The wars begin
The other day (Monday, January 30, 2012), while working out at the YMCA in nearby Canandaigua, I noticed a TV-ad for Norfolk Southern Railroad.
It was probably on CNN, since I was on an exercise-machine aimed at the plasma-baby tuned to CNN.
There’s no sound. It’s closed-captioned.
For some time all the railroad TV-ads I’ve seen have been CSX, the incredible advantage of moving freight over railroads as opposed to trucks.
It’s true. Railroading is much more efficient than trucking.
Since a steel wheel is progressing a steel rail, there’s little rolling-resistance compared to a rubber tire on pavement.
Plus since the trains are following a railroad-track, far more can be entrained behind the pulling-unit without sideways crabbing.
A train might have 100 cars or more behind the pulling-unit, whereas a truck is limited to only one or at the most two trailers.
Trucking has tried to go to three trailers, but highway-departments resist. Since the trailers aren’t following a track, they can crab sideways so much they threaten passing drivers; i.e. they’re dangerous.
Plus every truck needs a driver. A railroad-train might have a crew of two or three, but they’re pulling 200 or more trailer containers.
Norfolk Southern is mainly a coal-road — that is, it’s biased toward coal.
And hauling coal by railroad literally skonks hauling coal by truck. A railroad coal-car might carry 120 tons of coal. A truck won’t even come close! Plus a single train might have 100 or more of those coal-cars.
I’m sure CSX also hauls coal, but not like Norfolk Southern.
Norfolk Southern includes the old Norfolk & Western, which served the Pocahontas Coal-Region in West Virginia and Kentucky.
It also operates the old Pennsylvania Railroad lines, very much a coal-road, serving mines throughout Pennsylvania, which had many.
Apparently Norfolk Southern is now moving almost as many trailer-containers as CSX, perhaps more.
Corridors have been set up on Norfolk Southern railroad lines to take some of the pressure off of parallel Interstates.
Government aid is used to help the railroad improve those corridors.
The trailer-containers get moved in trains instead of trucks.
Railroading was extraordinarily successful when first instituted in the 1800s, a technological leap that made the Industrial Revolution possible.
Canals were also a quantum leap forward, but couldn’t be operated in Winter.
Nevertheless, New York City is the dominant east-coast port because of the Erie Canal.
Railroading made development of this nation’s interior possible.
Railroading used to be point-to-point.
A loaded boxcar might be picked up at a factory railroad-siding, then delivered to its final destination, perhaps another railroad-siding.
That’s not how it works now.
Railroad-siding pickup was labor-intensive and costly, plus there had to be a factory railroad siding.
The pickup also obstructed railroad-freight forwarding from one major city to another.
Railroads used to have many branches to serve those factory sidings.
Now railroads are biased toward moving great quantities of freight from city to city, mainline railroading. Those old railroad branches are now feeder shortlines, independent.
A truck might be used to pick up a single trailer-container at a factory, for delivery to the railroad.
The container would get loaded with many others headed toward the same destination, for example, a city.
Ship-containers are often loaded directly onto trains.
Near the city that container might get off-loaded from train back to truck for final delivery.
For example, containers for New York City actually get railroaded to north Jersey, then transferred back to truck for final delivery into the city.
Railroading into a city proper is near impossible.
It’s too congested.
So for some time CSX has been trumpeting the great efficiency of moving freight via the railroads.
Trains of double-stacked containers parallel expressways free of congestion and trucks.
But now Norfolk Southern is doing it.
Giant trains of double-stacked containers march out of verdant woods on a right-of-way perhaps 50 feet wide.
In brilliant sunshine, under a cloudless sky.
Compare 50 feet with an expressway right-of-way over 200 feet wide.
And that train may have 200 or more containers.
A highway-truck has at the most two, usually only one.
Railroading utterly skonks trucking.
And for years it was only CSX showing us that.
Norfolk Southern has joined the fray.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually two-three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• “Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”
It was probably on CNN, since I was on an exercise-machine aimed at the plasma-baby tuned to CNN.
There’s no sound. It’s closed-captioned.
For some time all the railroad TV-ads I’ve seen have been CSX, the incredible advantage of moving freight over railroads as opposed to trucks.
It’s true. Railroading is much more efficient than trucking.
Since a steel wheel is progressing a steel rail, there’s little rolling-resistance compared to a rubber tire on pavement.
Plus since the trains are following a railroad-track, far more can be entrained behind the pulling-unit without sideways crabbing.
A train might have 100 cars or more behind the pulling-unit, whereas a truck is limited to only one or at the most two trailers.
Trucking has tried to go to three trailers, but highway-departments resist. Since the trailers aren’t following a track, they can crab sideways so much they threaten passing drivers; i.e. they’re dangerous.
Plus every truck needs a driver. A railroad-train might have a crew of two or three, but they’re pulling 200 or more trailer containers.
Norfolk Southern is mainly a coal-road — that is, it’s biased toward coal.
And hauling coal by railroad literally skonks hauling coal by truck. A railroad coal-car might carry 120 tons of coal. A truck won’t even come close! Plus a single train might have 100 or more of those coal-cars.
I’m sure CSX also hauls coal, but not like Norfolk Southern.
Norfolk Southern includes the old Norfolk & Western, which served the Pocahontas Coal-Region in West Virginia and Kentucky.
It also operates the old Pennsylvania Railroad lines, very much a coal-road, serving mines throughout Pennsylvania, which had many.
Apparently Norfolk Southern is now moving almost as many trailer-containers as CSX, perhaps more.
Corridors have been set up on Norfolk Southern railroad lines to take some of the pressure off of parallel Interstates.
Government aid is used to help the railroad improve those corridors.
The trailer-containers get moved in trains instead of trucks.
Railroading was extraordinarily successful when first instituted in the 1800s, a technological leap that made the Industrial Revolution possible.
Canals were also a quantum leap forward, but couldn’t be operated in Winter.
Nevertheless, New York City is the dominant east-coast port because of the Erie Canal.
Railroading made development of this nation’s interior possible.
Railroading used to be point-to-point.
A loaded boxcar might be picked up at a factory railroad-siding, then delivered to its final destination, perhaps another railroad-siding.
That’s not how it works now.
Railroad-siding pickup was labor-intensive and costly, plus there had to be a factory railroad siding.
The pickup also obstructed railroad-freight forwarding from one major city to another.
Railroads used to have many branches to serve those factory sidings.
Now railroads are biased toward moving great quantities of freight from city to city, mainline railroading. Those old railroad branches are now feeder shortlines, independent.
A truck might be used to pick up a single trailer-container at a factory, for delivery to the railroad.
The container would get loaded with many others headed toward the same destination, for example, a city.
Ship-containers are often loaded directly onto trains.
Near the city that container might get off-loaded from train back to truck for final delivery.
For example, containers for New York City actually get railroaded to north Jersey, then transferred back to truck for final delivery into the city.
Railroading into a city proper is near impossible.
It’s too congested.
So for some time CSX has been trumpeting the great efficiency of moving freight via the railroads.
Trains of double-stacked containers parallel expressways free of congestion and trucks.
But now Norfolk Southern is doing it.
Giant trains of double-stacked containers march out of verdant woods on a right-of-way perhaps 50 feet wide.
In brilliant sunshine, under a cloudless sky.
Compare 50 feet with an expressway right-of-way over 200 feet wide.
And that train may have 200 or more containers.
A highway-truck has at the most two, usually only one.
Railroading utterly skonks trucking.
And for years it was only CSX showing us that.
Norfolk Southern has joined the fray.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually two-three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• “Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”
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posted by BobbaLew at 10:25 AM
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