How railroad operation has changed over the years! A fellow modeler and I were talking about this recently. The question had come up of how much business the trucks were taking away from the railroads.
Yes, for a while the railroads were in decline because of competition not only from trucks but from airplanes. Part of the problem was the railroads needed to learn to compete and they needed to be freed from regulation that would not let them compete.
But now the situation has changed so that rail traffic is on the increase and the railroads are hauling more goods than ever. As a matter of fact, many rail lines are becoming clogged from too much traffic and the railroads are having to expand trackage along these routes.
Union Pacific has now double tracked its entire mainline across Iowa and triple tracked its main line from North Platte, NE, to Gibbon, NE, where its Omaha and Kansas City lines separate. BNSF is double tracking portions of its former Santa Fe mainline through the Southwest.
One thing that has happened is the railroads are learning to work with the trucking industry rather than against it. Hauling truck trailers on train cars is a development that has taken place only in the last 50 years. It has now become a highly efficient process of loading trailers double stacked on specialized cars.
There is also a method used especially by the eastern railroads, most notably Norfolk Southern, of using Roadrailers, special truck trailers with flanged guide wheels allowing the trailers to roll on the rails coupled together in strings that may be 100 trailers long.
Another thing that has happened is the railroads are utilizing what they do best, leaving other transportation needs to the others. What they do best is 1) haul massive volumes of material and 2) haul long distances.
A development in the last 40 years is the unit train, an entire train running from one origination point to one destination. Today about 75% of all rail traffic is unit trains. Coal is a primary unit train commodity. Ethanol is another common unit train commodity. Unit trains can haul any commodity a distributor, with enough volume, may request the rails to haul.
Along these lines the railroads offer lower pricing if a shipper ships a multiple car shipment such as 25 cars. Grain elevators now commonly ship grain in these 25 car segments for great distances. Grain from the Midwest typically will go to the port of New Orleans for shipment abroad.
It’s as much of a problem to switch a 25 car shipment as a one car shipment, and a unit train doesn’t have to be switched at all. Regulations now allow railroads to offer lower prices for larger shipments since costs are lower.
The days of the Railway Express Agency which ship lcl (“less than carload”) freight by rail are gone. That now goes by truck much more efficiently.
--Dale
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