Is freight "Going Green?"

I am interested to know how much importance freight rail companies are placing on energy efficiency within the business. I know a lot of initiatives may come with a high upfront cost, but are people seeing these as long term successful planning?
Has/will the "Going Green" fad hit the freight industry?

Phil
RPI '12

Welcome to the board, xtracks96. That's a great question, and I'm sure we'll have a ton of opinions.

I've also linked this to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RailroadNet

Train is a lot greener than road to start off with, I'm always suprised that the fact isn''t proclaimed louder by the rail companies in their marketing.

talltim wrote:Train is a lot greener than road to start off with, I'm always suprised that the fact isn''t proclaimed louder by the rail companies in their marketing.

CSX has made that the centerpiece of their national ad campaigns the last few years. They had a whole series of them about how green freight shipping was vs. truck, complete with a long freight train barreling through a green meadow. Pretty well-done series, and they advertised in high-profile spots (prime-time, major sporting events, PBS program underwriting, etc.). Definitely the priciest national ad campaign I've ever seen from the rail industry. Has to mark some sort of significant turning point for the industry when CSX sees payoff in both doing the heavy general-purpose TV advertising at all, and in keeping the campaign's premise locktight around the "green" angle.


It's also true that freight trains are significantly greener right now than shipping by sea, something almost no one highlights. Freighters and barges have not been subject to as stringent a fuel efficiency push as trains or even trucks the last couple decades, and many ships have virtually unmodified engines from 30 years ago. In popular perception water freight gets seen as more "modern" because of how completely things have gone over to big container shipping in the last couple decades, but that mode significantly lags all others in emissions and fuel efficiency. Which is kind of odd because you'd think the less fuel weight you have to lug around means more cargo weight for the same run. All still more efficient overall than trucks, but that section of the freight industry just has not had the same regulatory push put on it to reform its efficiency standards so shippers aren't making the same capital investments on their fleets as the land modes. Ton per ton ships are still pretty dirty polluters and fuel guzzlers, and there's absolutely no reason other than industry indifference why that still has to be the case.

Not really a competitive thing because rail and water are complimentary modes serving different purposes, but it would be nice to see rail's good PR about its fuel efficiency--and the profits it's realizing from this on long-distance freight--get amped up a bit more to light a fire under shippers to get with the program. It'll only make intermodal more cost-effective that way, and it's a case where industry peer pressure will probably spur more action than the gov't trying to unilaterally impose efficiency standards on boats.

I would say that CSX, CN, NS, BNSF and UP have been vary active in the TV Add's to say hay look were going green and we can help by doing so much more by reducing emissions from trucks by removing them from congested highways, as well as move more cargo on a single gallon of Fuel than a single semi at faster speeds and fewer stops. <- What I said is all stuff that I have heard on these TV and Radio adds.

CSX hits the Sporting events with Adds as well as on other channels on TV
CN, NS, and BNSF TV Adds sponsor National Horse Shows and Races on TV
UP and BNSF I have seen put adds in as sponsors for Rodeos on TV

CSX also has spots on the Radio on occasion pitching there going green.

The late David Morgan, arguably the finest practicioner of the art of railroad journalism, called attention to the railroads' substantial energy advantage as early as 1974. But it was deregulation, coupled with basic work-rules reform, that eventually halted the rails' long-decline. While many people, not all of them of the "Establishment Liberal" mainstream advocated what used to be referred to as "conservation" well before the first Earth Day, the "green" movement focuses mostly on the young, the suburbanized, and others not in the postion of "leading breadwiinner". Those guys (the vast majority are, of course, male) usually recognize that the rail indstry is geared to the concentrated movement of primary industrial goods; MM&P (manufactures, miscellaneous and perishable freight) in containers is the icing on the cake, if we can keep most of it after the expansion of the Panama Canal uspsets things.

Overall, I would expect the railroads to continue to benefit from both the "green", energy and, possibly one day, safety advantages, but the natural action of market forces would impel us back toward the truck-focused economy of the 1960's-70's if the fossil-fuel roadblock is broken one day.

Would that "natural action of market forces" finally get the government out of the road infrastructure business?

Anyone have any idea on how the Experimental Natural Gas burning Units worked on Burlington Northern?? And why that did not stick with it?

Amazing to me that railroads don't put more emphasis on just plain fuel conservation, and not just the lipservice policies in effect now. With the technology available, so much more could be done.

In a supposedly-perfect world, electrification, at least of the main lines, woulld likely be the most energy-efficient solution. But electriification requires huge infusions of capital, and can't be moved or even easily modified once it's in place. What's more, the electrical "umbilicus" makes the technology unsuited for small scale operations like branch lines, or small yards.

According to GE, the fuel efficiency of modern Diesel-elecrics has also improved substantially in the days since it first became a concern, so "Better the devil we know thn the devil we don't." I strongly doubt that a decision from Washington to coerce more railroads to electify would have as benefical an effect as tha by actual railroad managers who have to aswer via their "bottom line",

That's what I meant by market forces; they will be distorted whenever the public sector, albeit by necessity, provides the right of way rather than letting the user pay for it. But the railroad, despite its diminished suitability for many forms of traffic, still approaches a more realistic system of costing than any other mode.

If a major technological advance ever drove liquid fuel prices (in relation to other sources) back to where they were in the early 1970's, then the truckers wuld regain most of their advantage for most high-value shipments, with a few exceptions where rate differentials (e. g: holding the Chicago-Florida rate for perishables artificially high so that produce from the West Coast could remain competitive) complicated the picture. But in most cases, supply, demand and efficiency rule the day, and always will.

That's what I meant by market forces; they will be distorted whenever the public sector, albeit by necessity, provides the right of way rather than letting the user pay for it

When exactly does the public sector truly do things out of necessity, i.e. that the private sector cannot do?

But the railroad, despite its diminished suitability for many forms of traffic, still approaches a more realistic system of costing than any other mode

What "diminished suitability" would that be? Looks more to me like the railroads have adapted, albeit poorly (because they aren't expanding), to regulations that are as onerous as in the past in some respects (less in others). Regulation keeps the railroads from exploiting their true potential.

Amtrakowitz wrote;

What "diminished suitability" would that be? Looks more to me like the railroads have adapted, albeit poorly (because they aren't expanding), to regulations that are as onerous as in the past in some respects (less in others). Regulation keeps the railroads from exploiting their true potential.

The rail industry at its time of greatest market dominance (roughly 1915-1920) was able to, and expected to be able to haul any shipment, any size, from anywere to anywhere. Improvements in technolgy and changes in consumption, tastes and styles renedered that approach unsuitable.

The writing was on the wall as early at the 1950's; by 1968. the visionary John G. Kneiling was calling for the abandonmnet of the entire separable-car, siding-to-siding approach, replacing it exclusively with a "boxes and rocks" (high-value freight in containers and low-value freight in unit trains, in bulk) technology.

What actually evolved wasn't that far from Kneiling's proposal. The railroads tried every device at their disposal -- cushioned underframes, specialized loading systems, bigger cars -- but as can be attested to by the fading paint and graffiti on the remaining boxcar fleel, "plain-Jane" technology will serve what's left very nicely. "MM&P" (manufactures, miscellaneous and perishables) can go in containers, and in a few cases, like livestock, it just no longer goes at all.

Yet today, the railroads handle about 3 times the ton-miles compared to the period of their greatest dominance, with about one half ther physical plant and one-tenth the labor force, and when it's pointed out that that labor force represents about 0.3 percent of the working-age population vs. 4 percent a century ago, the general lack of familiarity with the basics of rail operation among suburbanized, feminized over-sensitized NIMBYs becomes a lot easier to understand.

My personal guess is that the "mainstream" rail industry will continue along the path of specialized, high-volume-orineted service. There's the possibility oi the new "Panamax" canal eating away at some of the highest-value freight, but with the rail network now rebuilt and somewhat more adaptable, I suspect that an adjustment of rates would lure enough intermediate-distance moves back to eventually operate at capacity again. Wheteher the industry would rally be enthusiastic about major additions to capacity in a constantly-shifting political encvironment is another matter.

What woukd really fire my imgination would be for someone with plenty of megabucks and an entreprenurial approch to try to create a service totally outside the "conventional" system -- modest-sized shipments of a few carloads siding-to-siding in a manner similar to "exclusive use" trucking tariffs. There are a couple of candidates out there in the flatlands of the Midwest and Great Lakes-- if the right sort of thinking appears.