Trailer based intermodal freight - to fund HSR lines

I don't know - it seems like you are trying to do too much with too much concession to old technologies. Any compromise solution is going to be that - a compromise, and not really meet any one need well.

That is why I think we NEED a new network. Not running regular freight AND heavy freight. Not HSR AND slow. We need a freight network and a high-speed network. And we have to start looking at efficiently linking ALL systems together - not just going with traditional freight handling.

I don't think you are going to get much support for shifting freight to night operations anyway. Most areas where you would have a HSR line, you are going to be at least somewhat developed. Regular trains are noisy things, and people don't like horns and loud diesels keeping them up at night.

Airline containers may not be ideally suited for a train, but aircraft don't have the flexibility in containers trains have. Quite a bit of air freight is palletized already, so long as it can fit within that container space it can be carried by many aircraft. Road freight is already competative with rail freight - air freight isn't this is where rail can really supplement a field and grow. Package deliveries are growing, particularly smaller shipments. Rail travel can provide some decent efficiencies over air if done right - and that is where high speed freight needs to go.

Horns.... not at all. Any line running more that 110 would need to be grade separated and that is very possible if a new build alignment is put in place. Given that the line would compare favorably in noise emissions to existing interstates during the night.

The growth in commercial road freight is going to require an outlet in the next decade. The interstates around my part of the country, namely I-40 & I-65 are running around 20% trucks with a forecasted increase way beyond that.

There are some in government that realize that something has to be done about the freight situation. But intermodal over existing rail lines generally does not run faster than a terminal to terminal 30 mph on average (CPR Expressway Detroit to Montreal 560 miles).

But since almost all shippers expect the product to be there the next morning (sub 500 mile premium market) an intermodal solution has around 12 hours to move the product from dock to dock. This just doesn't happen. The closest examples are Expressway and maybe on the old IC mainline now owned by CN. But that 12 hours wouldn't require some magic on a dedicated HSR line. In 8 hours of running you could easily cover 500 miles. Leaving two hours on each end for unloading and delivery. With enough volume there would be through trains to almost every point making the terminals close to the final destination and the drayage distance short (ideally). But conventional line intermodal wouldn't get the product there until mid afternoon.

The slower timing does not allow rail intermodal to be competitive in the sub 500 mile market based on time, leaving only cost which is a poor solution as cost can be ignored by a business that is willing to pay. For a universal solution we need freight intermodal that can run at 65 mph average between terminals every hour of the night not just some hotshot.

A new build HSR line could easily accommodate intermodal running underbalanced in the curves with passenger trains running at overbalance, which they will be anyway to reduce the curvature. If you can collect $14/trainmile from the intermodal train to use the new line that is a good $3 million towards the capital cost just from limited use. That $3 million alone is about what the "users" pay on an rural interstates despite the higher actual capital cost for the interstate so the new HSR lines could make a good case for access to the fuel tax as just another road.

So at 3/4 degree curvature and a 6" track superelevation you could have 150 mph passenger trains during the day and 75 mph intermodal freights at night. The passenger trains would have to operate a 6" overbalance (FRA waiver required here but since it would be a dedicated line the geometry would be tighter) and the freights at 3" of underbalance but it would all work out.

This would provide an ideal mix of economic activities and would surely justify public investment at the same level as the highways.

Any place that you are going to gain any benefit from faster freight, you are going to run into a noise problem. People like to sleep at night. trains - fast or slow - make noise. If you are going to move any sizable amount of freight, you are going to have inevitable noise. And people don't want that at night. People get upset enough about regular street traffic.

A compromise solution is going to give you compromised benefits. Look at the time separated transit systems we have going. They haven't met with as much success as they should have because they have to meet freight limits both in location and hours, and you run into noise issues when the freights are running.

Compromises are looking for a cheap way out. But the only real way to be successful is to find a way to move freight at high speeds as well. No, it won't be cheap. But as pointed out, neither will be doing nothing at all. And it will be cheaper to spend the money to do it properly now than to wait until you have to implement a compromise solution that just doesn't fix the problem.

Why limit freight to 75mph? If you don't double stack, have sufficiently aerodynamic cars, get the dynamics right, running containers at 100+ shouldn't be THAT hard a technical issue. This would require electrification, but you need that for >100mph passenger trains anyway, unless you're willing to suffer with very poor acceleration and inability to maintain speed on grades, neither of which is suitable for high speed passenger running anyway...

Imagine a car where you slide the container in from the side, lock it down, then lower the side door over it, with a covered roof, passenger style fabricated trucks, tight intercar coupling, high performance electronically controlled brakes, etc etc. With a rational frame design and some work, a total weight on the order of 110,000 lbs could be in reach. This is low enough to allow 100+mph running, maybe up to 125mph.

Pop trains out of the terminal in strings of 20-30 cars, pulled by a 125mph capable motor (a de-hep'd ALP-46 would actually be perfect, here). At night. Daytime, you'd want shorter trains. Realize, if you can average 100mph, you have a better shot at mixing with HSR passenger trains.

The thing is, you'd be looking more like a mixed use higher speed line than a true HSR line - I doubt you could even think of mixing 200mph passenger and any speed freight (maybe fast mail in HSTs). Even the French and Japanese don't do that. But, mixing 100mph light freight and 125mph passenger, is pretty much achievable. And with long station distances, 125mph isn't too bad if you can get there and stay there. Realistically, a 100mph average can do wonders for Amtrak, and build the traffic needed to justify a 200/220mph HSR system. And you'd have a remarkable secondary network.

Let's see, overnight NY-Chicago container service? 6 hour NY-Pittsburgh? With a good terminal operation and a good local delivery network, if you were 80% the cost of a door-door truck, you'd still have to turn away customers...

Nasadowsk wrote:. But, mixing 100mph light freight and 125mph passenger, is pretty much achievable. ...

If you ignore the fact that heavy trains at speed beat up the track. I seriously doubt that heavy freight can be moved at 100mph economically.

75 mph is probably all that anybody will pay for but it is more than twice the speed of the faster rail intermodal offerings in the short haul corridors.

The other issue with doublestacks is that the actual container chassis fetch/match and loading time might neglect all the time savings on short haul runs. The other issue is the market is still small for container freight, particularly in the sub 500 mile market or even in the sub 1000 mile market.

Beyond 1000 miles and the conventional freight railroads are doing a pretty good job of handling the freight but they still need additional capacity.

The goal is to attract truck plate van trailer based freight that is moving on an overnight schedule and under 500 miles. Right now hardly any intermodal solutions can do this, even CPR's expressway can only do overnight on the ~300 mile corridors not the 500 mile corridors as the existing lines cannot support sustained higher speeds (like 65 mph which isn't really that high)

Current Overnight Truck Freight
With the current truck hours of service they have a total of 14 hours on duty of which 11 may be driving, after which 10 hours of rest is required. So that puts the possible range with a sleeper cab truck at 500 miles, if the driver is starting off fresh at the pickup. He will probably use the 2 hours of free time loading and 1 hour of time unloading on the ends and drive 11 hours overnight! But then what does he do during the day. This would require him to find a place to sleep and then move towards the next loading point using some of his hours from the next day. So the next day he might only have 9 or 10 hours available to drive depending on the deadhaul length, usually around 12%.

but were not talking heavy frieght , were talking high value lightwieght commodities .
100 mph container trains are run in England .

If you want to run 100 mph then you could but I don't think there are enough lightweight high value commodities out there. The goal is still to create an alternative to interstate highways.

Not necessarily. That's an easy mistake to do - try to focus entirely on your competitor's market, when you don't necessarily offer a great advantage.

There's two thoughts here. First, the idea is to supplement passenger high-speed travel, not to make freight the primary user. And I think that fast freight more likely mixes in those markets than heavy freight. The demands of a city are more likely to be in lighter goods than bulk goods. Second, you want to cut fuel use. Aircraft also use up a ton of fuel, particularly on short to medium runs. And aircraft freight really fits well in a situation like this, if you can find a way to move the air containers and pallets efficiently.

Overall though, is to find the best service for the best need. Aircraft do great long haul, but not great medium haul. High-speed freight would fit nicely in that medium distance fast market for big point to point. Use trucks for the final distribution, particularly if you aren't going to be transporting a full load anyway.

As an aside, any new high-speed network in this country is going to entail practically all new track laying anyway. so why can't we develop something that can handle the heavier, faster loads, more stably, and do it right from the star?

pulled by a 125mph capable motor (a de-hep'd ALP-46 would actually be perfect, here)

If this line was going to support fast enough freight trains to require electrification, might it be possible to use the same locomotives for both the passenger and freight operations? In other words could you pull a fast, relatively light freight train with a HEP'd ALP-46 (or maybe two of them), and could the same locomotive with the same gearing pull a high-speed passenger train the next morning?

David Benton wrote:but were not talking heavy frieght , were talking high value lightwieght commodities .
100 mph container trains are run in England .

England is not known for its HSR, but i'll bite.....how fast is the rail rated for passenger? It is much less a problem running lighter freight at 100MPH on 100MPH passenger track than 100MPH freight on 150 MPH passenger track. The need for a clean rail increases with speed, 100MPH passenger can deal with imperfections caused by the freights much better than the 150MPH passenger train can. In any case I would expect 100MPH container trains to necessitate a lot of inspections and rail surfacing, if nothing else.

Finch wrote: If this line was going to support fast enough freight trains to require electrification, might it be possible to use the same locomotives for both the passenger and freight operations? In other words could you pull a fast, relatively light freight train with a HEP'd ALP-46 (or maybe two of them), and could the same locomotive with the same gearing pull a high-speed passenger train the next morning?

If you're limiting passenger trains to 125mph, sure. But if you want to go higher, you might as well go with fixed sets and /or MUs because the intercar connections get very touchy and complex. And, the couplers become more specialized because the high weight and slack action of a standard US type isn't suitable for high speeds (even the Metroliners had specialized couplers originally)

As for taking shorter haul air freight? Heck, FedEx, UPS, etc would love it - short haul operations with jet aircraft are money losers.

Anyway, IIRC, the max weight a container can have is on the order of 80,000lbs. With a well designed chassis on passenger trucks, I think a 100,000-110,000lbs car would be possible. Getting good dynamics at 100 or 125mph would be easy. You can't double stack and run fast anyway - you want the COG to be low and keep the axle loading low. The only reason current freights in the US beat up track is poor truck design and axle loads that push physical limits. 28,000 lbs per axle as a maximum target, on hollow axle, fabricated frame passenger trucks (the blindingly simple and robust Pioneer III might actually be ideal here), gives us 14 tons per axle. That's not much more than a TGV, and probably in the region of a lot of 125mph passenger trains in Europe (certainly the older stuff).

low axle weight container trains should work if they can keep speed with passenger sets. I suspect that total train weight would need to be not a lot more than the passenger trainset weights, that the FRA would demand this. Still, the economics could work.

I believe that the trains would need to operate along side the passenger trains, as the property owners will never go for nighttime operation of HSR systems, plus that time will be used for maintenance.

A vast majority of freight moves under 500 miles. To make an overnight trip by intermodal rail does not require a speed above 70-75 mph if it is sustained. It does however require compatabilty with the existing truck trailers as they represent the vast majority of vehicles pulling up and parked at docks everywhere. Even a high speed freight train needs to be of a certain length to have good economics, particularly if it is paying $14/mile or so.

If a HSR system is billed as a way to move just a select slice of common carrier passengers faster and only package freight it will never have the capacity adding impact that will generate the same pull on the public purse that interstate highways are granted. That is why truck trailer compatibility is needed.

I guess we also need to consider where we are in the US at this stage in the game. Our mainlines do not have the speed that even the lower usage conventional mainlines do in Europe.

Given that the conventional lines in Europe are capable of 140-160 kph running of freight trains when the longer distance passenger trains come off those lines with the construction on new HSR lines there is ample capacity for freight at the operating speeds I am proposing on the existing conventional lines.

I have read that the EU now asks for an analysis of expansion of freight operations on the conventional lines when a high speed line is funded through the organization. Of course those lines being near a lot of residences with a lot of nighttime operation....

However, in the US we are just now building the conventional lines that are fully grade separated and capable of sustained higher speeds. There seems to be the ability to meet in the middle so that lines are designed for a mid range passenger speed and high speed freight in the 70 - 80 mph mark. I still see this as what the market will pay for given the lead in argument.

Consider the California HSR proposal. Right now it specifically excludes freight other than package freight that could be carried on passenger consist apparently at the direction of the authority's board on page 6 of CA HSR. But what if they were to propose a system of 125 mph lines and lightweight trailer based intermodal freight. The mix just might make any highway investment look foolish and hence shift the funds to HSR.