Re: (erielack) Freight Trains Today

["Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>]

There is a perceived lack of variety today compared with the 60's and 70's, 
but it's not as bad as you might think. There is certainly a drastic 
reduction in Class I's, but we still have a plethora of regionals and short 
lines, and for locomotives, leasing companies. So we need to clarify: 
variety in what? In the kind we like, ie many colorful competing and 
connecting Northeast RR's, the loss is drastic. In terms of intercity 
passenger equipment, even worse: you can have Amtrak or Amtrak. Freight 
equipment? It's a mixed bag. The least variety was in the steam era: mostly 
40' boxcars and open hoppers. Yawn. Go back to reading after the loco 
passes. By the 60's, we had an explosion in freight car variations: 
Boxcars-all lengths from 40'-86', hy-cubes, all-door, cushioned, insulated
Flatcars-TOFC/COFC, autorack, bulkhead, center-beam
Covered Hoppers-lengths from 36'-60', ribbed, cylindrical, inverted teardrop
etc etc, and this variety is still with us.

You need to differentiate also between variety in equipment vs service 
patterns. Looking at intermodal, we had good variety of equipment in the 
first few decades, then by the mid-70's, it had distilled down to the two 
40' trailers on a long flat configuration. With almost all dry van type 
trailers being free-runners, the trains all looked the same on all 
railroads, except for the limited number heavy with reefers or UPS 
drop-frames. Then Dereg inspired a whole new generation of equipment types: 
spine cars for TOFC, COFC or both, well cars in various lengths and body 
styles, roadrailers, trailers of ever-increasing length and containers in 
almost every imaginable color. In terms of service patterns, it's the 
opposite: intermodal has become commoditized with 70% of the business being 
import/export: train after train of merchandise from nameless, faceless 
plants in the Far East with no particular service standard. If it's already 
spent a week crossing the Pacific, who cares it it gets to Chicago third 
evening, fourth evening etc. Let's hope the new generation of modelers is 
focused on equipment.

Paul B


From: JG at graytrainpix <graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com>
Subject: (erielack) Freight Trains Today

I was watching the PBS Newshour on Thursday night getting a fix on the stuff 
going on in Iran, and they ran an interesting report about NIMBY reactions 
to the CN takeover of the EJ&E.  Not that NIMBY is anything new or unique 
these days, but the report had some interesting footage of CN and BNSF 
trains around Chicagoland.  No real EL relevance, other than the tangential 
fact that the former EL/EJE/GT diamond in Griffith, Ind. will be an 
important connection point in CN's plan to keep freights away from downtown 
by using the EJE.

However, the train shots in this report made me ponder another reason why I 
miss the EL so much (and you probably do too).  The action footage basically 
showed three kinds of freights:  coal/hopper runs, double-stack intermodal 
runs, and mixed freights consisting mainly of large tank cars.  That could 
cover perhaps 80% of freight traffic these days.  Back in the 60s and 70s, 
it seemed like every freight run was different and distinctive; 90 had its 
big auto parts cars (and stock cars, if you go back to the early 60s), TC2 / 
BC2 had a lot of 40 foot boxcars (paper from Canada) and maybe some 
autoracks for Jersey City, 74 had reefers, 100 had the boxcar block ahead of 
its TOFC, PO98 would be a mix of anything and everything, CS9 and PN98 might 
have some cement covered hoppers . . .  and of course we had three types of 
cabeese to watch for at the tail end, versus a blinking FRED today.

You had a lot more variety in freight car consists, with all the fallen 
flags still flying.  Even the intermodal runs had a variety of interesting 
trailers from both RR's and trucking companies (of course, the UPS trains 
could be a bit monotonous).  Throw in the locals, the coal trains, switchers 
puttering around with a few cars in urban settings, work trains, and it was 
never boring -- at least when the trains were running.  Today, freight 
density is quite high on the remaining main lines, but variety is quite low.


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