Western Railroad Discussion > Stack and Intermodal Loadings

Can someone please explain why stack trains frequently have single containers as well as double stacks?  Who determines how they are loaded?  Same question for intermodal trailers.  For example, why are there single UPS "shorts" on some cars and doubles on another?  Curious minds (at least mine) would like to know.  TIA

Kent in CArmel Valley

One word--'WEIGHT'. Sometimes containers are too heavy to be doublestacked like containers full of grain or manhole covers. As for the 28ft. Pup trailers, not all spine cars have the double 5th hitch to load 2 pup's on one platform.

Posted from Android

It all comes down to two questions: 'What has to be sent out on this train?' and 'what do we have to send it out on?'

Intermodal railroading is a giant juggling act.  Sometimes there's more incoming loads to a ramp and not enough chassis to put them on.  Other times, there's too many loads to go out on the train and not enough train to send them out on.  Throw in that some shippers such as Schnieder have their own 'private pool' of chassis to be used only for Schnieder loads makes the chassis/container games even more interesting.

Then you get down to what kind of equipment is on the two tracks that are to be sent out as train X12345.  Double stacking can only occur in bucket cars (well cars) designed for double stacking.  One cannot stack 2 containers on a hitch (spine) car or even a flat car as the total height would far exceed the 20' 2" maximum height allowed for double stacks.  Also, on most of the trains, the types of cars seem to be somewhat randomly mixed rather than all hitch cars together then all bucket cars behind that.  Fortunately, most, if not all, hitch cars have 4 'latches' on each platform to handle a container instead of a trailer on its fifth wheel ('hitch').  So, if there's 50 buckets available to double stack 100 containers, and another 20 hitches but only 10 trailers to go out on them, then 10 containers may end up on  hitch cars after dropping the 5th wheel to lay flat.  Similarly, SOME of the single bucket cars have hitches built in to the ends allowing a 53' trailer to be placed carefully inside the bucket.  Now throw in that there are 40', 48' and 53' containers and buckets and trailers varying in length from 28' to 53'.  Hitch cars generally come in 48' and 53' varieties only and some 53' hitch cars can accomodate a single 56' trailer or two 28' UPS pups back to back with a hitch on each end.

Now throw in the priorities of what goes out on a particular train.  While at CSX Intermodal, our priorities in loading were: UPS loads, Schnieder Loads, all other loads, UPS repos (paid private owner empties), Schnieder repos, all other repos, empty pool containers such as CSXUs and UMXUs.  It was daily 'dictated' from Jacksonville HQ a minimum and maximum number of empties we HAD to send in each destination block.  But empties ONLY went out if there was space on the train!  I personally witnessed well over 100 empty containers stacked 3 high in our yard as there was no place to put them on outbound trains and/or no ramp 'wanted' X number of empties.  I've also had to deal with more loads than we had train to send them out on.  So the extras waited for the next train, as did repos and empties.  And the train after that, and so on.

So, why isn't every spot filled on an intermodal train?  The obvious answer is that there wasn't enough to 'send' to fill every spot.  We HAD to clear a number of tracks to be able to handle the next inbound train.  So we were sometimes forced to send empty cars to get rid of them.  Other times, we were requested/commanded to send X number of hitches or bucket cars out, loaded or empty.  We even sent out loaded containers on their chassis when needed as the only space available was on a hitch car.  In one case, we sent out a UPS container on a chassis as UPS had to replace the brake lines on the chassis and routed the new lines along the side of the container using sheet metal screws and metal straps to fasten it to the side of the container!  They had no choice to make the quick fix and we had no choice but to get it out on the train less than an hour later.

Remember the mixed bag of hitch car and bucket sizes?  We can't put a 53' container in a 40' bucket, nor could we put a 53' trailer on a 48' hitch car, so they'd have to travel empty/bare.  Wanna bet???  SOME 48 hitch cars had their hitches positioned such that we could put three 53' trailers on a five-pack 48' hitch car.  The front ends of the trailers would overhang well into the territory of the adjacent bare hitch. 

And one more thing.  When there is not enough containers to completely fill a car, there are certain rules about which positions could be left empty.  Generally, the end positions must be filled and the middle of a 5 pack.  Also, as noted in a response above, heavier containers must be on the bottom.  But in my experience, it was sometimes possible to 'trick' the computer into allowing an extra 2-3,000 pound heavier container on the top...but loads could NEVER be put on top of an empty.   



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/19 20:03 by BRAtkinson.

BRAtkinson, thanks for taking the time to type out a detailed reply!  Always a lot of good info in your real world replies!  Seems very inefficient if you're watching from an ivory tower.  Did they ever come out to the ramp and try to tell you how to load trains?

mapboy

Another factor is intermodal trains are often made of multiple blocks to be dropped and swapped enroute. Often the number of trailers and containers doesn't match the number of "spots" available on the railroad cars, leaving open spots at various points in the train.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Anyone know if they're sizing a train to it's backhaul? Instead of running all double stacks from the port and then running empty cars, they'll just right size the train at the port.

mapboy Wrote:
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> BRAtkinson, thanks for taking the time to type out a detailed reply!  Always a lot of good info in your real world replies!  Seems very inefficient
> if you're watching from an ivory tower.  Did they ever come out to the ramp and try to tell you how to load trains?

One of the interesting aspects of railroading is watching management and labor disagree on how a job should be done.  Perhaps my favorite was when we got a new ramp manager a year plus out of college after he spent a year dispatching CSX Trucking drivers what loads are next and where to take them, etc.  He was a bright kid, (23-24ish) from Savannah GA and eager to learn.  In his first few months at the ramp, he tried multiple times to explain to the manager of the contract company that did all the loading and unloading of the trains how things should be done.  Thing was, the manager had been a yard jockey for well over 30 years at various ramps and RRs before finally being promoted to the manager position.  He KNEW what worked and what didn't as well as how to do it quickly vs not so fast.  He finally 'won over' the college kid with real world results.  Fortunately, the young manager would spend several hours a day in the company truck out in the yard simply watching and listening on the radio the 'ballet' of a very experienced packer (stacker) operator and 3 or 4 yard experienced yard jockeys that knew what to do and be in the right spot at the right time either with an empty chassis waiting to back under a load just plucked from the train or hooked to a chassis with a box on top and ready to pull away once the box had been plucked off and put ont the train.  

Perhaps the West Springfield ramp where I worked was an anomaly in that while I was there, and in all the years prior, given a list of trailers and containers to go out on each block of an outbound train, they'd "make it so" with no help from the office & gate crew.  All we had to do after they finished loading was come out with a 'blank' train diagram and write the ID of every trailer and container (and chassis, if present) on the form in the right position of each car, enter it in the computer, print out the finished train, and give it back to them to verify everything was entered correctly.  More than a couple of times they caught where I transposed a couple of digits on container numbers and as the 'real' one and the 'wrong' one were both in the yard at the time, the computer allowed it.  They also discovered they had done the same thing a number of times when a yard jockey grabbed the wrong container and it got put on the train.  That's why we always verified everything in and out.

But about 2 years after I retired, they installed the new intermodal ramp software and now it's all GUI interface with pretty colored boxes denoting car types, trailer and container types, and just about everything else.  Now, the yard jockeys are not to think for themselves, but follow the predetermined (by the 'programmer' in the office) loading diagram for each hitch and bucket.  Likewise, the 'programmer' has to follow the rules on 'loading' in the computer each of the units to go out on the train.  Big Brother is looking over their shoulder.  One of the big negatives about the 'new way' to do things is that all the empties to be loaded are always in perfect ascending number sequence of what's available!  The problem is that the next empty to be spotted is in the furthest away parking spot, and the one after that parked on the 'far side' of the shop after its chassis had been repaired necessitating a longer trip for the yard jockey to get that container.  It used to be we'd give them a list of empties and they'd take the first one they'd find as they drove further and further away 'hunting' for an empty. 

But by taking the lowest numbered empties first they cause 'dwell time' problems.  After a container or trailer - doesn't matter if it's loaded or empty - sits in our yard for more than 48 hours or so, our manager gets excess dwell time reports by unit number and then we have to get those out on the next train come hell or high water just to 'make the numbers look good'.  Even rail cars were subject to dwell time reports if they didn't get out of our yard in 2-3 days, so we could 'save' cars 'off site' for when we might need them.  The times we'd have a string of cars pulled and put off site (in the RR side of the yard), we'd get calls after a day or so telling us we're jamming up HIS yard! 

It should be noted that loads waiting to go out the gate start getting charged 'storage fees' after 48 hours.  I recall it was something like $55/day after 2 days and $110/day after 10 days.  And the computer would not permit the load out the gate until the storage fees were paid.  From the time the trucker called his dispatcher telling them about the fees and our computer notified it's paid was anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours and even longer if it was 3rd shift, and the trucker had no choice but to sit and wait, making zero dollars while doing so.  We'd send them to the 'penalty box' to wait.  We sent drivers that arrived with loads that were not yet billed in the computer to the penalty box as well to wait for billing.  Some of the rookie drivers, when sent to the penalty box didn't understand why they needed billing.  I told them that if we had unbilled loads in our yard, CSX would call the scrapper across the street (and yes, there was/is a small scrapper there!) and tell him to come and get them! 

I recall one Sunday he came over with his 'big jaws' in place of the clamshell on his tank-tracked power shovel to cut up and remove 4-5 chassis that were to be scrapped.  We compared lists to ensure he had the right numbers and told him we had them conveniently parked near the gate.  He made several trips with 'chopped chassis' in the jaws to the back of his shop where he cut them up further.  He also did building demolition as well, and demo'd the 3 story brick building next to the ramp after a tornado had partially damaged it.  We all knew it was a Russian 'chop shop' where expensive cars go in but don't come out...or come out with different colors and sent overseas we suspected.  He told us that while taking it down, he discovered the 2nd floor was a bar and the 3rd floor was a house of ill repute.  We never knew.... 

BRAtkinson posting good stuff, he knows the intermodal operations business,

gmojim