Truck retreads on the highway
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Trucks will always be needed to transport goods from railroad and port terminals to end users. THe question is what the right balance between long haul trucks and freight rail. In order to figure all of this out you have to look at the "ton mile" costs of different modes after BACKING OUT government "support" of one mode over another. There is no question that the Interstate system helped long haul trucking become more efficient, and that we needed the system, but it didn't help the railroads. Passenger rail (outside of some commuter systems) just drags freight rail down.
Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Originally Posted By: FXjohn
Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
I agree! Then you can do all your shopping at the rail head! How do you think that stuff you buy gets from the rail to the store? How about from the distribution center, food warehouse, etc to the store? And oh yeah, I can really see a load of meat doing well on rail. These guys can't seem to keep track of the cars they have now. It will be good to see a load of meat sitting on rail car for 2 weeks and then see how much of it you want to buy.
If you understood just half of what you think you understand about product distribution logistics, you might have withheld this myopic post of yours. And if you had even the slightest understanding of trucking in general, you would also know that the MAJORITY of those gators you see from blown out tires on the road come from the poorly maintained trailers that haul the containers from the rail.
And you can virtually forget about that 2 day shipping you want on something you order off the internet. Well over 80% of air freight actually moves by truck. The vast majority of that fast shipping stuff moves by Forward Air, Conway Freight, FedEx Freight, YRC, Old Dominion, Estes, and a host of other trucking companies. You can see them every day pulling doubles, or what we call wiggle wagons. 24/7 up and down the highways. No problem, lets get rid of all the long haul trucking stuff. You can forget about a rush on your orders. And for those things you can get quickly, the cost to ship that way would be virtually cost prohibitive for all, but the wealthiest customers. So when you need that special part for your broke down auto, you will just get to wait a few more days.
Bet you never even thought about any of this, did you?
Are you being obtuse? they have small trucks to haul stuff short distances from train depots and they have refrigerated freight cars. wow.
Nope. Like I stated, most of the air freight still moves by commercial truck... 28' wiggles in tandem and triple configurations, 53' trailers just like everything else. And true, they do have refrigerated trailers. But you will find this only works well for frozen or long term products. Try it with lettuce. Not going to happen. Non-frozen meat? Not going to happen. You may have smaller trucks that deliver from the rail, but it will take substantially longer to have rail bring it to the rail head for those smaller trucks to pick up. Like I stated, you can forget about getting products you order online in a timely manner you are accustomed to now.
And all of just about everything you buy will increase substantially in price. Ever heard of "just in time". All auto producers live by it. It saves substantial costs in warehousing. Stuff arrives within a 30 minute window of the plant needing it. it goes right from the truck to the assembly line. And at the other end? They make the product as the auto OEM needs it. It is very common to pick up product coming right off of manufacturing and taking it 500 miles to a plant, with a 15 min either side of a set appointment time for it to go right onto the assembly line. It is one thing to have rail haul the finished cars, it is quite another to have them bring in the components from a hundred different suppliers on time. This has saved millions of dollars of warehousing space at each plant. It is so refined, that if a truck is late, they have a small buffer, but if the plant has to stop the assembly, it costs well over $100,000 dollars an hour in lost productivity.
And automotive is only one area that JIT is the norm. It is spread out across the entire manufacturing spectrum in the U.S. And you can also lay some of the blame for this on the government regulatory climate that forces plants to rely on more of this. And it is common knowledge, that just in food and other essentials, a 24 hr delay can be critical, a 48 hr delay is almost unthinkable, a 72 hr delay of essential goods would lead to rioting in the streets.
And you will have to give up that order from 1-800 flowers or Sherri's Berries for the wife on one of those special days. It just isn't going to get there unless flown by plane since all the long haul trucks would be off the road. And there just isn't enough aircraft in America to pick up the slack of thousands and thousands of trucks the would be sidelined
There are presently over 5 million trucks in America daily delivering all of your goodies. Sure, let's shut them down. You have no idea of the disruption and life changing results. There isn't enough rail to pick up much of any of it. 80% of all freight moved in this country moves by truck. Rail is close to tapped out. You would have to have the equivalent of the Berlin Airlift going on through the entire country. Not even remotely a reality.
Nobody's saying that long haul trucking should go away completely, but it could certainly be vastly reduced...with some expanding to our nation's railways we could ship 70-80% of the stuff now being shipped via truck by rail...and it would be cheaper as rail moves far more tonage per gallon of diesel fuel than do semis...I'd live with the extra 2-3 days shipping time if it means a drastic reduction of semis on our roadways...
Originally Posted By: FXjohn
Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
I agree! Then you can do all your shopping at the rail head! How do you think that stuff you buy gets from the rail to the store? How about from the distribution center, food warehouse, etc to the store? And oh yeah, I can really see a load of meat doing well on rail. These guys can't seem to keep track of the cars they have now. It will be good to see a load of meat sitting on rail car for 2 weeks and then see how much of it you want to buy.
If you understood just half of what you think you understand about product distribution logistics, you might have withheld this myopic post of yours. And if you had even the slightest understanding of trucking in general, you would also know that the MAJORITY of those gators you see from blown out tires on the road come from the poorly maintained trailers that haul the containers from the rail.
And you can virtually forget about that 2 day shipping you want on something you order off the internet. Well over 80% of air freight actually moves by truck. The vast majority of that fast shipping stuff moves by Forward Air, Conway Freight, FedEx Freight, YRC, Old Dominion, Estes, and a host of other trucking companies. You can see them every day pulling doubles, or what we call wiggle wagons. 24/7 up and down the highways. No problem, lets get rid of all the long haul trucking stuff. You can forget about a rush on your orders. And for those things you can get quickly, the cost to ship that way would be virtually cost prohibitive for all, but the wealthiest customers. So when you need that special part for your broke down auto, you will just get to wait a few more days.
Bet you never even thought about any of this, did you?
Are you being obtuse? they have small trucks to haul stuff short distances from train depots and they have refrigerated freight cars. wow.
Nope. Like I stated, most of the air freight still moves by commercial truck... 28' wiggles in tandem and triple configurations, 53' trailers just like everything else. And true, they do have refrigerated trailers. But you will find this only works well for frozen or long term products. Try it with lettuce. Not going to happen. Non-frozen meat? Not going to happen. You may have smaller trucks that deliver from the rail, but it will take substantially longer to have rail bring it to the rail head for those smaller trucks to pick up. Like I stated, you can forget about getting products you order online in a timely manner you are accustomed to now.
And all of just about everything you buy will increase substantially in price. Ever heard of "just in time". All auto producers live by it. It saves substantial costs in warehousing. Stuff arrives within a 30 minute window of the plant needing it. it goes right from the truck to the assembly line. And at the other end? They make the product as the auto OEM needs it. It is very common to pick up product coming right off of manufacturing and taking it 500 miles to a plant, with a 15 min either side of a set appointment time for it to go right onto the assembly line. It is one thing to have rail haul the finished cars, it is quite another to have them bring in the components from a hundred different suppliers on time. This has saved millions of dollars of warehousing space at each plant. It is so refined, that if a truck is late, they have a small buffer, but if the plant has to stop the assembly, it costs well over $100,000 dollars an hour in lost productivity.
And automotive is only one area that JIT is the norm. It is spread out across the entire manufacturing spectrum in the U.S. And you can also lay some of the blame for this on the government regulatory climate that forces plants to rely on more of this. And it is common knowledge, that just in food and other essentials, a 24 hr delay can be critical, a 48 hr delay is almost unthinkable, a 72 hr delay of essential goods would lead to rioting in the streets.
And you will have to give up that order from 1-800 flowers or Sherri's Berries for the wife on one of those special days. It just isn't going to get there unless flown by plane since all the long haul trucks would be off the road. And there just isn't enough aircraft in America to pick up the slack of thousands and thousands of trucks the would be sidelined
There are presently over 5 million trucks in America daily delivering all of your goodies. Sure, let's shut them down. You have no idea of the disruption and life changing results. There isn't enough rail to pick up much of any of it. 80% of all freight moved in this country moves by truck. Rail is close to tapped out. You would have to have the equivalent of the Berlin Airlift going on through the entire country. Not even remotely a reality.
Nobody's saying that long haul trucking should go away completely, but it could certainly be vastly reduced...with some expanding to our nation's railways we could ship 70-80% of the stuff now being shipped via truck by rail...and it would be cheaper as rail moves far more tonage per gallon of diesel fuel than do semis...I'd live with the extra 2-3 days shipping time if it means a drastic reduction of semis on our roadways...
Latest industry projections thru 2024. Trucking will increase it's percentage of freight volume from 80% to 82%. Rail will increase also in volume, but lose in terms of percentage.
I know it sounds nice and fuzzy to think of rail doing the bulk of things, but rail has its own unique problems. And is more expensive in many ways. There are substantial subsidies to rail that keep them going as it is now. Check with Dept of Transportation for the numbers. The average truck, by itself, pays more in taxes than many in America even make in a year. The average truck pays approximately $20,000 a year just is various taxes. On a per gallon basis, as per the commercials run on TV say, rail claims they can move 1 ton of freight 500 miles on 1 gallon of fuel. Using the same formula, a commercial truck, at 80,000 lb, can move 1 ton 127 miles on one gallon of fuel. But the costs other than fuel factored in, rail's advantage gap grows considerably smaller. Cost of equipment, infrastructure, and the associated maintenance on a per mile cost is substantially more than commercial trucking.
So, rail can't seem to make it without government assistance. Trucking pays hefty chunks of money to the government. Now, let's reduce the number of trucks to a trickle, and increase the volume of rail. Increase the burden on the taxpayer while reducing the revenue to the government coffers.
And it would be an interesting situation to get rail into every Walmart supercenter. Some of those locations, it is not exactly peaches and cream to get a truck in. And all that rail going thru residential areas blowing horns at all hours. That will really make the folks happy. Oh, we must not wake the folks up, so night time delivery is out because of the noise, so rail will only deliver in the daytime. And folks think the rush hours are bad now! Just think of myriads more railroad crossings and the tie ups. And you are really going to win a lot of folks over when they watch their property values drop because of increased rail in their areas.
The logistics has been worked out over the years, and the most efficient method of getting products where they need to be in both time and cost, is the way we have it set up now. Sure, it could be tweaked further, and there are those whose sole goal in life is to do that.
I know it sounds nice and fuzzy to think of rail doing the bulk of things, but rail has its own unique problems. And is more expensive in many ways. There are substantial subsidies to rail that keep them going as it is now. Check with Dept of Transportation for the numbers. The average truck, by itself, pays more in taxes than many in America even make in a year. The average truck pays approximately $20,000 a year just is various taxes. On a per gallon basis, as per the commercials run on TV say, rail claims they can move 1 ton of freight 500 miles on 1 gallon of fuel. Using the same formula, a commercial truck, at 80,000 lb, can move 1 ton 127 miles on one gallon of fuel. But the costs other than fuel factored in, rail's advantage gap grows considerably smaller. Cost of equipment, infrastructure, and the associated maintenance on a per mile cost is substantially more than commercial trucking.
So, rail can't seem to make it without government assistance. Trucking pays hefty chunks of money to the government. Now, let's reduce the number of trucks to a trickle, and increase the volume of rail. Increase the burden on the taxpayer while reducing the revenue to the government coffers.
And it would be an interesting situation to get rail into every Walmart supercenter. Some of those locations, it is not exactly peaches and cream to get a truck in. And all that rail going thru residential areas blowing horns at all hours. That will really make the folks happy. Oh, we must not wake the folks up, so night time delivery is out because of the noise, so rail will only deliver in the daytime. And folks think the rush hours are bad now! Just think of myriads more railroad crossings and the tie ups. And you are really going to win a lot of folks over when they watch their property values drop because of increased rail in their areas.
The logistics has been worked out over the years, and the most efficient method of getting products where they need to be in both time and cost, is the way we have it set up now. Sure, it could be tweaked further, and there are those whose sole goal in life is to do that.
Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
And it would be an interesting situation to get rail into every Walmart supercenter. Some of those locations, it is not exactly peaches and cream to get a truck in.
Not all, just some. I can think of 2 local locations where rail lines are already very close.
And it would be an interesting situation to get rail into every Walmart supercenter. Some of those locations, it is not exactly peaches and cream to get a truck in.
Not all, just some. I can think of 2 local locations where rail lines are already very close.
People don't think, if you go back to rail transport before trucks, well all you have to do is look at 100 years ago.
Rural areas are going to be screwed you just won't get anything unless you drive hundreds of miles to a city around a train hub. However rural towns around train stations will benefit.
So all you guys in the midwest and west, have fun driving a few hundred miles to a Walmart at a rail head to get some bread. Oh and no they won't build a spur out to your little 15k pop town, not enough people to support it financially.
Those of us on the east coast won't really notice a difference since we were set up long before OTR trucking became a reality. Most population centers here are already around ports, harbors, or train lines.
Rural areas are going to be screwed you just won't get anything unless you drive hundreds of miles to a city around a train hub. However rural towns around train stations will benefit.
So all you guys in the midwest and west, have fun driving a few hundred miles to a Walmart at a rail head to get some bread. Oh and no they won't build a spur out to your little 15k pop town, not enough people to support it financially.
Those of us on the east coast won't really notice a difference since we were set up long before OTR trucking became a reality. Most population centers here are already around ports, harbors, or train lines.
Last edited:
MolaKule
Staff member
I had to go a recent trip and too saw a lot of retreads on the highway.
Now my SUV's don't care but the Ford Fusion doesn't like them.
Now my SUV's don't care but the Ford Fusion doesn't like them.
Originally Posted By: MolaKule
I had to go a recent trip and too saw a lot of retreads on the highway.
Now my SUV's don't care but the Ford Fusion doesn't like them.
you saw treads but unless you stopped and looked at them you don't know if they were virgin tires , retreads or recaps.
Having that many tires and traveling 1000+ miles a day is a recipe for tire problems on Both new and old tires.
I had to go a recent trip and too saw a lot of retreads on the highway.
Now my SUV's don't care but the Ford Fusion doesn't like them.
you saw treads but unless you stopped and looked at them you don't know if they were virgin tires , retreads or recaps.
Having that many tires and traveling 1000+ miles a day is a recipe for tire problems on Both new and old tires.
Near me there is a Walmart the parking lot of which is bounded ont he east by the Amtrack main line. There is a new commuter rail station there, but NO freight siding.
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Originally Posted By: MolaKule
I had to go a recent trip and too saw a lot of retreads on the highway.
Now my SUV's don't care but the Ford Fusion doesn't like them.
you saw treads but unless you stopped and looked at them you don't know if they were virgin tires , retreads or recaps.
Having that many tires and traveling 1000+ miles a day is a recipe for tire problems on Both new and old tires.
In fact, if there were belts sticking out then it was a casing failure.
Originally Posted By: MolaKule
I had to go a recent trip and too saw a lot of retreads on the highway.
Now my SUV's don't care but the Ford Fusion doesn't like them.
you saw treads but unless you stopped and looked at them you don't know if they were virgin tires , retreads or recaps.
Having that many tires and traveling 1000+ miles a day is a recipe for tire problems on Both new and old tires.
In fact, if there were belts sticking out then it was a casing failure.
Road gators. Hitting them at 80mph on a Harley sucks. Actually cut into my calf through my chaps. I avoid them at all costs now.
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Road gators. Hitting them at 80mph on a Harley sucks. Actually cut into my calf through my chaps. I avoid them at all costs now.
If you didn't avoid them at all cost before you hit the first one, maybe the tires aren't the problem in this situation.
Road gators. Hitting them at 80mph on a Harley sucks. Actually cut into my calf through my chaps. I avoid them at all costs now.
If you didn't avoid them at all cost before you hit the first one, maybe the tires aren't the problem in this situation.
Originally Posted By: whip
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Road gators. Hitting them at 80mph on a Harley sucks. Actually cut into my calf through my chaps. I avoid them at all costs now.
If you didn't avoid them at all cost before you hit the first one, maybe the tires aren't the problem in this situation.
My thoughts exactly.
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Road gators. Hitting them at 80mph on a Harley sucks. Actually cut into my calf through my chaps. I avoid them at all costs now.
If you didn't avoid them at all cost before you hit the first one, maybe the tires aren't the problem in this situation.
My thoughts exactly.
Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Fleetmon
tom slick and Chris142 have it correct....most times the 'gators are from virgin tires that have been damaged in some manner....road hazard, run low on air, curbed, etc. Recaps typically come apart in small sections.
Not an excuse. Truckers know when a tire goes out, and should be on the hook for getting it out of the roadway.
How would they know? Rear of the trailer has (typically) 8 tires; if one goes on the inside...?
Time to mandate TPMS for truckers then? Cars are now required for safety of the occupants; but trucks, which aren't even "private" vehicles could be construed as causing danger to others by these explosive events.
Now the TPMS thing is a solid idea. There is a few of us that have already jumped on the TPMS bandwagon. It is not as simple to implement it on a commercial truck as it is the typical auto or pickup. Especially the distance between tractor and trailer wheels, and the amount of drop and hook that goes on. Each wheel has to be programmed into the TPMS main unit. If it became a mandate, then the technology would catch up pretty quickly to implement it better than at the present.
For the individual truck owner, it is a simpler thing to do. For a fleet, it is a lot more problematic. Not so if only the tractor we are talking about, but in combination with trailers, it becomes exponentially more difficult. And you have to also have drivers behind the wheel that actually give a rip.
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Fleetmon
tom slick and Chris142 have it correct....most times the 'gators are from virgin tires that have been damaged in some manner....road hazard, run low on air, curbed, etc. Recaps typically come apart in small sections.
Not an excuse. Truckers know when a tire goes out, and should be on the hook for getting it out of the roadway.
How would they know? Rear of the trailer has (typically) 8 tires; if one goes on the inside...?
Time to mandate TPMS for truckers then? Cars are now required for safety of the occupants; but trucks, which aren't even "private" vehicles could be construed as causing danger to others by these explosive events.
Now the TPMS thing is a solid idea. There is a few of us that have already jumped on the TPMS bandwagon. It is not as simple to implement it on a commercial truck as it is the typical auto or pickup. Especially the distance between tractor and trailer wheels, and the amount of drop and hook that goes on. Each wheel has to be programmed into the TPMS main unit. If it became a mandate, then the technology would catch up pretty quickly to implement it better than at the present.
For the individual truck owner, it is a simpler thing to do. For a fleet, it is a lot more problematic. Not so if only the tractor we are talking about, but in combination with trailers, it becomes exponentially more difficult. And you have to also have drivers behind the wheel that actually give a rip.
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Do you REALLY think all the NIMBY people would tolerate a freight terminal anywhere nearby?!?! No, perish the thought!
Folks around here were flipping out because they wanted to run like 3 more trains through town a day. Sure they hate trucks too. The only thing they do like is cheap stuff from China.
Do you REALLY think all the NIMBY people would tolerate a freight terminal anywhere nearby?!?! No, perish the thought!
Folks around here were flipping out because they wanted to run like 3 more trains through town a day. Sure they hate trucks too. The only thing they do like is cheap stuff from China.
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