Light rail freight

I've been wondering about the possible advantages of running freight on existing (or future) subway and light rail systems. Basically, the main thing I've been wondering is is the FRA's prohibition of intermingling freight and light rail passenger services based on the idea of running heavy rail freight cars on light rail systems, or does it actually specify that light rail can only serve passengers? I know that in other parts of the world there are light rail systems that carry freight in specially designed light rail cars, and even special freight cars for subways, is this something that could be possible stateside? Could a car be built to American light rail standards that would carry an intermodal container without violating the FRA rules?

I was reading about the narrow gauge underground freight railroad that used to serve Chicago and it got me thinking about existing subway systems in other cities (NYC for example). I'm sure that there's a lot of basements that abut the subway tunnels in cities like New York and Boston, and this makes me wonder if it would be practical to ship containers (standard intermodal or something specially designed like what airlines put luggage in) via subway trains to special platforms in the tunnels where the container could be rolled off the subway car and onto a special track that would go into the basement of a building.

Imagine how much easier it could become for stores in congested cities to simply ride the freight elevator to access their daily product shipments rather than waiting for a truck to get through traffic and then block half the road while they unload. The other advantage to this system would be increased revenue for currently cash-strapped transit systems.

Anyone have any insight on this idea?

I don't know if this is what you had in mind, but I remember late at night the NYC/MTA running "trash trains" on the express tracks. I don't know where the trash came from, but the trains would be powered by one of their work train locomotives and would be quite long.

RedLantern wrote:I've been wondering about the possible advantages of running freight on existing (or future) subway and light rail systems. Basically, the main thing I've been wondering is is the FRA's prohibition of intermingling freight and light rail passenger services based on the idea of running heavy rail freight cars on light rail systems, or does it actually specify that light rail can only serve passengers? I know that in other parts of the world there are light rail systems that carry freight in specially designed light rail cars, and even special freight cars for subways, is this something that could be possible stateside? Could a car be built to American light rail standards that would carry an intermodal container without violating the FRA rules? Anyone have any insight on this idea?

With today's FRA rules, I believe all freight cars must meet FRA regulations. I know Texas requires FRA compliance for freight trains, but not for passenger trains, other states may have similar rules.
There's no law preventing FRA compliant freight cars running on light rail tracks, as long as the FRA compliant freight trains are temporal separated from the non FRA compliant light rail trains. Of course, the freight locomotives and cars will have to physically fit the size of the light rail train's clearances from track structures.
I know UTA is building a new TRAXX light rail corridor (double tracked) to New Jordan in which they plan to allow freight trains to use one of the new tracks at night when the light rail trains aren't running. I believe NJT Hudson-Bergen line is already doing this, just not sure exactly where.

I don't think this is a workable idea, unfortunately. Unlike the Chicago Tunnel Company and the similar London Post Office Railway, the MTA and other subways aren't directly connected to any large business customers and have round-the-clock passenger trains with short headways. For light rail, that isn't as much of an issue - the NJTransit RIVERline and Baltimore light rail line both have freight customers only accessible after hours, and as electricron mentions, the UTA is planning the same.

I don't think the full 40 foot containers, or even 20 foot half-size containers, are a workable solution for city customers. If they're receiving that much freight, they're either located along a rail line, out of the city or on top of a large receiving dock as it is. You could definitely set up a system based upon 5 foot wide Unit Load Devices, as used for air freight, but again you're limiting your customers to those that use air freight (or those that want to repackage their freight from containers, trailers or railcars) and those without a proper loading dock. Something tells me that the extent of freight carried via subway will be that in the hands of couriers.

I think it's important to mention that where freight trains are using light rail tracks the corridor was a freight corridor long before a light rail line was built on it. So there were freight customers on these corridor before light rail. With temporal separation being used for all, there's only time for just daily local freight train servicing these pre-existing freight customers. You're not going to see mile long, long range freight trains on light rail tracks.

A similar discussion/question popped up on another railroad discussion forum.

I do know that there are mixed freight/light rail operations in San Diego, but there are supposedly plans to get the freight trains off the light rail tracks and onto their own rails. The Coaster (commuter rail) layover area and San Diego Trolley operations facility, for example, is one and the same; light rail, Coaster and Amtrak share the same station and platforms.

I doubt that light rail freight could be feasible unless there was a shipper who was captive to the light rail system - else you would involve transloading, which would offset any efficiency by using the light rail system to combat traffic. In Portland, there are very few rail-capable businesses along the MAX line; even those stretches that were once used by freight rail (Beaverton-Orenco, in Gresham). While there are remnants of the old freight spurs in the Beaverton area on the Tektronix campus - most of the buildings have been converted to uses far less compatible with freight rail. One is an empty moving company storage warehouse; another is a boat dealership. And Tektronix itself is unlikely to ship such quantities of electronic test equipment to fill boxcars, even boxcars the size of a LRV. Intel could theoretically load up cars at their Hawthorne Farm campus (where the loading dock is right along the MAX line) and send them to the airport to be transloaded - but most of the air cargo facilities used by the cargo airlines are located well away from the MAX line, and I strongly doubt Intel has much use for shipping freight on Alaska Airlines (whose cargo dock is near the MAX line in the South Cargo building.)

Companies such as Fred Meyer, Safeway, Albertsons would find little utility for MAX considering that their warehouses are either in Northeast Portland or in Clackamas, away from any MAX line; further few of their stores are on or near a MAX line.

Finally you have built a system that is designed for a specific purpose, and freight operations simply would not fit into that mold. The signalling system on MAX is designed for one OR two car trains (but not longer), with mandatory stops at many platforms (due to nearby crossing signals) so you lose a speed advantage. Platforms may be incompatible with freight rolling stock. New sidings/spurs would be required. Conventional freight stock would not work through the West Hills Tunnel, in downtown Portland, in Beaverton (very sharp curves near Beaverton Central and Beaverton TC), on the Steel Bridge (can the upper deck support a loaded freight car?), the various bridges to Vanport or to the Airport...or even fit between the rails and the overhead wire. So a freight motor/car would have to be designed. And who would pay for it - would the feds and local governments be willing to pay for alterations to a passenger light rail system to accommodate a small freight business?

A system like Sprinter (diesel light rail) has a little more promise because the diesel light rail vehicle is designed for the track (with freight operations in mind) instead of the other way around. The same with WES (single car DMU/commuter rail) - it was designed to work in conjunction with freight traffic, and the upgrades to the track actually benefited freight train speeds.

electricron wrote:

RedLantern wrote:I've been wondering about the possible advantages of running freight on existing (or future) subway and light rail systems. Basically, the main thing I've been wondering is is the FRA's prohibition of intermingling freight and light rail passenger services based on the idea of running heavy rail freight cars on light rail systems, or does it actually specify that light rail can only serve passengers? I know that in other parts of the world there are light rail systems that carry freight in specially designed light rail cars, and even special freight cars for subways, is this something that could be possible stateside? Could a car be built to American light rail standards that would carry an intermodal container without violating the FRA rules? Anyone have any insight on this idea?

With today's FRA rules, I believe all freight cars must meet FRA regulations. I know Texas requires FRA compliance for freight trains, but not for passenger trains, other states may have similar rules.
There's no law preventing FRA compliant freight cars running on light rail tracks, as long as the FRA compliant freight trains are temporal separated from the non FRA compliant light rail trains. Of course, the freight locomotives and cars will have to physically fit the size of the light rail train's clearances from track structures.
I know UTA is building a new TRAXX light rail corridor (double tracked) to New Jordan in which they plan to allow freight trains to use one of the new tracks at night when the light rail trains aren't running. I believe NJT Hudson-Bergen line is already doing this, just not sure exactly where.

Just as a minor correction (in the name of nitpicking accuracy), it's the Newark Light Rail, not HBLR, that has a short shared stretch (the former Erie Orange Branch). And, as noted, the Trenton-Camden River Line is used by freight overnight. And there's no way moving freight would ever work on the New York City subway, because there's really no downtime in the system when freights could stop for long enough to unload without interfering with passenger operations. The trash trains mentioned are actually subway work trains that pickup trash from the station trash cans, and stop at the station for only a short time.

RedLantern wrote:I've been wondering about the possible advantages of running freight on existing (or future) subway and light rail systems.

Look up the "CargoTram" in Dresden, Germany.

I'm afraid the market would be restricted to two categories:
- a business which ran very frequent movements between two sites both on the passenger rail system, such as in Dresden.
- occasional movements of stuff which is not practical to move by truck -- which can be arranged as a one-off trip.

The third category of freight suitable for travel on light rail is express parcels, but this is currently simply done by couriers buying subway tickets, so it doesn't require a freight train.

The primary reason not to run freight on a metro or light rail system is that most freight doesn't need or want to run at the same speeds as passenger trains. For the freight which *does* run at the same speeds, it's often too small and headed for too-diverse destinations to run better on rails than on roads (and unlike passengers, it can't get on and off by itself!). I could imagine an express fresh vegetable or milk run if there were one *really big* supermarket getting huge deliveries daily. In Dresden, the sheer volume of parts would have required a lot of trucks.

If there's some pair of points with a *lot* of truck traffic between them within a city, which are both really near the metro or light rail tracks, then freight traffic will probably be pretty easy to get established.

neroden wrote:I'm afraid the market would be restricted to two categories:
- a business which ran very frequent movements between two sites both on the passenger rail system, such as in Dresden.
- occasional movements of stuff which is not practical to move by truck -- which can be arranged as a one-off trip.

When I was presented this question on another forum I brought up the same issue - unless you have an on-route shipper you will lose any efficiencies in transloading because you'll end up needing a truck at one end of the journey anyways, so why not just use the truck for 100% and save yourself the extra effort.

While Dresden's CarGoTram seems to work, I'm at a loss for such an arrangement anywhere else. If I look at my local light rail system here in Portland, one must remember that the western (Beaverton-Hillsboro) and eastern (Gresham) segments are in fact abandoned freight railroads (actually one-time interurbans), and have not had any carload traffic in many years. Most of the areas have been redeveloped as residential suburbia; very few freight shippers remain. In Hillsboro you have Intel with a loading dock right next to the MAX line, but it's extremely doubtful that Intel would have any use for shipping items by light rail.

The last shipper on the route was a General Motors parts warehouse that in the final years was served by the Southern Pacific route, using a spur that connected back to a short stretch of parallel track to MAX. The problem is that this warehouse received 86' high-cube boxcars that would never fit on a MAX line - length or height-wise. The warehouse was closed a few years ago and is now vacant; the freight rails ripped up.

On the Interstate, Airport, Clackamas and eastside Lines - there just aren't any freight customers, period. Possibly you could have shipments to a grocery store (i.e. Fred Meyer, Safeway) but their distribution centers aren't even near MAX (they are in Clackamas, several miles south of Clackamas Town Center). Extending MAX just to serve these warehouses...when only a couple of the stores are near a MAX line, would be a waste of scarce resources for our transportation network.

wigwagfan wrote: On the Interstate, Airport, Clackamas and eastside Lines - there just aren't any freight customers, period. Possibly you could have shipments to a grocery store (i.e. Fred Meyer, Safeway) but their distribution centers aren't even near MAX (they are in Clackamas, several miles south of Clackamas Town Center). Extending MAX just to serve these warehouses...when only a couple of the stores are near a MAX line, would be a waste of scarce resources for our transportation network.

Your forgetting too that both the Safeway DC and Fred Meyer DC have their own spurs from the UP mainline.

wigwagfan wrote: If I look at my local light rail system here in Portland, one must remember that the western (Beaverton-Hillsboro) and eastern (Gresham) segments are in fact abandoned freight railroads (actually one-time interurbans), and have not had any carload traffic in many years. Most of the areas have been redeveloped as residential suburbia; very few freight shippers remain. In Hillsboro you have Intel with a loading dock right next to the MAX line, but it's extremely doubtful that Intel would have any use for shipping items by light rail.

Actually, I could imagine this if Intel also had a dock at the *airport*. I expect Intel ships some high-value, lightweight merchandise by air, and the light rail does reach the airport. Probably not enough volume to be worth it though.

Which leads me to realize that perhaps a plausible market would be air express parcel services like FedEx, if they have a distribution/collection center distinct and distant from the airport (perhaps on the far side of town), but connected to light rail. Which still sounds unlikely; most such centers are colocated at airports, and those which aren't are generally in places with no light rail at all.

AgentSkelly wrote:

wigwagfan wrote: On the Interstate, Airport, Clackamas and eastside Lines - there just aren't any freight customers, period. Possibly you could have shipments to a grocery store (i.e. Fred Meyer, Safeway) but their distribution centers aren't even near MAX (they are in Clackamas, several miles south of Clackamas Town Center). Extending MAX just to serve these warehouses...when only a couple of the stores are near a MAX line, would be a waste of scarce resources for our transportation network.

Your forgetting too that both the Safeway DC and Fred Meyer DC have their own spurs from the UP mainline.

I'm not forgetting - but those spurs serve a very, very different purpose than what MAX could do. (First of all, under current federal law, light rail freight couldn't use the same spurs as what Safeway and Freddy's use today, and I doubt the boxcars that fill those tracks would even clear the necessary overhead wire for LRT freight.)

Those spurs bring in freight from various places. How many Safeway or Freddy's are located next to a rail line of any kind - MAX, Streetcar or freight? Overall - not many. Sure, there is a Freddy's in Tigard but it's well removed from the P&W/MAX line. Same in Tualatin. Safeway in Tualatin is actually a little closer to the P&W line, but not close enough for a spur. Neither Safeway nor Fred Meyer have any stores near the Westside MAX line. There is a Freddy's on Interstate Avenue, and the Hollywood West store is somewhat close to the Blue/Green/Red route (however MAX would have to leap over the UP mainline to get to it). The Gateway store is next to a MAX station but would require a substantial spur.

So why would Freddy's want to use light rail for just a couple of stores (and incur a significant cost to develop LRT freight vehicles and spurs), while it still has to maintain its huge truck fleet for 95% of its stores?

neroden wrote:Which leads me to realize that perhaps a plausible market would be air express parcel services like FedEx, if they have a distribution/collection center distinct and distant from the airport (perhaps on the far side of town), but connected to light rail. Which still sounds unlikely; most such centers are colocated at airports, and those which aren't are generally in places with no light rail at all.

Interestingly, UPS doesn't have a sort facility at PDX. All they have is a small facility used to transfer items from the air pallets onto trucks, which deliver the parcels to the sorts in Tualatin and on Swan Island. I believe UPS also has a facility in Vancouver.

FedEx does have a sort facility at PDX, but they also have sort facilities on Swan Island and Tualatin as well.

That said: MAX doesn't go to Swan Island or Tualatin, so for your idea to work, both companies would have to have decentralized sort facilities (i.e. Clackamas, Gresham, Hillsboro/Beaverton) - and they'd still need the existing facilities to serve the areas away from MAX (keep in mind, the Portland facilities also serve the entire northern Willamette Valley down to northern Marion County and Yamhill County, out to Hood River County, and up to Columbia County - about a 35 mile radius.) So if they had a very large, significant shipper, then it could happen - but then again, Nike moved their U.S. Customer Support Center from Wilsonville to Memphis to be closer to FedEx's hub and in Wilsonville, there's another empty, vacant warehouse (that's nowhere near MAX, but it is less than 1,000 feet from the WES line.)

They did this in Baltimore for a while. Norfolk Southern has an active switch at North Ave which connects the NEC to the Baltimore Light rail. They would run trains up to Genstar quarry in Cocksyville and a few other businesses.

On the southbound end, CSX had an active switch just north of Patapsco station. I think it's still there, but there are derails on it.

At night, NC and CSX would remove the derails, place them on the light rail line, and run freights.

Once the light rail was double tracked, MTA decided the wear and tear on the rail was to much and the freight is now trans loaded in North Ave. When I worked for MTA, every Friday morning there was an NS train working the yard.

I wish they would bring it back, it would take trucks off the road, and could spur innovation.

Light rail freight has been around 100 years ago. In some cases a freight car could be part of a passenger carrying train.

The difficulty of offering light rail freight service today is working around the service schedule of the passenger service. Dropping off a car on a siding would take too much time to be practical. It would be necessary to be able to quickly load the freight at the originating station and quickly unload it at the destination station. Personnel from the shipper and from the recipient would have to be on hand. Also there would be need for high platform operation as steps inside a low floor car also makes freight handling difficult.

The same kind of delays caused by a line of passengers waiting to enter and pay fares would be caused by multiple items having to be carried in or out at a given stop by a limited number of personnel.