EOBR's and Intermodal

For those of you on elogs in Chicago, how do you (or your companies) handle the rails...some times you go in and out in 15 min....some times it takes 4-5 hours....so...

I know the Mega's (Schneider, Swift, JB Hunt) have their own chassis, maintained by them, pre-mounted and in their own section of the yards (no hunting for chassis, no looking all over the yards for the containers...but the rest of us..well...So how goes it? Containers pre-pulled by hourly paid day cab drivers?....only do private chassis runs? ....how goes it???

Say you got two local runs, start at 5:00am, 1hr drive to rail (after 30 min for PT and fuel at yard) 1 hr at yard (good day, only 1 bad light and no line at roadability) then1.5 hr to deliver, 2hr to unload, 1.5 to return container to rail, now you go to get the second run, different yard, say Bedford Park to 59th (let's not even talk Elwood or G4)...30 min to Landers, now its 12:00am, and the container is on a chassis with 4 bad lights and one bad tire, 5 trucks in line, waiting for 2 hr, but by then it's their brake time.....back in 45 min....now it's 2:45 pm and their starting to work on you, out by 3:45, 1 hr to delivery, 2hr to unload, 1 hr back to rail..15 min to drop....1hr back to yard 9:00pm....

This doesn't take into account traffic patterns, construction zones or detention at shipper/consignee.....Keep in mind the start time is dependant on the appointment times...

 

I'm on percentage pay, I don't see any advantage when wasting time at the rail fixing their crapped out chassis or waiting two hours to get loaded/unloaded even after having an appointment.....I would never do Intermodal on a CPM basis.....