Railroad Train Carrying Only Truck Trailers?

It's cheaper that way!

 

If it was a container train it was most likely a Z train which has a lot of priority on the rails. They can get through pretty quick. If it was straight up trailers (TOFC) they can be Z's as well. They like to keep you thinking that we are getting amazing milage out of the locomotives. I mean.. unless you know how many gallons per hour these things are sucking down.. how would you be able to say different anyway? I have a list somewhere on what the smaller EMD V12's consume per hour from idle to notch 8. Idle is around 7-8 gallon per hour and it only goes up in big numbers from there. Thats a SMALL 2500hp motor.. I'll try to find the numbers on the 4500-6000hp motors.

That commecial you see about pulling a million tons of freight 100 miles on a drop of fuel is BS. In best case scenario... if they started on a hellacious hill and coasted for 100 miles they may get that kind of mileage.


Yeah the economy has hit us in a bad way. We are subject to idle rules now as well. New hours of service has killed any overtime I used to get. Running about 30 hours a week now. UP alone has 4500+ layed off or in furlough. Then you have all the other big carriers, NS, BNSF, CSX, CN, KCS and all the small railroads. All in all the logistics of this country are in a fubar beyond nightmare. I stopped driving to chase my american dream. To one day have something and retire. Thought I found that on the railroad but anymore I don't think it will be a possibility. For all I know I could be serving you guys fries with your shake at Mc D's next month the way we are running right now.

 

That was a TOFC. That started way back in the 30's and got bigger through the 60's and 70's. Now its mostly intermodal with the containers. JB Hunt still does a lot of TOFC hauling with the CSX. As for the info on getting into the trucking industry now.. you'll have to rely on these other hands. I haven't driven a OTR company truck in years and haven't even been in a truck at all in about year. Getting into the rail industry right now is a lost cause. Iowa Interstate RR is hiring right now.. thats the only line I know of and they are a regional railroad. We're all being let go left and right and with all the people on hold... well hiring has been frozen. The last guys I knew that were hired on, went through all their training and got about a month OJT before they were layed off.

 

Brick, if you don't mind shoot me a pm about this... I'm looking for a way out of transportation...

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

Brick actually has to work his asshatt off now. Are you sure you want to go down that road?..