades.

All this is to say that in many cases there is probably plenty of room for an extra passenger train or two on many routes. (The apparently under utilized UP triple track main in Nebraska hosts exactly none, except for an occasional excursion.) But railroad managements seem to act as if their tracks are so congested with freight that they can't squeeze in a passenger train without paying for an extra track. I'm sure there are congested pieces of railroad, but I don't know how many.

There are congestion points, and passenger drastically reduces the amount of freight that can be hauled, as it's not just one train, but it takes up the capacity of several large freights just to run an 8-car Amtrak speeding through. I'm not particularly sympathetic to the freight railroads in general complaining about Amtrak, but I think they may well have a point that Amtrak is not kicking in enough capital to make improvements to the railroads to offset the capacity that they are using, i.e. crossovers, sidings, double- and triple-tracking, etc.

The other problem is that PSR and passenger traffic are basically total opposites. PSR puts these giant, slow-moving 10,000-15,000 foot monsters out on the rails while passenger is fast and nimble and stops a lot. While Europe has short, nimble electrified freights, US railroads seem to be hell bent on making their freights even bigger and more unwieldy than they already were. Granted, I don't think all US freight should be 20-car trains, but these DPU PSR monsters are a bit out of hand.

CTRailfan: Michigan dumps tons of money into its roads and it still isn’t enough. Meanwhile, a significant portion of their rail network has ceased to be. If there’s a clearer example of auto company lobbying, I can’t see it

In re: your point about longer, slower freights, the railroad industry in the US hasn’t caught up to the coal crash by any means. Even if every safety and environmental regulation were thrown out, the domestic market is dying. There are other heavy commodities - grain, oil, ethanol, lumber - but none as stable as coal. I suggest that the rail industry also needs to catch up to the low-inventory just-in-time supply chain, which means an eventual shift back to more, faster, lighter trains. (The recent Trains article about remote-control drone trains makes me think that if personnel costs go down, trains will be more frequent.)

mtuandrew wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:45 pm CTRailfan: Michigan dumps tons of money into its roads and it still isn’t enough. Meanwhile, a significant portion of their rail network has ceased to be. If there’s a clearer example of auto company lobbying, I can’t see it

While I hate to see the Michigan network wither, and I hold out a foamer dream of a Caledonian Sleeper-like train from Chicago or Detroit to Traverse, the reality is that Michigan is a beautiful state that just doesn't have the industrial density north of Grand Rapids required to support rail like one sees in Indiana or Wisconsin. The dead-end nature of the state means there is zero bridge traffic to the west or north which hobbles a big part of the revenue that finances heavy mains through Indiana and Wisconsin.

mtuandrew wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:45 pmCTRailfan: Michigan dumps tons of money into its roads and it still isn’t enough.

They are making improvements, and in the last year or two, things seem to have turned around, but I do think they have a long way to go.

In re: your point about longer, slower freights, the railroad industry in the US hasn’t caught up to the coal crash by any means. Even if every safety and environmental regulation were thrown out, the domestic market is dying. There are other heavy commodities - grain, oil, ethanol, lumber - but none as stable as coal. I suggest that the rail industry also needs to catch up to the low-inventory just-in-time supply chain, which means an eventual shift back to more, faster, lighter trains. (The recent Trains article about remote-control drone trains makes me think that if personnel costs go down, trains will be more frequent.)

I would generally agree, except that drone trains still seems like a terrible idea, especially if HAZMAT is involved, which most mixed freights have. I'd like to see a nationwide network of high-speed (80mph), high-velocity, high-capacity electrified freight rail lines created out of the existing freight rail system, with significant improvements to junctions and sidings and grade crossing eliminations or improvements.

Tadman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 1:17 pmThe dead-end nature of the state means there is zero bridge traffic to the west or north which hobbles a big part of the revenue that finances heavy mains through Indiana and Wisconsin.

I think that's absolutely the key. Michigan once was a big railroad state when things were done via the railroad ferries from Wisconsin, but today, there's little purpose for most railroads north of Flint or Grand Rapids, and even those operations are relatively secondary from a national network perspective, since Michigan is a Peninsula.

Seems like the main problem railroads have vs trucks is their lack of consistency. That is, a load of chemicals or grain or car parts doesn't have to get where it's going at high speed, but it has to arrive predictably on schedule. Railroads seem to have trouble doing this consistently. Trucks seem to manage this better. You would think that a railroad, which controls its tracks, would be better able to be consistent than a trucking company, which has to contend with variable traffic conditions. But in practice trucks seem more reliable. Also, shippers still complain that they have trouble tracking their shipments. Trucking companies seem to make this easier for their customers. The consistency and trackability that customers want seems to be something that management and technology can provide. Amazon sometimes sends me a notice that my stuff is 8 stops away, with a map. Maybe the railroads figure that bulk shippers are captive customers, and that there is no reason to try the expensive and perhaps difficult task of competing with trucks. If they continue with this approach they will find their market share even more reduced, and bulk shippers may be tempted by convoys of semi-autonomous trucks.

Tad and CTR: technically Michigan is two peninsulas and I’ve lived in both.

The only way to get more traffic off those roads is a) slowly lowering those absurdly high truck weight limits, b) encouraging small truck lines and owner-operators to work more closely with short line railroads and c) public-private partnerships to restore and enhance rail lines (and bulk freighter ports) across the state. Part of c) is to build a stronger Amtrak network, to include Detroit-Flint-Midland/Bay City/Saginaw, Detroit-Lansing-Chicago, Detroit-Toledo, possibly Green Bay-Escanaba-Ishpeming (admittedly a low-ridership route) and possibly excursions up to Traverse City. If passenger rail is the fig leaf needed to improve freight rail and multimodal freight, so be it.

It's interesting we keep talking Michigan, but it presents a lot of paradoxes. Detroit is a worldwide industrial kingpin, but the area north of Cadillac is very quiet.

Here's the thing that always gets me about the Penn Central - take a look at this pic of the merger announcement. You knew this outfit was going to fail right off the bat because both dopes insisted on having a well-maintained line to Mackinaw, when neither was really necessary. Every time I see this pic I have a sad laugh/groan.
https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/al ... =2048x2048

But Michigan has seen the pendulum effect. If 30 mph track were available to Traverse or Petoskey, a 2x/week sleeper would work. It wouldn't be an excursion, it would be a seasonal train carrying people and cars from Detroit or Chicago. But because PC ran their network into the ground, and then "wantrepreneurs" did further damage with Michigan Northern, and assorted Ann Arbor problems (always a PRR Sub-sub anyway), they abandoned too much.

Thus we are left with a few strong mains to cover the auto industry and little else for passenger or freight.

mtuandrew wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 5:17 pmTad and CTR: technically Michigan is two peninsulas and I’ve lived in both.

You got us there.

The only way to get more traffic off those roads is a) slowly lowering those absurdly high truck weight limits,

I'm generally in favor of normalizing truck weight limits within the state of Michigan, BUT I would note that the biggest, heaviest trucks seem to mostly haul gravel around. Why they haul so much gravel, or what they do with it all is still a mystery to me, although they do seem to like to construct everything humanly possible out of concrete, so that's part of the answer.

The bigger issue with rail vs. truck is actually auto manufacturing, which largely doesn't use Michigan trucks, but uses regular Interstate trucks for JIT delivery of auto parts. Many of these routes are too short for rail, but there has to be some opportunity there if the deliveries were timely and reliable.

c) public-private partnerships to restore and enhance rail lines (and bulk freighter ports) across the state. Part of c) is to build a stronger Amtrak network, to include Detroit-Flint-Midland/Bay City/Saginaw, Detroit-Lansing-Chicago, Detroit-Toledo, possibly Green Bay-Escanaba-Ishpeming (admittedly a low-ridership route) and possibly excursions up to Traverse City. If passenger rail is the fig leaf needed to improve freight rail and multimodal freight, so be it.

They really do need a Detroit-Toledo connection in order to make Detroit accessible from the East, as currently the entire system is designed as a star out of Chicago. I'm not really sure what an excursion to Traverse City would do. As it stands today, there is freight service to Alpena, Gaylord, Petoskey, Traverse City, Manistee, and Luddington. There's not much in the form of an economy outside tourism north of Flint and Grand Rapids. Heck, they don't even have mainline air service except for TVC a couple months in the summer.

There might be some opportunities for transload in Northern Michigan, but expansion or large-scale improvements to those lines seem sort of pointless. I would think that freight rail opportunities would be largely in the southern part of the state.

Basically, short of frequency, service, and station improvements, the one route that Amtrak is missing is Detroit-Toledo.

Traverse City was a nod to one of Tad’s ideas a while back. And Detroit-Lansing seems an obvious passenger route, no?

The fact that gravel is largely being hailed by truck is an issue, at least if the quarry and the construction project in question is accessible by rail. Back to my last post, I also think railroads will have to try for some of that higher-speed, higher-value, shorter-distance traffic like just-in-time deliveries of everything from Amazon shipments to auto parts. That helps the case of passenger rail (similar speeds, more-similar routing patterns, similar siding and signaling needs), instead of working at cross-purposes as does Precision Scheduled Railroading.

Back in the day, I was on a Southern Railway train that had some piggyback trailer cars attached. I don't remember the route. Is this combination something that could make any economic sense today? Maybe with double stacks instead of TOFC.