Railroaders' Nostalgia > Red Dog Ore

Re: Mad Dog Chronicle #304, Where do we go from here?
rob_l Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TAW Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > BN marketing had a (truly) brilliant idea of
> > getting a backhaul between the coast and
> > Spokane-Nelson BC hauling Red Dog ore from
> > Vancouver to Nelson in wood chip cars. Other
> than
> > the horrible operations planning that
> ultimately
> > killed the service, it was a really good idea.
> > Full tonnage in a wood chip car was only four
> or
> > so inches deep. When the service first started,
> > somebody in Vancouver looked at the amount,
> > decided that the car couldn't possibly be full
> and
> > continued pouring ore into the car until at
> about
> > six inches of ore evenly distributed...the
> center
> > sill broke.
> >
>
> Umm, I believe BNSF still has this move. At some
> point, the great,idea of backhauls in chip racks
> was replaced by covered gondolas with no
> backhaul.
>
> I am not questioning your assessment of BN
> operations planning, but CP's service,and rates
> were,even worse, which is why BN got the move in
> the first place and managed to hang on to the
> traffic despite its operations.
>
> Sorry to digress off the thread.

I moved it to a separate one.

I described the Red Dog Ore debacle in Managing Railroad Transportation as a nonspecific example.

At the time, I was assigned to service design (or actually, what would become service design) and strategic planning, but working in Seattle. I was assigned to this work by folks in Fort Worth, which my local bosses in my role as train dispatcher did not like at all. I spent five years in this limbo.

I was required by the local boss to attend the morning conference call, but only to listen and say nothing. I dutifully sat at the conference table every morning and listened to every day being a completely discrete event. The empties went to Vancouver. The appearance of the loads was a surprise. The loads left Vancouver after sufficient power showed up. Their appearance at Everett was a surprise. The loads left Everett after sufficient power showed up. The power was lined up to cut all but two at Wenatchee because 600 typically had a light train out of Wenatchee. Without enough power, the ore was reduced at Wenatchee. The next morning, surprise! there's an ore train at Wenatchee. The same thing happened at Spokane. The wood products folks started complaining loudly about a wood chip car shortage.

About the time that I was assigned to the TSS system tour, cutting in the Santa Fe TSS Information System in BN terminals, the wood chip moves stopped. Not being involved, I thought the business went away.

And CP was worse?!

TAW

As WAF notes, the move stayed on the BN and is still on BNSF to this day. However, the attempt at a two-way haul in wood chip gondolas was abandoned, perhaps for the reasons you cite and possibly for other reasons as well. A dedicated fleet of covered gondolas was assigned to cover the move that remains to this day. Also, at some point the loads stopped moving via Wenatchee and were re-routed via Wishram and Pasco.

From Waneta on the border, the ore is trans-loaded to trucks and trucked to the huge smelter at Trail. Yet BN and BNSF won and retained the business compared to direct rail service via CP from North Vancouver to Trail (albeit with its circuitous routing via Golden and Cranbrook).

Best regards,

Rob L.

Curious that CP can't (won't?) offer a more competitive rate on this traffic. It's still got to be a shorter haul via Golden & Cranbrook than going through Pasco, and the rail to road transfer can't be cheap either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/15 02:42 by DPKrause.