Freight trains vs long-haul trucks...

[Snow]

I posed the question in an LBN thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x669506
but was not getting any answers.

Just anecdotal observation, but it seems to me that freight hauling in the last decade has really shifted to trucks. Is this really so, and if so, why?

[Crachet2004]

1. Freight trains are cheaper, but slower-and river traffic is cheaper...

Still, but even slower. Just in time inventory, etc..., has speeded up logistics systems. Yeah, a freight train is cheaper, but trains don't run everywhere, and you have to look a lot further ahead when ordering...your cash is tied up longer before you can 'turn it over'.

Convenience, speed of delivery are often more important than a small premium for truck delivery. Do you really want to wait 90 days for a freight train to bring a new hard drive for your computer?

If you want 10,000 tons of coal, on the other hand, you might want to think about a freight train. If you want a million tons, you might want to locate the nearest large river. Those ton/miles on truck delivery add up in a hurry, if you are hauling very far.

[One_Life_To_Give]

2. Handling??

What is the increase in handling costs to use rail?

Seems to me that if the trucking company warehouse/operations center is not located directly on a rail spur, then the goods need to be handled twice more. Once from the truck to the train and then back onto the truck near their destination.

[Snow]

3. Surely it's not that much handling

to simply piggy-back the trailer onto a flatbed railcar. And this addressed the previous poster's note about distance from warehouse to railhead.

[Crachet2004]

7. It's not so much handling, there is MORE handling with trucks...

It's the fuel, with regards to the transport medium...and by that I don't mean the vehicle-truck, train, barge. How much fuel does it take to push your load per ton/mile, with each vehicle? That is the question. Generally, the faster you go the more it costs. Airfreight is obviously the fastest, but look at the fuel consumption per ton-enormous.

The medium is water, steel rail, concrete (or asphalt) roadway (or air). Look how narrow steel rails and locomotive wheels are...not much contact, plus, they are slick, physics, you know? Once you get a locomotive going, it takes relatively little, compared to a truck per ton/mile to keep the load moving. Water is better, no resistance, compared to rubber tires on a relativelively rough roadbed.

But you are correct, that every time something is loaded or unloaded, it adds to cost. That is why no coal-burning powerhouse is very far away from either a rail line, or better, a river large enough to handle barge traffic. They need hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tons of fuel per year, and it is simply uneconomic to haul it by truck.

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. More Handling with Trucks?

Not sure I agree with you on the handling.
When I ship a skid from my loading dock I need a truck to pick it up.
From there it goes to the trucking terminal. Unless the terminal is combined truck and rail, it will have to be loaded onto another truck to get to the rail terminal and be loaded. With the reverse to get to it's final destination.

If I am shipping a full load then handling for the truck is further reduced as it only gets loaded at my dock and unloaded at it's final destination.

[Crachet2004]

9. Well of course you are right...every time a truck is unloaded or loaded...

reuires physical handling by people-which costs money. I was refering more to the unloading of bulk cargo generally carried by train, or barge. specialized machinery cuts these costs to practically nothing.

Lol. I know I have'nt been that clear on this thread...but what I was trying to do, was explain why rail is not as suitable for some deliveries, but moreso for others, and why that is.

In this I may have failed miserably, but I tried.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Rise of independents and niche marketing

Lot's of intrastate hauling that rail can't access effectively.

However, a lot of container cargo is hauled on trains as "land-sea bridges". Basically, material is shuttled off the boats on the West Coast onto trains and delivered to East Coast depots. Material remains "bonded" in containers until they enter the port of declaration when the containers are broken down.

[happyslug]

5. Duplicate

[happyslug]

6. Good statistics comparing rail to trucks are hard to come by.

Good Statistics are hard to come by for example look at the following:

The Trucking Home page uses total tonnage moved, even if that is a one block move or cross country:

“Trucks hauled 9 billion tons of freight in 2003, or 68.9 percent of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation. Motor carriers collected $610 billion dollars, or 86.9 percent of total revenue earned by all transport modes.”
http://www.trucking.org/

The federal Department of Transporation, Federal Railroad Administration Uses “Ton per mile”:

“In 2002.... the freight railroad industry produced over 1.5 trillion ton-miles that generated revenue of $36.9 billion. Seven major railroad systems accounted for 92 percent of the industry's total revenue even though the rail industry is composed of over 500 carriers..... The Surface Transportation Board (the Federal agency with jurisdiction over the economic regulation of railroads) classified seven railroads as meeting the Class I threshold with revenues greater than or equal to $272 million in 2002. In addition, according to the Association of American Railroads, there were 31 regional railroads and over 500 local (shortline or switching and terminal) railroads. The industry originated over 31 million carloads on a network consisting of nearly 142,000 miles of road. The industry employed over 177,000 employees.”
http://www.fra.dot.gov/Content2.asp?P=4

The US Ceneus Bureau, when it comes to Truck data, uses miles traveled per truck (Ignoring Weight):

From the US Cenus Bureau (http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/sas48-6.pdf)
For Complete list of reports see: (http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/sas48.html)

“Truck Transportation Estimated Number of Truck Miles Traveled by (in Million of Miles)

2002 86,927
2001 86,350
2000 86,252
1999 82,756
1998 78,834

Safety is clearly on the side of Railroads, so much that the Railroad are bragging about it:
“Railroads have only 10% of the incidents of spilling hazards materials compared to Trucks:”
http://www.uprr.com/she/cts/rvtruck.shtml

One of the reason for the different statistics is that Railroads do a lot of bulk hauling, for example hauling coal. While most trucks do a lot of one loads shipping but such loads may have little eight (A truck delivering light weight paper products to your local food stores for example).

One thing that does come out of the statistics, trucking increased from 78,834 to 86,927 in four years (which is a good 10% increase in the total number of shipments).

I will try to get better stats.

[Bdog]

10. Energy-Intensity Indicator by Freight Mode, 1985, 1988, and 1991

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/efficiency/eefig_ch5.htm

[Ironpost]

11. I personally think we should us pipelines.

I know you think I'm nuts but think about it, pipelines say 6 feet in diameter or so with water tite container for hauling freight. Use water as a working fluid to carry such vehicles. the water could be reused if need be. Kinda work on the principle of the vacuum tubes at the drive-in at the bank. I believe this was studied years ago but was shelved for some reason, to long ago to remember. We would need trucks to make short deliveries from a terminal to the end user. Just a thought