palallin posted:mlaughlinnyc posted:First in regard to cost. Sheer cost reduction is never the objective.
In all too many cases--not only RRing, necessarily, but across the board--it most certainly is. Quite a few organizations have reduced their costs to the point that they could not do business, and they no longer do.
While they may go a long way to cut costs, cost reduction is never a business objective. Any business manager with half a brain knows you can't save your way to prosperity. But when you're running out of money, there is no alternative.
Dominic Mazoch posted:There was a time EHH was on a biz train on the ex-ATSF transcon. He thought those 60+ mph trains should slow down to at most 50.
I was not thinking of NYC. But I have read there were some test trains over that road.
I am surprised Brown has not asked for a true coast to coast train. It would even bypass the Willow Springs sorting facility. Train runs through witout bteakup between western and eastern carrier. Or are there fewer hot containers than I thought.
The speed thing is another area in which I've run the numbers. The problem is that the energy needed to overcome wind resistance increases with the square of the speed. The increase in energy to overcome wind resistance at 60 mph rather than 45 is 78%. I've seen from train performance calculators that wind resistance is about half of the total at 60 mph. So you save 36% of the fuel by making that fuel reduction. And that is why many railroads made that speed reduction for intermodal trains when fuel casts skyrocketed.
