Did trucking kill the branch lines?

I'm in the business of shipping materials both by truck and rail and both ways have their advantages. I can tell you, however, that with domestic shipments, the fuel surcharges on the rails are not even 1/4 the amount that truckers are charging. Generally, before the last boost in gas prices this past week, truckers were generally charging about 30% of line haul in fuel surcharges. I got a quote to move a car via rail that was about 1/10 that for four times the material. The problem is that if you want to move something, no one is going to lease you a car (especially a tank car) for that move. Most companies wont even talk to you unless you want to lease 10 cars for a total of at least 1 year. If this was more accessable, rail traffic could be greater as many of my customers do have rail spurs. Sure you can get a transportation company to sub-lease you a car but that generally comes with fees as well. All in all, carload freight shipments still cost quite a bit less to move than trucks but dont try to move any time sensative shipments that way because moving anywhere takes about 8 times as long as trucks.

In new Zealand , where trucks (or any heavy vechicle) pay quite high mileage tax (called road user charges ) , a study found they were still only paying 70 % of the cost of damage they caused to the road .

I can't understand how the railroads can take 20 days to get a single carload from origin to destination . its almost like they deliberately delay it .

henry6 wrote:Be careful, Kevin and Dutch, you could get us into a round robin without any end! ... But guess what, there are no answers there either, so don't go looking.

Agreed!

David Benton wrote:I can't understand how the railroads can take 20 days to get a single carload from origin to destination . its almost like they deliberately delay it .

I forgot which issue, but there was an article in Trains magazine that traced the movement of three railcars from the Houston, TX area to cities in the northeast (about 1,600 miles). IIRC, the average transit time was 12 days. One of the reasons for delay was brake repair (from a few hours to a few days). Delays at hump yards were also big (waiting for the next train to be created?).

A truck can travel the same distance in three days. If time is critical, then the train is not the way to go even if the consignee has access to a rail siding.

I did an experiment with the online shipping calculator ( I think it was CSX) , and it came up with the 20 day estimated delivery . i can't remember which 2 cities i used though .

Another reason trucking replaced branch lines, economically: for a little-used branch or industrial siding, the cost of maintaining the track and switches, even to a very low standard, stopped being worth it. The local road is essentially maintained "for free", at the expense of the local property taxpayers. Under those circumstances, only if the line gets enough traffic is it worth the railroad's effort to keep it intact.

I'm not sure what the economic "break-even" point is at the moment; it varies according to economic conditions; but it's probably some number of carloads per day. Might be as low as one, certainly not lower.