trisonic Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 On your journeys around the various US/Canadian prototype photo sites have you ever come across this kind of operation: Medium size business on a siding/spur shipping container loads of household goods (like house contents) on an intercontinental basis (Movers). Loading leased containers (and unloading for local delivery) with direct contact with the railway i.e. they load the containers onto the cars themselves which then get picked up by a local and forwarded to a terminal for onward rail transport (or direct to a port for International shipments)? Thanks, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunshine coast Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 What period are you talking about ??? the more modern, the less likely I would have thought ??? Regards Trevor... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWB Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Never say never -- I suppose you can always find an example of this somewhere -- but in general containers are wholesale, while locals are retail. The economic benefit of containers is that you gather them in a single point, or a small number of single points in a region, load them all onto double stack cars, and send them to another region, where they're unloaded at another single point. The retail part is truck delivery from the concentration point to the individual customer. Even the equivalent of yard switching is done by container crane. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortliner Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 On your journeys around the various US/Canadian prototype photo sites have you ever come across this kind of operation: Medium size business on a siding/spur shipping container loads of household goods (like house contents) on an intercontinental basis (Movers). Loading leased containers (and unloading for local delivery) with direct contact with the railway i.e. they load the containers onto the cars themselves which then get picked up by a local and forwarded to a terminal for onward rail transport (or direct to a port for International shipments)? Thanks, Pete. Pete - not quite what you are refering to, but in Inverness they unload the Tesco containers in the morning with a Kalmar-type stacker(I think there areactually two), and reload them onto road trailers for delivery around the stores in the north of Scotland. On return they are re-stacked for loading back onto the train to go back South in the afternoon. You can watch them working from practically opposite in Morrisons (Supermarket)car park Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 27, 2012 Author Share Posted January 27, 2012 Jack, That's the kind of operation I was thinking of. I mean they are not going interrupt a trans-continental train whilst doing that kind of thing (scale down for UK ops). Having moved stuff internationally (how else would you ship House contents across the Atlantic, say) there must be a point where everything gets broken down and if the Movers have a rail link why not ship it to that point by rail? Then truck it to final destination. I'm just using House moves as an example. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 27, 2012 Author Share Posted January 27, 2012 Actually the same would apply to bulk tankers of something like "Corn Syrup" - you could ship from the Mid-West to the East Coast distributer(s) hooked up to a transcontinental train, then it would have to be delivered by a Local. There are still plenty of Locals around the New Jersey area - it's not like the UK in that instance. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1905 Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Short answer no. What happens is you contact a third party shipping/trucking/freight company. They bring a container to your house/business. You put stuff in it. They drive it to the railroad's hub. The railroad loads it onto the train and hauls it to the destination port. It is either unloaded or drayed shipside. The ship company loads it on the ship. The railroad bills the third party shipping/trucking/freight company for the rail portion. The third party shipping/trucking/freight company bills you for the entire trip. As others have said, there probably is an example of a private intermodal ramp, but in the overall scheme of things they would be incredibly rare. Why waste time wallowing a shipment around for a day or two on locals, loading and unloading the cars when you can in a matter of hours rubber tire it directly to the ramp that puts it directly on the through train to destination? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWB Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 The question is how big a customer: yes, there are really, really big food operations that take multiple cars of corn syrup on locals, though I suspect this number is shrinking all the time (Cargill in Fullerton, CA is an example, less and less rail traffic). But there are also regional corn syrup facilities, good modeling prospects, by the way, because the structures are small, that take dozens of corn syrup cars and unload them into tanker trucks for local distribution. But I'd say it's extremely unusual for a shipper to get, say, a single well car and put two containers on it for pickup by a local. The containers are going to go to intermodal yards and get loaded onto trucks for delivery to a shipper of household goods or whatever. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 I read a modelling article once on the Sandersville railroad, and at the time they shipped some kaolin internationally in 20' containers, they would be loaded on an 89' flatcar, and IIRC they loaded the boxes from a loading dock without removing the containers from the flat. Most likely in your movers example Pete i'd have thought that they might use rail for long legs (if I moved to Chicago then something like Newark-Chicago) but I don't see it being likely that I would be moving a whole carload, so putting it on a chassis at the intermodal terminal where it terminates in Chicago would seem most likely. <edit - Dave posted whilst I was writing - but just like Dave says!> Don't know how much has changed (there seems to have been at least some increase in intermodal trains running *through* rather than *to* Chicago from reading various articles) but when I was last there back in 2000 lots of trailers were roaded from railroad yard to railroad yard to interchange between Eastern and Western railroads rather than switching cars out and transferring them, so I suspect railroads would be unlikely to do that for industries much. If you were looking for a prototype, then trash seems to offer some opportunities for running some intermodal-type equipment in carload style service? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortliner Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Pete - added a photo to the earlier post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 27, 2012 Author Share Posted January 27, 2012 I wasn't thinking of two or three containers - more like twenty to thirty - but I do take Dave and your points on board. The corn syrup business around here is actually growing - more and more soft drinks being "manufactured" for the diverse population like a Polish facility and a Russian one. They like their own. Thanks for all your comments! Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 27, 2012 Author Share Posted January 27, 2012 Just wanted to add some statistics on "Corn Syrup" shipments: The three most shipped products by CSX are: 1. Coal (still) 2. Autos & Trucks 3. Corn Syrup Shipments by rail of Corn Syrup has been a huge growth market for railroads since the 70's. Most destinations/distributers of corn syrup take in 6 different grades that must not be mixed - so atleast 6 different cars that have to be spotted at precise locations. Yes, it is an interesting modelling concept. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1905 Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 The key is whether the containers are going to one rail destination or many or whether the containers will be in the intermodal or manifest network. They don't always intersect. Most of the private loaders actually run a "unit train" type of concept. My brother in law is working with a community that wants to have an intermodal facility. The problem is they are on a short line. So there is no intermodal network to go further than 30 miles before interchange. Even when they get to the interchange with the class 1, the route they connect with isn't an intermodal route. So the class one would have to run a really short intermodal train or pick up the cars on freight train. The freight train terminates in a hump yard. Intermodal trains don't work in hump yards. So the cars would have to be cut out of the train in the hump yard and moved to a place where the intermodal train would get to them. So far the cars have had to be handled by 4 trains (shortline, freight, switcher, intermodal) and have had to make 2 connections. Or they could rubber tire the cans to any of 4 exisiting intermodal ramps with in a 6 hour or less driving radius and put the cans directly into the intermodal network. 30 containers is only 3 cars so where the containers go is important. If they go to 30 destinations then you have to unload the containers and reload them on different cars. I know there is business where containers are loaded for export and rubber tired to a ramp and put on a through train. Making intermediate pick ups is very expensive, you are delaying 200 containers to add 20, it affects how often the train needs a brake test (1000 miles or 1500 miles), it reduces speed and increases transit time and it adds variability (lessening reliability) because its a connection. I know it seems counterintuitive, but the whole point of INTER MODAL is to use the best mode for the best portion of the trip. If the first 40 miles of a 2000 mile overland trip should be by rubber tire, that's OK. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 I wasn't thinking of two or three containers - more like twenty to thirty When you do a house move you really go to town Pete! My brother in law is working with a community that wants to have an intermodal facility. The problem is they are on a short line. So there is no intermodal network to go further than 30 miles before interchange. Even when they get to the interchange with the class 1, the route they connect with isn't an intermodal route. So the class one would have to run a really short intermodal train or pick up the cars on freight train. The freight train terminates in a hump yard. Intermodal trains don't work in hump yards. So the cars would have to be cut out of the train in the hump yard and moved to a place where the intermodal train would get to them. So far the cars have had to be handled by 4 trains (shortline, freight, switcher, intermodal) and have had to make 2 connections. The other way would be for the big railroad to agree to let the shortline run it's little intermodal train right through to the nearest major intermodal terminal without otherwise messing about, but the big railroad would need to know 'what's in it for me' before signing up to something like that - and i'm guessing 3 cars worth is probably not enough to whet their appetite? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigZ Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Closest thing to something like this was in Kingsport, Tennessee, home of Tennessee Eastman Inc along the old Clinchfield. Tennessee Eastman had what was essentially a dedicated intermodal yard - nothing else in the area shipped in containers. CSX had a train that originated in Kingsport strictly to handle this business...that train ran to Charleston SC for container export. TE gave up on it a few years ago - the backhaul charges for the containers reportedly got to be excessive and they found it cheaper to road the containers to Charleston... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1905 Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 The other way would be for the big railroad to agree to let the shortline run it's little intermodal train right through to the nearest major intermodal terminal without otherwise messing about, but the big railroad would need to know 'what's in it for me' before signing up to something like that - and i'm guessing 3 cars worth is probably not enough to whet their appetite? The "nearest major intermodal terminal" is a several hundred miles away by a long circuitous route. If they come up with 60 cars the class 1 might be interested. Anything less than that isn't a "train". Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 I was idley doing some "research" (skimming thru the interent...) and discovered that the original, Wisconsin Central set up a short intermodal connecting service to a local "hub" (I forget where). It was only knocked on the head when CN took them over. I also found this Government document: http://cta.ornl.gov/transnet/terminal_doc/index.htm If you skip through it there is actually some interesting information in it... Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 Another way to look at this is time-related - go back to the 80s and small (by modern standards) intermodal ramps weren't that uncommon, back to the 70s and older and on some roads intermodal wasn't a trainload thing at all, many towns had an end loading ramp that could take a TOFC flat and so on... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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