Railroad Forums 

  • So many torn out sidings Raritan River RR why?

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New Jersey

Moderator: David

 #1611189  by carajul
 
Just cruising the 1987 aerials. Just east of Milltown/Ryders Ln all the warehouses had spurs and they had lots of covered hoppers spotted on their sidings. Today those spurs are either ripped out or have trees growing thru them. Why did CR drop all those customers? Today the line is kept all the way out to Milltown just for Silverline Windows. This doesn't make sense. How could CR just let all those customers go? It's very close to Browns Yard. I bet a short line would drum up some business.
 #1611210  by SemperFidelis
 
Jersey has been deindustrializing for decades. Conrail might not have "let them go" per say. They might have simply relocated or found better transportation alternatives.
 #1611227  by Bracdude181
 
eolesen wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 12:53 pm Taxes and labor/environmental laws have consequences.
As I hear it this is especially the case in NJ. A customer on the Freehold Industrial left for this reason.

That and CSAO North Jersey is very poor at running/managing smaller lines like this. The Southern Secondary is case in point.
 #1611238  by WashingtonPark
 
carajul wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:22 pm Just cruising the 1987 aerials. Just east of Milltown/Ryders Ln all the warehouses had spurs and they had lots of covered hoppers spotted on their sidings. Today those spurs are either ripped out or have trees growing thru them. Why did CR drop all those customers? Today the line is kept all the way out to Milltown just for Silverline Windows. This doesn't make sense. How could CR just let all those customers go? It's very close to Browns Yard. I bet a short line would drum up some business.
Doesn't Mauser still use rail service?
 #1611242  by rr503
 
Just to add my own two cents to this -- deindustrialization is absolutely one of the stories here, but so are changes in the industrial building market and in distribution strategies. That industrial park is actually a great case study. The first two things that jump out at me from an aerial are the facts that:
- There's still a good bit of freight traffic generation, as evidenced by all the trailers
- The buildings are, by and large, small.
Those are both salient to understanding where its traffic has gone.

As companies try to take cost out of their supply chains, they'll often try to reduce inventory costs => speed/reliability becomes more of a focus in transport choice => trucks and intermodal get favored over carload. Similarly, as industry everywhere moves away from rail lines, you lose network effects. Much harder to justify carload shipping/receiving when the other facility/ies in the movement don't have spurs. So that's one factor.

The other factor is that, to the extent that mfg/distribution firms do still want NJ plants, and do still want to use carload, they are going to search for much larger footprints than what's offered in that park. As it's operated and marketed today, carload for businesses that ship/receive large volumes of bulky or heavy goods, not so much for some factory with one or two rail doors getting 60 cars/year. That's among the reasons why you can still find a decent bit of carload activity in greenfield industrial parks further out in the state, or in PA, but places like this don't do much business with RRs anymore.
 #1611267  by SemperFidelis
 
And, though it is as off-topic as the post it responds to, lack of labor laws has led to some of this nation's worst disasters. See "accidents, mining" if you don't believe me.

Excellent points, rr503. Just in time logistics has also destroyed rail's competitiveness.
 #1611270  by Bracdude181
 
“Excellent points, rr503. Just in time logistics has also destroyed rail's competitiveness.”

Especially in regards to distribution centers. So many have gone up in NJ over the past 10 years and are continuing to be built, yet so few are actually dealing with the railroads. Only Raritan Central and SMS really provide the service these centers want now in any great capacity, at least as far as NJ goes.
 #1611274  by SemperFidelis
 
There are some high-volume products that are a good fit, it's just a hard sell when telling a prospective customer that his or her product might be there in a few days...or weeks. Truckers can do in a half day what it takes a railroad a week or more to accomplish...and I love railroads. But facts are facts.
 #1611276  by Bracdude181
 
SemperFidelis wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:41 pm There are some high-volume products that are a good fit, it's just a hard sell when telling a prospective customer that his or her product might be there in a few days...or weeks. Truckers can do in a half day what it takes a railroad a week or more to accomplish...and I love railroads. But facts are facts.
Trucks are definitely faster. You can get loads somewhat more quickly than that in some cases with trains but I believe you end up paying quite a bit more?
 #1611278  by SemperFidelis
 
Depends on lane, commodity carried, distance hauled and so forth. A company I worked for split some loads between truck and rail for a move of around 900 miles or thereabouts and rail was a little cheaper, but that was for a very, very heavy commodity.

Rail simply isn't set up for moving loads that cube out before maxing out the weight of a railcar. I can move, for example, a load of paper towels much cheaper by truck than rail because most rail equipment really can't carry all that much more volume of low-density product than a standard 53 foot trailer. Conversely, I can move a load of cement or sand or stone over a longer distance at a much lower rate than trucks could ever match.

Intermodal helps railroads with the cubing issue and, on certain lanes, can actually be dependable and, within reason, rather time competitive as well. If railroads would be willing to build 89 foot, high cube boxes and keep them clean and cycle them rapidly, I know of a few consumer products they could once again be competitive for.

All in all, trucks own the time-sensitive freight market. Rails own bulk commodities,
 #1611279  by SemperFidelis
 
Okay, so my comprehension, reading needs work.

Yes, bracdude is right when he posits that rail will certainly (sometimes) deliver railcars somewhat faster than the normal schedule generally allows. He is also very right when he suggests that such moves come at a price.

Blocking commodities by units allows trains to (again sometimes) avoid terminal congestion and delays at classification yards. It also, generally, allows for a lower per ton or per car price due to the railroad's lessened workload.