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General railway discussions

crs1026 said:
If you are going to advocate for free trade, you have to walk the talk. Overseas sourcing of rail has been quite common for the last couple of decades.
To date, under a free trade regime, our steel mills still managed to (mostly) stay above water. With the changes brought on by tariffs, that may not be so. But if we go too far in demanding Canada-first solutions.... well, our belief in free trade is somewhat in question.
How that plays out for railway steel, I guess we wait and see.

- Pau
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We did walk the walk, but now the one we walked with is pushing back on us, so,it stands to reason we protect Canada as best we can.

smallspy said:
Because there hasn't been a Canadian mill that has rolled rail since the 1980s.

Dan
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That was what I thought.
 
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micheal_can said:
A lot...
A place I worked at had stated that if the rail line was ever shut down,for one chemical they needed, they would need one tanker an hour. And if that was a long term thing, they would need to shut down as that was not feasible.
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Vegetable Oil: 29,300 gallons. One tank car

8,000-11,600+ one tanker truck

About 2.6 truck loads depending on the size. Smaller trucks might be 5. So a 5 car consist could replace 25 truck loads. I guess it's cheaper to carry 5 rail car loads than 25 truck loads.
 
Bordercollie said:
. I guess it's cheaper to carry 5 rail car loads than 25 truck loads.
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This is where the railroading business gets interesting.
Depending on the route and operational details, it might take 15 railcars to fulfil a delivery cycle, where one or two trucks shuttling back and forth might deliver the same amount of product just as fast. Railcars spend a lot of time standing still, or moving slowly…. Trucks not so much..
Plus, the railway’s delivery schedule might not align with the shipper or receiver’s production schedule. A tank car of product that won’t arrive until Friday is not cheaper to a production plant if it’s needed for a production run by Tuesday. And if the shipper has their product ready to send, and their factory tanks are full, but the empty tank car they ordered on Sunday hadn’t arrived yet? They have to shut down the line.
Trucking may cost more, but reliability of delivery and how long the shipment takes end to end may make that raw cost savings moot.
In the case here, OSR is a short line with a reputation for service to its customers. Not all railways can deliver in the same manner, and since the North American railroads are a single integrated network, one poor performer can drive away a lot of potential business Good on OSR for making this one work.

- Paul
 
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crs1026 said:
This is where the railroading business gets interesting.
Depending on the route and operational details, it might take 15 railcars to fulfil a delivery cycle, where one or two trucks shuttling back and forth might deliver the same amount of product just as fast. Railcars spend a lot of time standing still, or moving slowly…. Trucks not so much..
Plus, the railway’s delivery schedule might not align with the shipper or receiver’s production schedule. A tank car of product that won’t arrive until Friday is not cheaper to a production plant if it’s needed for a production run by Tuesday. And if the shipper has their product ready to send, and their factory tanks are full, but the tank car they ordered on Sunday hadn’t arrived yet? They have to shut down the line.
Trucking may cost more, but reliability of delivery and how long the shipment takes end to end may make that raw cost savings moot.
In the case here, OSR is a short line with a reputation for service to its customers. Not all railways can deliver in the same manner, and since the North American railroads are a single integrated network, one poor performer can drive away a lot of potential business Good on OSR for making this one work.

- Paul
Click to expand...
In some cases there must be costs and handling rules that no longer make rail viable. Propane and a lot of liquid fuel yards used to be normally rail-served but now you tend to see newer ones truck-served, even if they are still adjacent to a track.

We are near the Mattawa sub (eastern section) of the OVR. Normally, small shortlines are daytime Monday to Friday operations, but I guess when you have only one customer (Rayonier in Temiskaming Quebec) you do what you have to do to make the company happy. I have seen 'outbound' trains in late afternoon, and inbound trains around midnight on a Sunday of a holiday long weekend.
 
lenaitch said:
Normally, small shortlines are daytime Monday to Friday operations, but I guess when you have only one customer (Rayonier in Temiskaming Quebec) you do what you have to do to make the company happy. I have seen 'outbound' trains in late afternoon, and inbound trains around midnight on a Sunday of a holiday long weekend.
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In the case of the shortline, the call for that extra switch happens between two people who know each other (at least by name and voice) and who have the authority to make the necessary decisions and arrangements themselves on the spot. Try asking for an extra switch on US Thanksgiving with a call centre in Jacksonville or Fort Worth. And just wait until AI invades those call centres......

Those extra switch moves are billed by the shortline at a pretty good rate, too. The economic decision is sometimes whether a plant (especially one running a chemical process or production line) has to be shut down for the rest of the weekend, and then restart.... or can the production continue unabated. Customers don't mind paying a premium to keep things running. That's the underlying cost comparison, not the locomotive fuel and labour bill versus the cost of hiring a trucker.

- Paul
 
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lenaitch said:
In some cases there must be costs and handling rules that no longer make rail viable. Propane and a lot of liquid fuel yards used to be normally rail-served but now you tend to see newer ones truck-served, even if they are still adjacent to a track.

We are near the Mattawa sub (eastern section) of the OVR. Normally, small shortlines are daytime Monday to Friday operations, but I guess when you have only one customer (Rayonier in Temiskaming Quebec) you do what you have to do to make the company happy. I have seen 'outbound' trains in late afternoon, and inbound trains around midnight on a Sunday of a holiday long weekend.
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Well propane is a commodity which it's consumption is based on the weather. And I believe they need to deliver or have some reserve. That's why no matter what it costs when you have to deliver it, you have to deliver it.
 
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