Train vs Truck Capacity
134.5...@tdowning.lasc.lockheed.com
Several times in the past there have been postings on trucks vs trains in
handeling freight. I am curious about two areas:
How many tanker trucks does it take to haul the fuel in one train tanker. How
many 18 wheelers does it take to carry what goes in a boxcar. There could be 2
answers to the boxcar question - by weight and by volume.
thanks.
Tom
Silas Warner
The question about "boxcars" is completely irrelevant to today's
railroads. Has anybody posting to this newsgroup even seen a standard
40-foot boxcar in service, ANYWHERE on a U.S. railroad, outside of
MofW and other uses? But to answer your question, a standard truck
trailer (basis of a standard container) is 40'x8'x8', giving a volume
of 2560 cubic feet. A standard boxcar is 40'x10'x10', giving a volume
of 4000 cubic feet.
A more relevant question is, "How many 40-foot containers can travel
by truck for the same cost as by rail?" Santa Fe did a study about
1986 that gave the following figures:
Containers by truck: $9.68 /ton-mile
Piggyback trailers: $9.92 /ton-mile
Piggyback containers: $9.50 /non-mile
Doublestack containers: $6.40 /ton-mile
Note that this includes loading and unloading costs, with delivery
to and from the customer's door. Santa Fe drew the conclusion from
this study that they'd better invest in doublestack equipment.
Silas Warner
Robert Heller
In a message on 6 June, wrote :
13> Several times in the past there have been postings on trucks vs trains in
13> handeling freight. I am curious about two areas:
13>
13> How many tanker trucks does it take to haul the fuel in one train tanker.
13> many 18 wheelers does it take to carry what goes in a boxcar. There coul
13> answers to the boxcar question - by weight and by volume.
13>
13> thanks.
13> Tom
13>
More than two answers. There are various sizes of both boxcars and
tanker cars. I guess that an old 40' boxcar would hold around twice
what a 40' trailer (maybe 3x). Ditto for a 40' tank car. These days
the 40' boxcar and 40' tank car are kind of rare. Much bigger boxcars
and tank cars are more common.
Robert
---
ž ATP/Linux 1.42 ž OS-9/68000 -- The only *real* operating system.
--
\/InterNet: Hel...@CS.UMass.EDU
Robert Heller ||BIX: locks.hill.bbs
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller ||FidoNet: 1:321/153
http://netmar.com/mall/shops/heller /\CompuServe: 71450,3432
Rich Neitzel
|>
|> The question about "boxcars" is completely irrelevant to today's
|> railroads. Has anybody posting to this newsgroup even seen a standard
|> 40-foot boxcar in service, ANYWHERE on a U.S. railroad, outside of
|> MofW and other uses? But to answer your question, a standard truck
|> trailer (basis of a standard container) is 40'x8'x8', giving a volume
|> of 2560 cubic feet. A standard boxcar is 40'x10'x10', giving a volume
|> of 4000 cubic feet.
|>
Why are boxcars irrelevant? I sure see a lot of standard 50 & 60 foot
boxcars pass by on the BN line outside my office window. The last I heard
the Coors brewery by my house was still shipping 100+ boxcars of beer a
day. The box car is far from dead.
I'd be careful saying that a 40 foot trailer is standard (& why a 40 foot
boxcar?). Many of the trailers I see are the 45 & 48 footers.
--
Richard Neitzel th...@atd.ucar.edu Torren med sitt skjegg
National Center For Atmospheric Research lokkar borni under sole-vegg
Box 3000 Boulder, CO 80307-3000 Gjø'i med sitt shinn
303-497-2057 jagar borni inn.
Richard Miller
I don't know anything about tank cars vs tank trucks, but...
> The question about "boxcars" is completely irrelevant to today's
> railroads. Has anybody posting to this newsgroup even seen a standard
> 40-foot boxcar in service, ANYWHERE on a U.S. railroad, outside of
While 40' boxcars have pretty much passed from the scene, we do see a
lot of larger boxcars in service around here. Primarily, they are used
for auto parts moving from suppliers to GM/Ford/Chrysler assembly
plants. We ship three or four 60' cars from Milwaukee to the
Louisville, Ky. area a day. From the railroad equipment register, they
are 6413 cu ft or 179,000 lb capacity. A 45' truck trailer has 3038 cu
ft, a 48' truck trailer 3535 cu ft of capacity. Due to highway load
limits we figure a 42,000 load is maximum for over the road shipment.
--
Rick Miller __ rmi...@execpc.com Milwuakee, Wisconsin
Amiga 2500 \/ B3 f+ t+ w- g+ k++ Fidonet: Richard Miller 1:154/280
Norman Clubb
Staufer in "Pennsy Power" (1962). On page 169 (of the edition I have)
there is an exquisite picture of a K4s Pacific, the caption claiming
that the four-track main line has "the capacity of a 40-lane (sic)
super highway - and no parking problem!"
Tim O'Connor
> 134.5...@tdowning.Lasc,
> In a message on 6 June, wrote :
>
> 13>
> 13> How many tanker trucks does it take to haul the fuel in one train tanker.
> 13> many 18 wheelers does it take to carry what goes in a boxcar. There coul
> 13> answers to the boxcar question - by weight and by volume.
All trucks in the U.S. have limits on gross vehicle weight. I think the
typical tanker truck is limited to 80,000 pounds and that includes the
tractor and trailer. I think this limits the truck to around 6,000 gallons
of liquid. Railroad tankcars on the other hand can carry 16,000 gallons
of corn syrup, 23,000 gallons of vegetable oil, or 33,000 gallons of LP
gas, for example. These amounts are based on the standard 263,000 gross
weight of a "100 ton" freight car. So to answer your question I'd say a
tankcar carries about 3 times as much as a truck.
Tim O'Connor
> I'd be careful saying that a 40 foot trailer is standard (& why a 40 foot
> boxcar?). Many of the trailers I see are the 45 & 48 footers.
Large domestic trailers are now 53 ft x 9 ft x 8 ft (approx) which gives
about 3816 cubic feet. The old 40 ft standard boxcar was around 3900 cubic
feet. But trailers can't handle as much -weight- as boxcars, they rarely
carry even 30 tons, while some 40 ft boxcars (SP's fleet of plate C copper
cargo cars for example) can be loaded to nearly 100 tons each.
Those beer cars Rich mentioned carry, I think, around 160,000 bottles or
cans apiece. And they keep it cold too.
Jose Kazmar
U.S. freight railroada used approximately three billion gallons of diesel fuel
in 1993, accounting for 2% of total U.S. petroleum fuels consumed for
transportation... Rail competitive tractor-trailer trucks used more than 17
billion gallons of diesel fuel last year while carrying only two-thirs as many
ton-miles of freight as the railroads.
A 1991 Department of Transportation study comparing trucks and freight
trains under various operating conditions found that freight trains are between
12.4 and 9 times as fuel efficient as trucks, depending on the type of freight
moved.
According to a 1990 study by the California Air Resource Board, on a
billion ton-mile basis, railroads emit: one-tenth the diesel particulates and
hydrocarbons as trucks,one third the nitrous oxides, and carbon monoxides as
trucks.
Colin R. Leech
People interested in obtaining more detailed information on truck capabilities
are invited to check out the new newsgroup misc.transport.trucking.
--
Colin R. Leech |-> Civil Engineer by training,
ag...@freenet.carleton.ca |-> Transportation Planner by choice,
h:613-224-2301 w:613-741-6440 |-> Trombonist by hobby.
My opinions are my own, not my employer's. You may consider them shareware.
Colin R. Leech
Doesn't that count as a parking problem?
Followups directed to misc.transport.rail.misc.
Don Fenwick
> 13> How many tanker trucks does it take to haul the fuel in one train tanker.
> 13> many 18 wheelers does it take to carry what goes in a boxcar. There coul
> 13> answers to the boxcar question - by weight and by volume.
> 13> thanks.
> 13> Tom
> 13>
>
> More than two answers. There are various sizes of both boxcars and
> tanker cars. I guess that an old 40' boxcar would hold around twice
> what a 40' trailer (maybe 3x). Ditto for a 40' tank car. These days
> the 40' boxcar and 40' tank car are kind of rare. Much bigger boxcars
> and tank cars are more common.
>
> Robert
>
>
A different way of looking at the question is to consider weights. In
most jurisdictions a highway trailer can carry 40,000 to 45,000 lbs.
A standard 50 ft 70 ton boxcar can carry approximately 130,000 lbs.
Lots of boxcars are being upgraded to 100 ton capacity. Simple
mathematics should give your answer. Same goes for tanks both on the
road or on the rails.
Donald Lotz
tank car generally holds 3 to 4 truckloads, usually depending on weight
as a limiting factor. Trailer trucks are limited to 80,000 total gross
weight (including the cab or power unit, the trailer itself, and the
cargo) on most US highways, which translates into perhaps 45,000 pounds
maximum cargo weight. For example, if you look at the load limits
stencilled on the side of box cars, they generally carry 70 or 100 tons
as I recall; hence the 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 ratio... Don Lotz
Karl Auerbach
> Several times in the past there have been postings on trucks vs trains in
> How many tanker trucks does it take to haul the fuel in one train
tanker
I was at lock #1 on the Mississippi in Minneapolis last weekend and they have
a chart showingthe relative carrying capacities of a highway truck, a railroad
car, a river barge, and a string of river barges. They also broke it down to
cost per unit weight by river, rail, truck, and air.
Unfortunately, I don't remember the details, but they did use a ratio of
something on the order of 4:1 for the a carrying capacity of a rail car to a
highway truck.
(And, of course, the chart "demonstrated" how much better river shipping is
than all other forms. ;-)
--karl--
Tim O'Connor
> According to a 1990 study by the California Air Resource Board, on a
> billion ton-mile basis, railroads emit: one-tenth the diesel particulates and
> hydrocarbons as trucks,one third the nitrous oxides, and carbon monoxides as
> trucks.
You wouldn't happen to have any comparative numbers for the new Liquid Methane
locomotives being tested by BN and UP, would you?