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  • Disappearing local freight

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

Moderator: David

 #1310783  by airman00
 
For me, I'm not talking about building new sidings. I'm talking about EXSISTING out of service sidings with still-connected and operational switches. There are still buildings at alot of these oos sidings and a company does something there. Sometimes it could simply be a matter of clearing some brush off the tracks and your in business. I get that there are costs involved, but on some of these old lines the switches are old hand-thrown style switches. How hard could it be to maintain them?

I use the CSX northern branch as an example because they still use hand throw switches. Since the C777 already serves customers on the line, if you get a few more to come online again, I can't see how it would be that big of a deal. The problem is that CSX has allowed the northern branch to get in such bad shape, you'd need some track work done to handle any increase in business.
 #1310858  by CNJ Fan 4evr
 
I know the main reason our plant doesn't get rail cars anymore is that NS charges for them sitting after a certain amount of time. If production isn't calling for what is in the car then it just sits. Less overhead for the company is what it comes down to. Keep it lean and profitable is all they want now. They call the trucking company, and a day or two later we have the supplies we need and they are off-loaded and the truck is gone.No waiting a week or longer sometimes and then paying for a car sitting on a siding.
I know they used to load boxcars outbound decades ago but now it is all by truck.
I still see some industrial sites that are for lease or sale that mention rail siding as one of the features. I just wonder how many companies would actually use them. I remember where I used to work 30 years ago. They had to pay over $1million to put a siding in off the former CNJ west of High Bridge. The plant folded years ago and I guess the siding just sits there rusting away. If it is there at all anymore.
 #1310860  by CNJ Fan 4evr
 
ccutler wrote:I can only imagine as an industry outsider that the new PTC regulations only increase the costs to Class 1's of installing new sidings on mainline tracks. I would expect that installing sidings 'out on the road' somewhere is becoming a bigger cost item and that railroads will further encourage transloads and sightings of new industries near major terminals.

But I am hoping to solicit comments from more knowledgeable folks...

On the old CNJ west of Raritan, only the old Fisher Scientific still receives freight service. I remember 15-car mostly-lumber trains going west of raritan in the 90s.
I believe that a lot of lumber went to Mid State in Branchburg. I worked there unloading cars in the late '80's. They were brought in overnight usually. I remember when they derailed two cars right next to the driveway by the road crossing.
 #1310901  by carajul
 
As Trainlawyer pointed out, everything has to do with cost. There is really no money in local service. As railfans we like to see spurs in small towns packed with cars. But shippers are concerned with saving $ and RRs are concerned with making $. Local service is probably a huge headache too.

A few years ago I reached out to several customers on the M&E and NS Portland track. To my surprise many responded. They all told the same tale as to why they no longer use rail (or significantly decreased rail usage):
1. The RR customer service sucked.
2. The RR rates were ridiculous compared to trucks.
3. The RR took a week to show up wherease a truck could be a the shipping bay in an hour.
4. Installing a siding costs an absolute fortune.
5. They only use rail for bulk-long haul.

And my own personal experience with NS... I helped a friend move his private rail car a few years ago. It was on a siding 1 mile from an NS main. Repeated calls to NS went no where, emails never answered. Finally after email 35 and 3 weeks I got a reply... the rate I was quoted almost gave me a heart attack. It was 50% cheaper to move the car by truck, including a crane and rigger, than by rail 1 mile from the mainline!
 #1310928  by ExCon90
 
Trainlawyer is exactly on point--many of these posts are putting the cart before the horse.
The question is not: Here's a siding--how can we find a use for it?
The question is: What does this company ship and receive, and what is the most cost-effective way of moving it?
It doesn't matter what kind of switch the siding has.
 #1310973  by pdtrains
 
Yes, carload freight costs more to move than a bulk unit train or a stack train, but if the RR's were smart, they would use carload freight to diversify their shipping base. At least farm out the branches to shortlines, whose main business is to develop online carload freight. Instead, the majors try to get consignees to pick up materials at a major yard, or load everything in trailers for tofc service, which makes the freight much more eligible to be lost to a competitor.

If they were smart, imho, they would think forward, and think, "what can we do to make a local freight profitable. Like maybe develop more freight for them to handle. Instead, they are lazy, and sit on what is profitable. Luckily for them, the Govt has allowed to class 1's to become too big to fail, so they can just sit on that and not worry about developing new business.

Also, I have nothing good to say about transportation businesses being run by lawyers and MBA's. They usually make money despite themselves, knowing nothing about running the core business. And if the business starts going south, they are gone in an instant, leaving someone else to hold the bag. Chasing dollars, not success.
Been there,.
 #1310981  by ccutler
 
CNJ Fan 4ever...thanks for sharing your experiences. The chemical industries usually own their own cars and don't need to pay railroads to keep their own private cars in their own private sidings. Perhaps there is a business opportunity for a boxcar leasing company to compete with TTX and lease out boxcars to shippers, allowing them time to keep the box cars in sidings when not in transit?
 #1310987  by Sir Ray
 
ccutler wrote:CNJ Fan 4ever...thanks for sharing your experiences. The chemical industries usually own their own cars and don't need to pay railroads to keep their own private cars in their own private sidings. Perhaps there is a business opportunity for a boxcar leasing company to compete with TTX and lease out boxcars to shippers, allowing them time to keep the box cars in sidings when not in transit?
Demurrage charges (in this instance, the fees for keeping railcars at a consignee's siding past a certain time duration) are nothing new, and there are similar charges for ships, containers, and yes trailers - the owners of those transportation vehicles want them out earning money, so if they are stuck at some facility longer than a reasonable period for unloading, they in effect charge the consignee "rent" for keeping that car past the agreed upon time (late fees? whatever).
I guess special rates are arranged for cases like SIT (Storage in Transit) yards, like the huge yard in Spring, Texas where thousands of covered hoppers with Plastic pellets of various composition are held until sold/needed.
 #1311062  by ExCon90
 
If a shipper receives a car owned or supplied by the railroad, all he has to do to get rid of it after unloading is notify the railroad that the car is released and can be removed at any time. If the car is still on free time the question of demurrage doesn't arise, and if the free time is up and the car is already on demurrage that notification stops the clock on demurrage then and there, regardless of how long the railroad takes to remove the car afterwards.
As to farming out traffic to shortlines, that blossomed in a big way right after Staggers, when abandonments became much easier. Whole clusters of marginal branch lines were sold off to independents who can operate more cheaply and provide the local switching service, interchanging the traffic with a Class I for the line haul. It's a reasonable generalization that if a branch line was found unprofitable by a Class I, and no independent operator stepped up to take it over, there probably really was no prospect of profitable business.
pdtrains, to your comment about lawyers and MBAs I would add consultants. One of the first things L. Stanley Crane did when he came to Conrail was banish the consultants.
 #1311332  by CNJ Fan 4evr
 
It is a trend that has been slowly happening. Railroads' bread n butter is intermodal and unit trains (auto,oil,ethanol,coal,etc.) not road/ local freight. I know NS has switched from the old CR 6 days a week service both ways to tri-weekly service one way on many lines. In fact I only see 2 daylight road freights between Allentown and Manville. Of course, the 1999 split-up of CR led to this. CSX got many of the freights that CR once had on Lehigh line.
 #1311712  by JohnFPorcaro
 
wborys wrote:BTW, the whole topic bummed me out so badly I ended up writing a song about
losing the railroad. (originally posted as 'Rust and Weeds' topic)
I got SOO depressed watching rails lying in decay...

Rust and Weeds c2009 Walt Borys

1 Old man squints at the setting sun
End of the day, his walk is done
two miles down the abandoned track
Rest a while, then two miles back


Often as a young boy, he'd walk the silver rails
hop a boxcar on a local run
sit and watch as the express came steaming through
wonder where'd it end up when it was done

(..he heard someone say that this was the trail to tomorrow..)


2 old man sits on a worn porch chair
looking at the valley in the cool night air
used to be lit by stars at night
now cars and trucks, and highway lights

when he became a young man, he worked the silver rails
kept the right of way safe and true
but as the years passed .., he’d see fewer trains
.. soon there was no work left.. for him to do

(..often he'd walk back to those rails, but all he saw was..)

Rust and Weeds and Weary Wood
reminders of what used to be
The trail to tomorrow got lost in yesterday
and all that's left's the memory

3 Old man wakes at half-past one,
hears the lonesome whistle .. of a late-night run
Faraway chugging of live steam
but then he knows it was just a dream

(..and tomorrow when he walks, he knows that all he'll see is..)


Rust and Weeds and Weary Wood
reminders of what used to be
The trail to tomorrow got lost in yesterday
and all that's left's the memory
As Arlo Guthrie sang
"But, all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream
And the steel rail still ain't heard the news
The conductor sings his songs again - the passengers will please refrain
This train got the disappearing railroad blues" :(
 #1311767  by Sir Ray
 
Well, since we have this "disappearing local freight" thread open, maybe the community can help identify a local freight consignee which closed around the turn of this century. I asked about this maybe a year ago, but no-one had solid info.

Location is North of Weasley St. and East of Green St. in Hackensack (NJ) - Bing view here. You can readily see the former ROW in the Bing view.
It used to get covered hoppers (usually one at a time), and I took some images of the pneumatic unloading equipment (this was with a camera that I brought in Christmas 2000, but really began using for railfanning around summer of 2001). At the time I took these images, I believe the facility had either closed down or stopped taking rail delivery for about a year or so - could have been 1998 or 1999, even 2000, I don't recall exactly. IIRC, it was a pasta manufacturer, but I am not completely sure about that.

The images below were taken of the unloading facilities, probably around 2001/2002 (I don't have exact dates on these images):
ETA: Obviously BBCode does not like the size of those images, and I'm not gonna resize them, so made them active links
View 1
View 2
View 3
Interestingly, the Bing view seems to still show those unloading hoses in their racks, even though it's marked 2012.
 #1311810  by bluedash2
 
ExCon90 wrote:bluedash2, go back and read the second paragraph of airman00's post of 7.23 pm today. Keep reading it until it sinks in. Everything mentioned in it costs money. If that money is included in the freight rate, the truck rate will be cheaper; if it is not included in the freight rate, the railroad loses money on the shipment. The truck rate does not have to include anything to fix the roads, which may have something to do with the fact that the truck rate is cheaper and the roads are not being maintained. You might also clarify what you mean by "running their business like a railroad."
Sorry, I've been busy, but I will clarify. Like too many outfits, they have been forced to run like a freeloader (my opinion of shareholders) operation. They come first over running the business. Just ask a lot of the crews how the track and the power aka the physical plant, are never given the real attention they need. Look at the non weather related derailments that happen every year. Not good customer service. It's all a numbers game when it shouldn't be all the while we send billions overseas but that's another argument for another type of forum...
 #1311946  by Ken W2KB
 
bluedash2 wrote:
ExCon90 wrote:bluedash2, go back and read the second paragraph of airman00's post of 7.23 pm today. Keep reading it until it sinks in. Everything mentioned in it costs money. If that money is included in the freight rate, the truck rate will be cheaper; if it is not included in the freight rate, the railroad loses money on the shipment. The truck rate does not have to include anything to fix the roads, which may have something to do with the fact that the truck rate is cheaper and the roads are not being maintained. You might also clarify what you mean by "running their business like a railroad."
Sorry, I've been busy, but I will clarify. Like too many outfits, they have been forced to run like a freeloader (my opinion of shareholders) operation. They come first over running the business. Just ask a lot of the crews how the track and the power aka the physical plant, are never given the real attention they need. Look at the non weather related derailments that happen every year. Not good customer service. It's all a numbers game when it shouldn't be all the while we send billions overseas but that's another argument for another type of forum...
The shareholders provide the capital to finance the railroad and the boards of directors owe a fiduciary duty under law to act in the shareholders' best interest. If it were not for the shareholders' willingness to risk investing in the railroads, there would be no railroads. Note that shareholders for most larger corporations are pension plans, both union and management, individual 401(k) plans, mutual funds and individual direct investment. In other words, the working middle class. The billions overseas is a completely different issue and I concur with your concern.