Mr Burt raises the issue of productivity, which is the great challenge of loose car railroading and probably its most searing indictment. According to my most recent figures (2000), the average American freight car achieved approximately 40 loaded car-miles per day, or an average speed of 1.67 mph. Presumably this includes Mof W cars etc that spend a good deal of time sitting in one place, but it also includes all those stack and spine cars shuttling back and forth between the Midwest and the West Coast. This hasn't improved appreciably since the 1950's. Freight cars are expensive and durable assets which tend to become technologically obsolete long before they wear out, so the clock starts running as soon as the blueprint hits the carbuilder. You must also figure in to the capital cost all the supporting infrastructure etc, including yards, industrial trackage and switch engines. Over the years, efforts have been made to make these assets more productive, including automated hump yards, ACI etc, but all of this has apparently had little effect. Today, RR's boast about getting "dwell time" in yards down to 24 hrs, about the time it takes for a truck to get from NY to Kansas City. I don't recall the details, but back in the 60's, the Reading came up with "Bee-Line" service. This involved short trains with short crews which operated directly from shipper to receiver, bypassing yards. In part, this was an effort to improve car utilization. I believe it saw limited use and soon faded away, but RDG's short hauls made it similar to many of today's regionals. Paul B Whether the batch and sort business will survive will probably be decided line-of-business-by-line-of-business. Productivity of investment in freight cars appears to be the cutting edge. Short lines' greater flexibility and responsiveness plays an important role in expediting the business. Beyond that, my crystal ball gets cloudy. I do however see a future for previously discounted secondary routes as intermodal and other expedited capacity hogs claim the main arteries--a variant on "a rising tide lifts all boats." And that's my EL content for today. WDB The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List Sponsored by the ELH&TS http://www.elhts.org To Unsubscribe: http://lists.elhts.org/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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