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Re:(erielack) LCL Traffic
Another factor was equipment utilization -- an NYC man of my acquaintance
had reason to observe Erie trains in the Corning-Elmira area for a year or
two c. 1950. He noted to me that every 2nd day (maybe 3rd?) first EB then
WB he'd see the same high-class Erie boxcar carrying NY-Chgo LCL. The
possibility of a 2000 mile round-trip (and under full or partial load each
way) every week for any piece of railroad equipment is pretty good,
considering intermediate loading, unloading, etc.
The replacement for each box car was two or three trailers and one or
two TOFC flats, hardly a cost-effective trade-off based on equipment
consideration only.
I would opine that some of the problems with New York City access
shiould be laid at the grave of Robert Moses, the inveterate railroad hater
and promoter of the highway infrastructure that has so crippled New York
City today.
It is sobering to note that LCL, which the railroads said couldn't be
profitable, is the basis for the most profitable trucking companies today.
On a related basis we let REA Express fade away as unprofitable while an
outfit called UPS didn't read the railroad playbook. Just some thoughts. M
J Connor
>From: "Janet & Randy Brown" <jananran_@_mymailstation.com>
>Reply-To: "Janet & Randy Brown" <jananran_@_mymailstation.com>
>To: erielack_@_lists.railfan.net
>Subject: Re:(erielack) LCL Traffic
>Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2005 08:49:24 EDT
>
>Again, Paul -- not quite. Erie/EL didn't HAVE Lifschulz do anything. The
>Railroad offered Lifschulz a low rate and good service, and a lease on a
>terminal building.
>
>Erie/EL and Lifschulz recognized, in spite of the common trend to the
>contrary, that special circumstances made boxcar and float the most
>rational way to get the freight out of the garment district and off the
>island. They had hundreds of customers sending thousands of shipments of
>tens of thousands of packages to thousands of customers all over the
>continent. Sending hundreds of little trucks scurrying around and then
>through the tunnels to New Jersey was not -- and still is not --
>economical, and the higher volume trailers coming into vogue for TOFC
>wouldn't fit through the tunnels: Holland can't take anything over 12'6",
>if that, and Lincoln can't take 13', if that. A 13'6" trailer would (does)
>have to go up the congested island of Manhattan, across the Washington
>Bridge, and back down the equally congested roads on the New Jersey side.
>In comparison, boxcars on floats still seem a good alternative.
>
>I don't know that they ever considered loading big TOFC trailers at, say,
>28th Street and then floating them across. I would imagine that labor
>jurisdictional disputes would have strangled that idea aborning.
>
>All this time, the institutions of city and state government were giving
>them no help at all, preferring to demand that ALL trucks be barred from
>Midtown during the day so that cars could move.
>
>Go figure!
>
>Randy Brown
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>Quite correct, Randy, my description was sloppy. Of course the forwarder
>was the customer. Let's just say that as a whole, LCL was a money-loser for
>the RR's, so they encouraged the shift to forwarders; thus they could
>retain the business at a profit by letting others do the costly pickup and
>delivery etc. For example, Erie and then EL had Lifschultz maintain a
>freight house at 28th St in Manhattan. Let me rephrase the question: why
>did the forwarders continue to use boxcars on EL when on most other RR's
>the traffic apparently moved exclusively by TOFC? This is especially
>puzzling in the case of 28th St, where cars had to ride the costly and
>time-consuming floats while beginning in 1971, EL had an efficient,
>mechanized intermodal facility across the river.
>
>Paul Brezicki
>
>
>
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