Western Railroad Discussion > Cajon Question Number 1

I spent parts of two days on Cajon last month, mostly in the area around Hill 582.  That led to a couple of questions that I hope people can answer or point me in the right direction.  This is the first one.

In this part of Cajon, as well as the trains on the tracks, there's a good view of both directions of I-15.  The attached picture, taken of what I think is a PDWC on the old SP Colton cutoff just west of the BNSF CP Walker, shows the freeway above the train with the eastbound lanes directly above and the westbound higher up.  As you can see, there's a steady stream of trucks in both directions.  That led me to wonder if the freeway carries more container (or truck-load) traffic than do the railroads.  There are, of course, lots of double stack trains going through Cajon, but they can't fill all if the tracks all of the time.  I simply wonder if the total number of containers that they carry is greater than the total number of containers that the trucks haul, treating one truckload as equal to one container (I'm curious about numbers, not total tonnage) and, if so, by how much.  Is there any way to get this information?  As I'm not interested in tonnage, manifest trains, ethanol trains, grain trains, and the like aren't part of the calculation--it's simply containers on the freeway versus containers on the rails.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/22 10:49 by BobB.

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I would say that the majority of the containers you see on trucks in this picture are short haul. Headed to or coming from a customer somewhere on the high desert or in the inland empire vicvinty, whereas the containers that would be traversing the rails here would be the long-hauls, either domestic or marine. Not to say that one or more of those e/b trucks isn't taking something to Las Vegas or similar medium haul distance. May not give you the exact answer you  are looking for. 

KC

That's a tough question to answer.

If you're talking about containers being hauled by trucks through the pass vs containers on trains, I would say that more move by rail.

If you are counting every truck that goes through the pass vs containers, there are probably more trucks vs containers. The problem with that comparison is the total truck count won't approach the number of truck loads hauled by the railroads through the pass.


The following is from the CHP San Bernardino office webpage. It's just a point of reference in terms of the traffic numbers on the pass.

"An average of 160,000 vehicles travel on Interstate 15 on any given day"

Posted from Android

thatguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The following is from the CHP San Bernardino
> office webpage. It's just a point of reference in
> terms of the traffic numbers on the pass.
>
> "An average of 160,000 vehicles travel on
> Interstate 15 on any given day"

The Caltrans Traffic Census data shows 142,000 vehicles on the segment of Interstate 15 immediately south of the US 395 interchange.  This is the closest measuring point to the photo posted and should be fairly close.  (NOTE:  The 160,000 is accurate, its higher further south on I-15.  Its actually approaches 200,000 near the State Route 60/Interstate 15 interchange)  Five-axle truck traffic equals around 13,000 per day or 6,500 each way.  If an average BNSF intermodal is around 8,000 feet, that would be approximately 40 three-well cars (there 204 foot long).  So times 40 by 6 containers and that gets your 240 containers per train.  So, doing the math you would need about 28 intermodal trains a day in one direction or 56 intermodal trains total to match the highway truck traffic.  Given the train traffic volumes on Cajon and the fact both UP and BNSF now run trains longer than 8,000 feet.  I would say the two are probably closely matched.  I imagine some of the containers and trailers seen on the pass have ridden a train into the LA Basin (either over Cajon or Beaumont) before going up the pass and vice versa.  Of course, the high volume of international containers also must be taken into account.  You can get about 300 per 8,000 foot of train (265 foot five-wel cars hold 10 containers).  So, yes I would say the railroad and Interstate 15 are closely matched.

Thanks for taking the time to provide these statistics.  This is the kind of information I was hoping to get.  I have never counted the intermodal trains I've seen on Cajon, but I know that I've seen a lot of them--just as I've seen a lot of trucks on I-15.

BNSF6400 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> thatguy Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The following is from the CHP San Bernardino
> > office webpage. It's just a point of reference
> in
> > terms of the traffic numbers on the pass.
> >
> > "An average of 160,000 vehicles travel on
> > Interstate 15 on any given day"
>
> The Caltrans Traffic Census data shows 142,000
> vehicles on the segment of Interstate 15
> immediately south of the US 395 interchange. 
> This is the closest measuring point to the photo
> posted and should be fairly close.  (NOTE:  The
> 160,000 is accurate, its higher further south on
> I-15.  Its actually approaches 200,000 near the
> State Route 60/Interstate 15 interchange) 
> Five-axle truck traffic equals around 13,000 per
> day or 6,500 each way.  If an average BNSF
> intermodal is around 8,000 feet, that would be
> approximately 40 three-well cars (there 204 foot
> long).  So times 40 by 6 containers and that gets
> your 240 containers per train.  So, doing the
> math you would need about 28 intermodal trains a
> day in one direction or 56 intermodal trains total
> to match the highway truck traffic.  Given the
> train traffic volumes on Cajon and the fact both
> UP and BNSF now run trains longer than 8,000
> feet.  I would say the two are probably closely
> matched.  I imagine some of the containers and
> trailers seen on the pass have ridden a train into
> the LA Basin (either over Cajon or Beaumont)
> before going up the pass and vice versa.  Of
> course, the high volume of international
> containers also must be taken into account.  You
> can get about 300 per 8,000 foot of train (265
> foot five-wel cars hold 10 containers).  So, yes
> I would say the railroad and Interstate 15 are
> closely matched.