Blueprint America

08/28/2009 :: 09:13:02 PM
Latisha King Says:

(Think Tank Thinking)What about designing a one truck/trailer w/ wheels that fit the road and the railway,then you would be able to interchange from railway to road with vehicles more easily,plus more often.

08/29/2009 :: 01:01:18 AM
Maltbyite Says:

The crazy thing is how many unused, disjointed tracks and side railings we have all over this country. I am reminded of a program a few months ago about stranded homeowners struggling to pay mortgates in increasingly abandoned or unfinished suburbs far flung outside of L.A. And these areas still remnants of old trolley rail lines from the early twentieth century! In my neighborhood Waste Management has taken over an old steel plant property for a new recycling transfer facility and it is proposing to put 600 trucks a day on a narrow county arterial. The kicker is it is located right on the rail line that used to serve the steel plant, but Waste Management has no intention to use it. We are surrounded by gridlocked highways, but there is almost no interest in using the rail way, until recently. One excuse has been that all the rail lines are coveted by the fright haulers (as opposed to passengers). One entrepreneur wants to put in a commuter train, but there are no proposed stops for commuters to get on in my neighborhood. We’d have to travel to either of the end destinations, 20 miles in each direction. There is also talk of using it for an elite “dinner train” operation. Plans are in doubt since several residents are threatening to fight having a noisy train rumble through their back yards.

08/30/2009 :: 12:42:26 AM
Jason Greene Says:

There are multiple factors in this decision, and who is bringing this up? Someone afraid of trucks? Someone who doesn’t realize that most trucking accidents are caused by other vehicles, especially fatals?
Aslo, please also be aware that there are anti-idling laws for trucks in most of the nation’s states now, but none for the railroads? Countless times I have seen unmanned locomotives idling on a siding- even in warm weather, and those engines are many times more powerful than any truck engine on the road, thus they are wasting much, much more diesel fuel.
Commonly, they also seem to emit black smoke, even at an idle. When was the last time you saw a truck smoking for any length of time?
This also adds to the frequency of oil changes. Who knows how many gallons- yes, gallons, need to be handled that much more often?

Trucking has jumped through hoops to keep the environment happy, so maybe it is time for the railroads to keep up with their equal responsibility to the earth and stop blowing so much smoke.

09/01/2009 :: 04:48:15 PM
Girish Sardey Says:

Re: Latisha King
there is a Rail/Road version of trucks that is working it only works on the NS Rails system because it requires structural integrity of the trailer, trucking companies are not willing to shell out to modify their trucks or buy a specially equipped truck that can do Road/Rail service. So NS rail (Norfolk Southern) founded a subsidiary trucking co. for Road/Rail service its called Triple Crown Corp. and they use “Roadrailers” to ship over the country by rail and locally by truck, another org that uses “Roadrailers ” is the USPS, the postal service, they ship time sensitive mail from Chicago to California at the back end of the Amtrak train as it is more efficient and less congestive than O’Hare airport and LAX airport.Mail shipped from Chicago will arrive in California in 3days or less.

RE: Jason Greene:
the engine you are referring to is an Alco from the looks of it that is an old loco motive that was made in the 60s and the company is now long gone as it could not meet the evolving competition the rail road probably decided to keep it working because it cant afford to buy a newer more fuel effcient one and meets the new Tier 1 and tier 2 emission standards set in 200X, Now a days the locos have to meet tighter emissions standard and out put more horsepower the only two companies that make locomotive in the NAmerica is GE and GM. The Locos consume less Diesel for ever horsepower compared to trucks, trucks 300-500hp and locos 3000-4000hp. there is also a misconception, loco are not diesel they are Diesel-Electric Locomotives, essentially like a hybrid Prius, and they have been roaming the earth since the 1940s at the first REAL hybrids, another way to think of it is like your diesel/kerosene backup generators, except instead of powering a house they turn the wheels of a locomotive. It is almost guaranteed that there are more trucks idling in NAmerica than there are locomotives. Locomotives also run and idle at lower rpm, idle 300rpm, and run full power at 900rpm.
Another point is Locomotive have longer lifespans than trucks, when was the last time you saw a 50yr-40yr old truck (shortlines used 2nd hand locos than brand new locos because its cheaper, like a teen buying a car or 3rd class family getting a car from volunteers of America. Also Locos log more miles on the “odometer” than trucks and haul more, if locos freight lbs to mpg ratio was inefficient as trucks we would have choked our self in hydrocarbons by 2010, thus died out like the dinosaurs.
Lastly the only reason a locomotive idles is because of a crew change unlike truck drivers the engineer and fireman in loco run their shift and get off until assign another run with another loco, this is to avoid a backup and run around moves and GET that train outta town! and faster to the destination, trains can run 24/7 the only thing stopping them is the human fatigue factor and that is easily remedied with a crew change, this can’t happen with trucks as the driver is tied to the truck and is also living inside of it. Don’t get me wrong I am not totally against trucks, one aspect the railroad can’t work in is shipping the freight from the destination distribution center to the front door of the customer(except for large industrial customers) and that role is made for trucks. So my vision is trucks should be ship locally and railroad trailers should ship nationwide. This will keep truckers off the nationwide hwys and stills have ways to make an earning.

09/08/2009 :: 04:54:34 PM
Deborah Lockridge Says:

Overall, a balanced look at the issue. And many trucking companies have become increasingly involved in intermodal operations.

One comment, though — many people don’t realize how clean diesel trucks have become. New EPA emissions regulations that have been phased in for new diesel truck engines over the last decade or so have resulted in exhaust that in some areas is literally cleaner than the ambient air.