Intermodal "For Hire"?

I've often wondered if "Intermodal For Hire", meaning booking space on a TOFC (trailer on flat car) for your truck would be feasible? Say you are an independent trucker and you have to go cross country. You want to save fuel, so you book your truck onto a scheduled train to a terminal near where you are going. Cab and trailer. You get there, fire up the truck, and drive off.

It works for trailers, especially Schneider and UPS and others, so why not single-truck shipments? No terminal yard space would be required since the driver just drives away.

Transporting drivers could handled by maybe a sleeper coach with a diner, or other pax cars.

Thoughts?

Simply put, I don't think the railroads want to take passengers aboard...

I believe this is done to a limited extent in Europe, but to add to Mr Perkowski's comments...

Intermodal demand is pretty solid right now in spite of economy. GSC, the concept you mention conflicts with two of the main reasons for this demand, those being:

1. High cost of fuel. Freight rail is generally more fuel efficient that truck, so as diesel prices rise, truck traffic migrates to intermodal. Rail fuel efficiency depends in large part on cargo:tare ratio; that is, the more freight carried per ton of steel needed to haul that freight, the better. A truck's load will max out at ~48,000 lbs. A container weights about 10,000lbs. A trailer weighs 15,000lbs. A tractor weighs 17,000lbs. As such, carrying a container will give load a 4.8:1 ratio, a trailer a 3.2:1 and a tractor-trailer a 1.5:1 result. And then you'd need to add to the equation the additional rail car structure needed to carry all that dead weight. (It would also dramatically increase train length. Railroads focus their efforts on reducing train length.)

2. Drivers. A lot of freight is being pushed to rail due to a driver shortage. Despite today's gloomy employment situation, long-haul truckers are finding it harder and harder to find people that are willing to sit behind the wheel for hours at a time, be away from home for 2-3 weeks... all for $30-50k/year. Intermodal improves driver lifestyle, in that the rail does the long haul, and the truck does the local pick/delivery, allowing a driver to go home every night. Most drivers would prefer to be home than sleeping in their rig or in a railroad coach.

Another aspect, of course, is asset efficiency. The tractor is idle when it's sitting on a flat car. Unless the driver is on mandatory rest, he's an idle asset, too.

Thanks for the input.

As a former long haul owner-operator, I saw on a daily basis long lines of trucks heading into major metro areas. The turnpikes and other access roads were just a glow of marker lights. So many trucks causing so much traffic.

I always wished for an easier way. Let someone else do the driving, so to speak.

I've been curious to see how much per mile rail hauling "my" truck, tractor and all, would cost versus the road mile expenses.

As far as haulking the drivers as passengers, we can leave that out for now. I'll hire a guy to get my truck at the other end for now.