KSmitty wrote:QB 52.32-
I don't see a repositioning move, the case you made, from southern New England to Maine working out. And that was my point, albeit poorly worded. But there is a business, for trailers coming into New England. As you said "To Engineer Spike's point, it's a highly imbalanced situation --- into the 5 New England states but out of ME, with 1-2 loads in for every 10 out for ME in these western/southern lanes." Empties are coming into New England, to feed Maine mills. This is where the success of Waterville/IM lies. A successful marketing and operations plan, linking Chicago, or even something like Buffalo or Cleveland or D.C. with Waterville. Bringing paper out of Maine and empties back into Maine. In this case Waterville has a clear advantage, its as far north/east as you can go and still cover the major mills in Maine without significant backhaul of loads east, and if you are catering almost exclusively to the paper industry it is ALL ABOUT PROXIMITY. It could easily pick up business from Madison and Lincoln which both truck 100% of outbound product. It is far enough from Ayer that if Lincoln were to move its IM operation from Ayer to Waterville its trucking crews could go from 1 roundtrip (if that) in an 8 hour shift to 2 or maybe 3.
Ksmitty- There are more than enough trailers and containers made empty in MA, NH, RI and CT after delivering their inbound load from the south or west to supply Maine's outbound paper loads for the south and west, whether for over-the-road or rail-based transportation companies. So, why would you ever want to reposition empty equipment, which isn't free, from 900-1400 miles away, when you can do it from a couple hundred? Especially when the Maine paper load revenue is probably around a half of what the inbound load paid to get to MA, NH, RI or CT for the headhaul move. The way it is done today is driven by the market, priced by the flows created by demand and supply within lanes and regions, and the economics that seeks to minimize cost and maximize profit: triangulation of the headhaul inbound load going to distribution (correlated with population density), empty repositioning to Maine for an outbound paper load, and, for NS or CSX's intermodal, doing it with a truck off of Ayer or Worcester.
