Freight Schedules

I don't know whether this has been asked somewhere before but I couldn't find anything. Anyway, we all know that long distance trains often run into delays as a result of freight traffic. I'm just wondering if these railroads schedule trains accordingly with Amtrak so that they don't conflict. Several times I've been on the Silver Service trains and we'd end up stopping for half and hour to an hour in the middle of nowhere. Even a train that does pretty well seems to stop at least once for about 5 mintues to let a train go by. (It seems to be getting better for this service but I know others are still having problems) I don't much about the details with this so I was hoping someone here could shed some light on the issue.

Freight trains do not run by schedules.
They run at initial terminal at a departure time (train ready) and are recrewed as neccesary along the way, than any kind of delay or not will influence their travel.

As for Amtrak they pay the railroads peanuts for the track use and dispatching, a delayed freight train is big bucks so who do you think goes in siding.

First, Mr. Mrujax, we should note that while railroads may "schedule" freights for marketing purposes, they largely run as "extras".

While I have listened over the years to the tripe that "the railroads deliberately delay Amtrak to get them off their road', suffice to say any Train Dispatcher knows where and when an Amtrak train will pass through his/er territory. They are mindful that this is a scheduled move, but then, as Mr. Railnut immediately notes, they are also mindful that move does nothing to pay the bills. The existing levels of performance payments is essentially meaningless, and if a freight train 'dies" under the Hours of Service Law, their road is as good as 'tied up'. Accordingly, prudent operations will have Amtrak trains subordinated to the needs of the road's freight operations.

Such is simply common sense, and by no means the "wilful conspiracy' I have seen addressed at other boards, including one that, shall we say, "I was asked to leave" .

Thank you Gilbert and Dutch for explaining that to me. Now unless I misunderstand something, this seems to me like Amtrak isn't paying the freight railroads much money and now they see Amtrak as low priority. If this is the case, why isn't it taken care of?

There are 100 senators in Washington who can give you an answer on that one, if they are ever in office.

Or try Congress :
http://s209.photobucket.com/albums/bb14 ... le_Jay.flv

At the time of Amtrak's founding, most of the freight roads had excess capacity. PRR and B&O still operated multiple-track mainlines controlled by lineside towers. In addition, they were usually the carrier of last resort, handling mostly low-valued, non-time-sensitive industrial commodities which moved in bulk.

All this began to change in the 1980's as a consequence of several factors: a stronger competitive stance due to deregulation, reduced expenses due to smaller crew sizes and longer crew districts, the growth of intermodal traffic as containerized imports boomed, and the first stirrings of the fuel crunch.

Most of those trends have continued to the present day, and I can add at least two more; a growing shortage of drivers willing to adjust to the traditional demands of the motor-carrier industry, and a public that could likely be enticed to force more freight traffic off the highways in order to free up fuel for automobile consumption.

At the same time, the freight roads strengthened their ability to directly monitor and intervene in the control of train movements. CSX dispatches its entire system from a single complex in Jacksonville. UP and BNSF follow a similar practice, with a couple of secondary centers in congested or growing areas. NS has a handful of offices and semi-local control is practiced in some areas where commuter traffic is a factor. The NEC is the only place where dispatching priorities are focused almost entirely on passenger moves.

Finally, several of the remaining high-capacity areas inherited from the freight roads were slimmed down to the bi-directional double track system first installed by NYC in upstate New York in the late 1950's. This method of operation works well, but only if everything moves at the same speed and there are no interruptions such as breakdowns, etc, and it is now the common practice on most main lines.

CSX was even more short-sighted, abandoning most of its former Seaboard Richmond-Jacksonville main in favor of the former Atlantic Coast Line which, while better-suited to passenger speeds due to superior grading and curvature, had already been reduced from double- to single-track in some areas.

The bill is about to come due; on top of all these trends, economic pressures are working toward putting much of the high-value manufactued/perishable traffic back on the rails it deserted in the 1960's.

Much of the needed capacity is there, in redundant, but not abandoned lines like the former Erie across the southern tier of New York State. But having endured misregulation for decades, the freight roads aren't enthused about allowing an uninformed public to start meddling again.

This issue is very broad in its scope, and it's linked to both the end of the Age of Petroleum and a likely financial crisis as the 1950's "beby boom" comes to grips with the realities of age and an underfunded retirement. Until a general study of the transportation/mobility crisis gains its rightful place as a cover story on the newsweekliles and a prime subject on the public-affairs brodcasts, it's going to continue to fester and grow.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:First, Mr. Mrujax, we should note that while railroads may "schedule" freights for marketing purposes, they largely run as "extras".

While I have listened over the years to the tripe that "the railroads deliberately delay Amtrak to get them off their road', suffice to say any Train Dispatcher knows where and when an Amtrak train will pass through his/er territory. They are mindful that this is a scheduled move, but then, as Mr. Railnut immediately notes, they are also mindful that move does nothing to pay the bills. The existing levels of performance payments is essentially meaningless, and if a freight train 'dies" under the Hours of Service Law, their road is as good as 'tied up'. Accordingly, prudent operations will have Amtrak trains subordinated to the needs of the road's freight operations.

Such is simply common sense, and by no means the "wilful conspiracy' I have seen addressed at other boards, including one that, shall we say, "I was asked to leave" .

I can't believe individual dispatchers are making that decision , wieghing up those factors . That they would deliberately leave hundreds of people sitting in a siding for hours .
If the railroads can't run one passenger train a day (in most cases ) on time , then i would say they are in big trouble . Amtrak is surely the "canary in the coal mine" for them , I'd say its an indication of how they treat their smaller customers as well .
That kind of coporate behaviour belongs in the 19th century , if they can't see the potential money avaliable to a passenger friendly railroad in the near future , then they don't deserve a penny of it .

David Benton wrote:I can't believe individual dispatchers are making that decision , weighing up those factors . That they would deliberately leave hundreds of people sitting in a siding for hours .

No railroad Train Dispatcher would deliberately sideline an Amtrak simply to "spite" it. However, if confronted with a situation where a "freight" has a crew short on time, that train will go first. It only makes sense, for if that train "died" on the line, there could well be a tie up affecting any class of traffic.

With the "bargain basement" rates Amtrak is paying for Class I access, they deserve little more than to have trains move over the road. At such time that Amtrak is prepared to pay for expedited move, and in the nature and scope as a road's opportunity cost of handling a priority "Z" train, then we are talking about a whole different set of parameters. But failing that, Amtrak is simply getting what they are paying for - and they ain't payin' much.

Disclaimer; author holds positions in BNI and NSC

We could use an account from the front lines as railroads don't like to talk about dispatching, consider the subject proprietary. However, starting in the eighties railroads started to move towards computer aided dispatching, where the computer plots the optimal sequencing of trains. The computer model bases "optimal" upon what ever parameters is put into it. If profit and holding to commitments made to large shippers is valued more highly than keeping amtrak ontime the computer will often put Amtrak in the hole and keep the trains with these high value loads moving.

The goal was to get to a point where humans were no more than minders of the computer dispatcher, though with all of the problems with dispatching over the last ten years it seems that the railroads have backed off the plan (temporally I suspect, because they are still spending big to upgrade IT), are again looking to have smart humans run the show. It takes a lot of years to get to be a good dispatcher, and who knows how many of the best took a hike when managements decided that they good dispatchers were replaceable with computers.

The point about lack of schedules is right on, railroads run on flow, and have for a long time.

Just remember stopping a 10 000 ton freight train and getting it going again takes way longer and cost way more fuel than putting a passenger train in siding , it would only take that passenger train a mile or two to get back at speed, and all in under a few minutes.

I think it was Canadian national that tried running to schedules , and found costs decreased and ontime performance improved .

DutchRailnut wrote:Just remember stopping a 10 000 ton freight train and getting it going again takes way longer and cost way more fuel than putting a passenger train in siding , it would only take that passenger train a mile or two to get back at speed, and all in under a few minutes.

The computer models pay close attention to fuel costs and also crew time. The goal was to have all crew calling, fuel calling and power management tied into the same system than runs operations on the road. Not sure how far away from the goal the IT people are at the moment.

With regard to the comment about freight-vs-passenger acceleration, passenger moves also sometimes took siding for freights because the freights were too long to fit the siding. Once the passenger move was on "low iron", the freight could advance enough to clear the switch at the opposite end.

It's also worth noting that semi-official scheduling of freight moves (slotting), with pre-arranged meets in a pattern similar to the days of time-table train-order operation, has gained favor on routes that are both congested and mountainous, such as UP over Tehachapi and the former Clinchfield main, now part of CSX, but as cited above, one broken knuckle or air line can throw a very large wrench into the works.

I have my doubts as to just how effective those much-vaunted computer aids can be. It would probably take a very-sophisticated program to deal with the prospect of both "meets" and "passes" (holding a lower-priority move to be overtaken by one in the same direction).

I'm also given to understand that the maximum speeds on the former ACL main are slightly different for the two main tracks on the remaining double-track stretches. This would allow CSX to rationalize an argument advanced a couple of years ago that giving passenger moves top priority at all times would impact the freight moves to a greater degree.

Restoring the rail system to a capacity sufficent to handle an 80% market share of intercity freight, and serve revived regional/corridor passenger service is a huge undertaking, and the shareholders of the freight roads, which are likely mostly institutions, aren't going to be enthused about surrendering control. But it is an issue that has to be addressed, hopefully in a spirit of compromise and logical discourse.

David Benton wrote:I think it was Canadian national that tried running to schedules , and found costs decreased and ontime performance improved .

Well there's the proof that this works. Now why can't the other railroads do it?

David Benton wrote:I think it was Canadian national that tried running to schedules , and found costs decreased and ontime performance improved .

the Canadian National at least on the former Illinois Central has been
running their freight trains on schedules. The Florida East Coast runs all
of their freight trains on schedules and in this case, I can go to a point on
the FEC at a given time and be pretty sure that I will see the train in
question unless it is running ahead of time which often happens.
These two railroads, the last I knew, had the best operating ratio of any
in the entire country.
In the past, Conrail listed freight trains in the symbol book as scheduled
although a lot of them were not really scheduled seriously. They mad a
very serious effort to operate the van trains on a schedule and they
tried pretty hard to maintain that schedule.
Noel Weaver