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  • Discussion related to BNSF operations. Official site: BNSF.COM
Discussion related to BNSF operations. Official site: BNSF.COM

Moderator: Komachi

 #1205272  by Nacho666
 
I was recently thinking about railroads in the general sense and had an idea: What if a railroad, such as BNSF, ran an Auto Train? Say, between LA and SF?
Two auto carriers they already own, a couple of high-level coach/lounge cars, and a decent fare, and they could make a very decent profit. Right?
If this was put into a priority freight train already going on that route, then the costs, other than insurance, would/should be negligible.
In a 300-700 mile corridor, arriving with your car would be a huge savings in fuel costs and hassle.
I realize that dispatching this train would require prioritizing the unloading of the passengers first, but that part of the train could be cut-off and shunted to its final unloading point leaving the rest of the train to continue.
I'm probably naive, but I welcome the reasons this can't work.