# CSX TV Commercial



## WhoozOn1st

CSX currently has an ad running in which it claims to be able to move 1 ton of freight 423 miles on 1 gallon of fuel. Now I wasn't exactly a math major, so I'm wondering if anybody knows how they arrived at this figure. I'm aware of ton miles, but would that claim include all phases of running, or just once the train is up to speed, or what? Also, it would seem the claim must be based on a certain rate of fuel consumption, so which type of locomotive(s) pulling how many tons at what speed, etc.?

Get out your slide rules :lol: and gimme some help here, folks!


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## Loqutious

WhoozOn1st999 said:


> CSX currently has an ad running in which it claims to be able to move 1 ton of freight 423 miles on 1 gallon of fuel. Now I wasn't exactly a math major, so I'm wondering if anybody knows how they arrived at this figure. I'm aware of ton miles, but would that claim include all phases of running, or just once the train is up to speed, or what? Also, it would seem the claim must be based on a certain rate of fuel consumption, so which type of locomotive(s) pulling how many tons at what speed, etc.?
> Get out your slide rules :lol: and gimme some help here, folks!


I was also skeptical about their claims and I looked up some facts related to modern train fuel economy and I found this chart at

http://www.alkrug.vcn.com/rrfacts/fueluse.htm. I don't know how their claims can be true (perhaps they mean down hill).


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## AmtrakWPK

Assuming a relatively flat path, how many tons of freight can an SD70MAC pull? If we assume an average throttle position of 6 that's what - 130 gallons per hour? If we figure a speed of 40 mph, that's roughly ten and a half hours. So can an SD70MAC pull 1375 tons? I have no idea.


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## Green Maned Lion

Well lets assume a double stacker car weighs 5 tons on its own, and that the average container weighs 40 tons. So each car weighs 45 tons. So the question is, can an SD70MAC pull 30 cars?


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## WhoozOn1st

The question is not how many cars a locomotive can pull. Sorry, GML. The question is how much fuel does it take to move a given weight a certain distance. I'm guessing the answer - whatever it is - may differ not only by locomotive type, but also by such factors as ruling grade on a route. Mr. Harris?


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## WhoozOn1st

Okay, I finally broke down and asked CSX directly. Talk about jumping through hoops!

Now taking bets. Current line:

Response from CSX - 100-1

Straight answer - Not enough zeroes to 1.


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## PRR 60

The claim on the CSX commerical is accurate and can be supported by operational data reported by CSX on their most recent SEC Form 8K filed 1/22/08.

From the 4th Quarter 2007 report, CSX moved 253 billion revenue ton-miles of goods in the 12 months ending 12/31/07. In that same period CSX operations consumed 569 million gallons of diesel #2 fuel. Taking the net ton-miles and dividing by the fuel consumed (253 billion / 569 million) you get 444 ton-miles per gallon of fuel. Stated another way, one gallon of fuel moved one ton 444 miles. That is pretty close to the 423 mile claim in the ad.

Data reported by other railroads is similar.


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## WhoozOn1st

PRR 60 said:


> The claim on the CSX commerical is accurate and can be supported by operational data reported by CSX on their most recent SEC Form 8K filed 1/22/08.
> From the 4th Quarter 2007 report, CSX moved 253 billion revenue ton-miles of goods in the 12 months ending 12/31/07. In that same period CSX operations consumed 569 million gallons of diesel #2 fuel. Taking the net ton-miles and dividing by the fuel consumed (253 billion / 569 million) you get 444 ton-miles per gallon of fuel. Stated another way, one gallon of fuel moved one ton 444 miles. That is pretty close to the 423 mile claim in the ad.
> 
> Data reported by other railroads is similar.


Thank you, PRR 60. While I never really questioned the numbers (not a math kinda guy), I appreciate you providing a sense of how they were arrived at, which was my question.


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## Crescent ATN & TCL

Now how about the same equation for Amtrak vs Airlines and Busses?, barring the NEC of course, kind of difficult to measure gallons of electricity.


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## Green Maned Lion

Let:

N = the number of tons an engine A can pull

X = the number of tons the average carload carries

Y = the weight of Z number of cars

Z= the number of cars an engine can pull.

Then:

Z = N/(X+Y)

If For CSX's statement to work for A= SD70MAC, assuming Y/Z=5, and N/Z = 40, than:

Z > 30.


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## Steve B

PRR 60 said:


> The claim on the CSX commerical is accurate and can be supported by operational data reported by CSX on their most recent SEC Form 8K filed 1/22/08.
> From the 4th Quarter 2007 report, CSX moved 253 billion revenue ton-miles of goods in the 12 months ending 12/31/07. In that same period CSX operations consumed 569 million gallons of diesel #2 fuel. Taking the net ton-miles and dividing by the fuel consumed (253 billion / 569 million) you get 444 ton-miles per gallon of fuel. Stated another way, one gallon of fuel moved one ton 444 miles. That is pretty close to the 423 mile claim in the ad.
> 
> Data reported by other railroads is similar.



Does anyone know if that number is for electric traction motors powered by batteries and generator driven by diesel engines only or would that be for all operations that I assume includes diesel traction engines too?

Regards,

Steve B


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## Green Maned Lion

All diesel locomotives are diesel-electrics, possibly with the exception of some smaller DMUs. A diesel engine is about torque. For example, Volvo's D16E660 makes approximately 640 bhp, but 2286 ft-lb of torque. Another example is the VW Passat 2.0 litre diesel from a few years back, which made 136 hp, but 248lb-ft of torque. For an equivlency, consider their base gas motor from the same car, a 1.8 litre turbocharged unit making 170bhp, and 166lb-ft of torque.

Amtrak's P42DC, for instance, makes 4,200 Bhp. I haven't found the torque figure, but it relative to the Volvo, it makes 15,000 lb-ft of torque, approximately. That kind of torque would bust the hell out of any kind of multi-geared transmission I can think of. Electric motors, on the other hand, because they are comfortable with spinning at pretty much any speed from 1 rpm to 13,000 RPM don't really need a transmission unless you want a combination of high top speed and quick acceleration, such as with the Tesla electric car.

So instead of transmitting the power to the wheels via a drive shaft, they use a generator to turn it into electricity. Then they transmit the electricity from the diesel engine to electric traction motors on each bogie or axle (not sure which), which then turn the electricity back into torque and motion. The electrical components merely serve as a transmission, if you will. There are some newer experiments using batteries to recapture electricity, but they wouldn't make much difference. Especially on a screamer engine like Amtrak's with HEP that requires the engine to turn at a constant rpm, and thus you don't save much due to lower loads on it.


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## WhoozOn1st

WhoozOn1st999 said:


> Okay, I finally broke down and asked CSX directly. Talk about jumping through hoops!
> Now taking bets. Current line:
> 
> Response from CSX - 100-1
> 
> Straight answer - Not enough zeroes to 1.


Holy moly, I actually received a snail mail response from CSX:

Thank you for your inquiry about our advertising.

Our ad states "trains can move a ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of fuel," and it is correct. The 423 is calculated by dividing the total tons hauled by a single freight train by the total gallons of fuel used. So, on a per mile, per ton basis, the amount of fuel needed is extremely low. In fact, it is so low that trains are between three and four times more fuel efficient than trucks.

So, even though it takes more than one gallon of fuel to power a train for 423 miles, the train actually uses less fuel than the more than 280 trucks it would take to haul the same amount of freight.

Thank you again for contacting us.

Sincerely,

TellCSX Team

-----

Condescending attitude aside - "...it takes more than one gallon of fuel to power a train for 423 miles..." - I think PRR 60's estimation is more satisfactory overall.


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## Green Maned Lion

Well, a lot of trains are double-stackers these days, right? Which means each car carries two trucks worth of 40-foot shipping containers. So that indicates the freights are 140 cars long. Are they that long? Wouldn't that make for quite a heavy whip effect?


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## Guest

It's intentionally deceptive advertising (isn't most?) I think a better question for CSX is, how much fuel is required to move that ton of freight the _first_ mile. Sure, if you get to average out over every mile they travel, then I am sure there numbers are accurate. Still, it's intended to make the viewer draw inaccurate conclusions.


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## Green Maned Lion

From what I read of their calculations, they actually were as un-deceptive as possible about it. Were you to remove the fuel taken for acceleration and only advertised the fuel taken to move the freight one mile while in motion, the number would have probably been higher. Excluding going up hill, it takes very little power to keep something like that moving- just enough to overcome wind resistance. The concept of inertia keeps it moving. Otherwise, it wouldn't take a mile to stop a speeding freight during an emergency brake.

I'm no fan of America's Broad Gauge (a name some railfans give CSX due to its abominable track maintenance) but in this case they were being completely honest.


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## AlanB

Guest said:


> It's intentionally deceptive advertising (isn't most?) I think a better question for CSX is, how much fuel is required to move that ton of freight the _first_ mile. Sure, if you get to average out over every mile they travel, then I am sure there numbers are accurate. Still, it's intended to make the viewer draw inaccurate conclusions.


It's only deceptive and inaccurate if they are comparing the average for CSX and comparing that number to the fuel consumed by the needed amount of trucks required to move the same freight for the first mile. Otherwise, if they are comparing the fuel for the train over say 100 miles vs the fuel for the fleet of trucks needed to move the same load over 100 miles, then it is a perfectly fair and accurate comparison.


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## not1word

This ad has been bothering me, too. Perhaps I'm missing something crucial, but even with everyone's calculations, all we've been talking about is freight tons and gallons consumed, with no mention of number of miles travelled. One can use all the abstruse formulas desired, but at the base is still the basic idea that X number of miles travelled divided by Y number of gallons of fuel consumed equals Z number of miles per gallon used. This is the mental thrust of the commercial which is aimed at the average listener. It has to be the presumed basis of the reasoning, the commercials being aired as they are, and, one hopes, the assumption that can be made of the average listener. Most people don't take too much time to figure in ton/miles, double stack train cars and rates of inertia while driving from the take out window to the next stop.

What is at the center of the ad is honesty. I don't believe that their locomotives are actually able to travel 423 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel. That would be a very simple thing to prove, by putting a gallon of diesel in a tank, and seeing if the engine is able to go 423 miles. My simple mined guess is that it would not (even without a full load on), but this is the mental picture being put forward by the ad. The reality gets even worse, since CSX is running this ad as some sort of proof of rail road's efficiency and environmental concern. Actually, rail road is less efficient than OTR trucking, since rail cars can only travel on restricted rail ways and can only pick up/drop off loads at centralized locations, often very far away from the actual final destination of the freight.

But then, that's just the view from where I'm sitting.


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## Trogdor

not1word said:


> This ad has been bothering me, too. Perhaps I'm missing something crucial, but even with everyone's calculations, all we've been talking about is freight tons and gallons consumed, with no mention of number of miles travelled. One can use all the abstruse formulas desired, but at the base is still the basic idea that X number of miles travelled divided by Y number of gallons of fuel consumed equals Z number of miles per gallon used. This is the mental thrust of the commercial which is aimed at the average listener. It has to be the presumed basis of the reasoning, the commercials being aired as they are, and, one hopes, the assumption that can be made of the average listener. Most people don't take too much time to figure in ton/miles, double stack train cars and rates of inertia while driving from the take out window to the next stop.
> What is at the center of the ad is honesty. I don't believe that their locomotives are actually able to travel 423 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel. That would be a very simple thing to prove, by putting a gallon of diesel in a tank, and seeing if the engine is able to go 423 miles. My simple mined guess is that it would not (even without a full load on), but this is the mental picture being put forward by the ad. The reality gets even worse, since CSX is running this ad as some sort of proof of rail road's efficiency and environmental concern. Actually, rail road is less efficient than OTR trucking, since rail cars can only travel on restricted rail ways and can only pick up/drop off loads at centralized locations, often very far away from the actual final destination of the freight.
> 
> But then, that's just the view from where I'm sitting.


It is no less honest to use ton-miles per gallon when calculating fuel efficiency of freight engines than to use cost/loss per passenger-mile when calculating the financial performance of a passenger train.

Using ton-miles (or passenger-miles, as the case may be) as the basis for calculation is really the only way to get a valid comparison when you want to consider all factors. You can't just say that the engines run at x miles per gallon. You have to do it in terms of the amount of freight that is moved. After all, CSX is in the business of moving freight, not engines. The simple, plain truth that the ad is trying to convey is that if you are trying to move a lot of stuff, you will do so on less fuel by rail than by truck. Whether you use ton-miles per gallon, or stone-furlongs per barrel, you have to consider the actual payload being moved when you want a true comparison. After all, a single-occupant SUV uses less total fuel than a 40-passenger bus, but if you wanted to move 40 people, the bus is the better way to do it.

I don't understand why this is the subject of so much debate.


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## Green Maned Lion

A Ford Excursion, getting 10 mpg, when loaded to its capacity of eight passengers, gets 80 passenger miles per gallon. Ton/miles per gallon is not a measure of consumption, but of efficiency.

I need to move 400 tons of (800,000 lbs) of stuff 423 miles. A a truck hauling 80,000 lbs gets about 4 miles to the gallon, IIRC last time I was looking at peterbilts. So to move that 400 tons, I need 10 trucks. So I am going to move these items .4 miles for every gallon consumed, so to travel the distance of 423 miles, I need to us 1057 gallons of diesel fuel. Alternatively, I can tack it onto the back of a freight train (CSX isn't all that much more efficient than its competitors, btw), and it will take 400 gallons. So this 18-wheeler moves one ton of freight 162 miles.

It ain't a ridiculous increase in efficiency, you understand. About 2.5 times. But its a big solid demonstration of the advantage of moving things in bulk.

To further the comparison, let us move these 400 tons of stuff via a Ford F350 with single rear wheels, which can carry 4000 lbs, or 2 tons worth of stuff. It gets around 10mpg fully loaded. To carry 400 tons, you need 200 F350s. It will take 42.3 gallons of fuel per truck to do the move, or a total of 8460 gallons of fuel. This F350 moves 1 ton of frieght 20 miles per gallon of fuel.

Its the best way to measure haulage efficiency of bulk freight. And in this regard, the railroad is clearly superior.


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## jackal

Getting away from the math for a second, I remember in my brakeman training for the Alaska Railroad that one of the instructors held up two sheets of 8.5x11 paper and said that the area of those two sheets is what a typical 18-wheeler has in contact with the ground at any given time. It's also the same amount of ground contact that a 100-car train has with the ground. (Each wheel has a ground contact area about half the size of a dime.)

That (less friction due to the strength of the steel versus the bending of rubber and compression of air), in combination with the less-severe grades usually found on railroads (3% is extreme for a railroad, versus 9% or whatever on some steep passes even on Interstates), is a big factor in the fuel efficiency of railroads versus OTR trucking.

Just thought I'd add these two cents.


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## Crescent ATN & TCL

That also has to be factored into acceleration, think how little surface area the wheels on the locomotive have, albeit traction is much more per surface area due to the much higher weight of a train. So acceleration on a train is less fuel efficient than a truck but fuel economy is overall much better. Especially when you consider that trucks change speeds much more than a train.


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## Green Maned Lion

I would think, pound for pound, it is more efficient, primarily because of the way diesel locomotives work.


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## Jack

Green Maned Lion said:


> A Ford Excursion, getting 10 mpg, when loaded to its capacity of eight passengers, gets 80 passenger miles per gallon. Ton/miles per gallon is not a measure of consumption, but of efficiency.
> I need to move 400 tons of (800,000 lbs) of stuff 423 miles. A a truck hauling 80,000 lbs gets about 4 miles to the gallon, IIRC last time I was looking at peterbilts. So to move that 400 tons, I need 10 trucks. So I am going to move these items .4 miles for every gallon consumed, so to travel the distance of 423 miles, I need to us 1057 gallons of diesel fuel. Alternatively, I can tack it onto the back of a freight train (CSX isn't all that much more efficient than its competitors, btw), and it will take 400 gallons. So this 18-wheeler moves one ton of freight 162 miles.
> 
> It ain't a ridiculous increase in efficiency, you understand. About 2.5 times. But its a big solid demonstration of the advantage of moving things in bulk.
> 
> To further the comparison, let us move these 400 tons of stuff via a Ford F350 with single rear wheels, which can carry 4000 lbs, or 2 tons worth of stuff. It gets around 10mpg fully loaded. To carry 400 tons, you need 200 F350s. It will take 42.3 gallons of fuel per truck to do the move, or a total of 8460 gallons of fuel. This F350 moves 1 ton of frieght 20 miles per gallon of fuel.
> 
> Its the best way to measure haulage efficiency of bulk freight. And in this regard, the railroad is clearly superior.


If it takes the truck one gallon to move itself ten miles, how can it move a ton of freight 20 miles with only one gallon?


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## Joel N. Weber II

Green Maned Lion said:


> Well lets assume a double stacker car weighs 5 tons on its own, and that the average container weighs 40 tons. So each car weighs 45 tons. So the question is, can an SD70MAC pull 30 cars?


Wouldn't a 5 ton frame plus a 40 ton container plus another 40 ton container sitting on top of that first 40 ton container weigh 95 tons?

But in practice, I think if you ever plan to put that container on a highway, the entire tractor trailer arrangement with all the wheels and the diesel, etc, needs to be no heavier than 40 tons, and that means the container itself needs to be somewhat less than 40 tons.

That probably hints a little at why articulated cars make sense for hauling double stack freight, too. I think the thing that _really_ matters in terms of what a piece of rail will tolerate is the weight on each axle. A typical railroad can deal just fine with 200,000 pounds or more for a typical car with a pair of trucks that have a pair of axles each, I believe. With an articulated arrangement with a double axle truck where each section meets the next section, you cut the allowable weight in half when compared with having individual cars because you basically have half as many trucks supporting the weight (half plus one, actually, but the plus one doesn't really matter for roughly estimating what can be carried). But basically, one rail car axle per maximum highway weight container works out fine, I think.

And I guess that probably also works out to 18 wheels on the highway being able to carry a bit less than one axle on a train.


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## Joel N. Weber II

Green Maned Lion said:


> All diesel locomotives are diesel-electrics, possibly with the exception of some smaller DMUs.


The only American built DMUs I can think of are the Budd RDC and the CRC products, neither of which are diesel-electric. (Some Budd RDCs could deal with third rail power into New York City, but AFAIK they still used the hydraulic transmission when the diesel was running.) I don't know much of anything about European DMUs in this regard.


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## George Harris

An SD70MAC can pull 30 cars, and on most of the railroad milage not work very hard to do it. A quick and dirty calculation says that 30 cars of 286,000 lbs should not be a problem on a 1% grade or less but somewhere around 15 cars would be about it on the 2.2% grade up to Donner Pass, or other grades of similar steepness. Maybe somebody has the tonnage ratings at hand and can tell us for sure. I do not.

The current limit for most railroads for a four axle car is 286,000 pounds on eight wheels (some allow as much as 315,000 lbs on four axles), so that, 286,000 lbs., is 35,750 lbs per wheel.

Some of the comments contain some errors in logic. We are talking *ton* miles, not *vehicle* miles. To use ton miles when talking freight or passenger miles when talking people is the only way to have meaningful comparisons.

To quote one: "If it takes the truck one gallon to move itself ten miles, how can it move a ton of freight 20 miles with only one gallon?" Answer: Because the truck weighs more than one ton. That is to say, if you have 10 tons on the truck and the rate of fuel consumption is such that you move 20 ton-miles per gallon of fuel, you have only moved the total load 2 miles. See the logic?

As someone said early on, the advertizement is based on total ton-miles hauled for the system divided by total fuel consumption of the system. This is the only realistic number to use for honest comparison, and it gives you a lower efficiency than if you took the net weight of freight on a train and divided it by the rate of fuel consumption for that train. Notice also that the values are based on net weight of freight, so the weight of the train and engines are not included in the calculation. Again, if the train weight were added, the numbers would look even better because the weight hauled would be larger.


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## Green Maned Lion

Jack said:


> If it takes the truck one gallon to move itself ten miles, how can it move a ton of freight 20 miles with only one gallon?


To simplify George's explanation, If the truck is carrying two tons, and it take it 2 gallons to go 20 miles , than it is moving 1 ton 20 miles for each gallon. (2/2=1) If the truck was half loaded, and it got 12 miles per gallon, than it would move one ton 20 miles on 1.6666 gallons.


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## Joel N. Weber II

George Harris said:


> As someone said early on, the advertizement is based on total ton-miles hauled for the system divided by total fuel consumption of the system. This is the only realistic number to use for honest comparison, and it gives you a lower efficiency than if you took the net weight of freight on a train and divided it by the rate of fuel consumption for that train. Notice also that the values are based on net weight of freight, so the weight of the train and engines are not included in the calculation. Again, if the train weight were added, the numbers would look even better because the weight hauled would be larger.


In the case of shipping containers, I can see three different ways you could count freight itself vs railroad overhead when computing the weight:

1) You could count just the weight of the contents of the shipping container, without counting the weight of the container itself. If the shipping container is full of UPS packages, this would reflect the total weight that UPS's customers thought was getting shipped.

2) You could count the container itself along with all of its contents, but not the frame with the trucks and brake system, etc. If you're trying to compare the efficiency of shipping a container by rail vs shipping that same container by highway or by boat, this might be a good measure to use.

3) If you're a railroad trying to send bills to both companies sending shipping containers like UPS, and to companies like automobile makers using autoracks or other cars that aren't carrying shipping containers, you probably just care about the total weight of the cars and where they're travelling, which in the case of the shipping containers means you need to include the railroad frame.

I would sort of expect CSX to be reporting numbers based on 3 in their annual reports, because I think that is the only metric that CSX actually needs to keep track of in order to accurately run its accounting system, assuming that CSX customers are free to choose any supplier of the rail frames for shipping containers.

(I'm also not sure if "rail frame" is really the right term to use here.)


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## jackal

Joel N. Weber II said:


> (I'm also not sure if "rail frame" is really the right term to use here.)


The word I would use is "railcar."


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## George Harris

Joel N. Weber II said:


> 3) If you're a railroad trying to send bills to both companies sending shipping containers like UPS, and to companies like automobile makers using autoracks or other cars that aren't carrying shipping containers, you probably just care about the total weight of the cars and where they're travelling, which in the case of the shipping containers means you need to include the railroad frame.


Unless things have changed recently and drastically, billing is not based on gross weight.

If you are hauling coal, for example, the bill is based on how much coal is in the car. That is why on every car you will see a stencil that includes the line LT WT. The number following is the empty weight of the car. So, when it is weighed for billing, this number is subtracted from the weight to be billed. If the contract is to haul shipping containers, then the weight would probably - almost certainly - include the container. It would not include the railcar.

Generally, when a company quotes tonnage shipped, it means billiable tonnage, therefore, it does not include the weight of their own equipment.

For purposes of calculating power needed to haul the train, then you want the total gross weight.

But if a company tried something like, "well this time I have to bill you for 160 tons instead of for 135 tons for your 100 tons of coal that you actually got because I loaded into two 70 ton capacity hoppers instead of one 100 ton capacity hopper," and see how far you would get with it.

This explains the long term interest in higher capacity freight cars. It reduced the weight of train you have to carry around in addition to the material that you are hauling for the customer.


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## Joel N. Weber II

Interesting.

I guess what surprises me about that is that I thought that, in general, a rail car CSX is hauling is not necessarily a rail car CSX owns, and if some cargo has to traverse several railroads, that cargo will usually ride on a single rail car for its entire journey across all of the railroads. Am I misunderstanding how this works?


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## Green Maned Lion

I think there are seperate rates for cars not owned.


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## George Harris

Joel N. Weber II said:


> Interesting.
> I guess what surprises me about that is that I thought that, in general, a rail car CSX is hauling is not necessarily a rail car CSX owns, and if some cargo has to traverse several railroads, that cargo will usually ride on a single rail car for its entire journey across all of the railroads. Am I misunderstanding how this works?


Yes, the freight stays in the same car. I can see that there are things understood inherently in the industry that are not known outside it. There are standards and rules concerning interchange of equipment that have evolved over the last 150 years that cover all these things. It is a little too involved to expain here, but unless we are talking about a contract rather than simply a freight rate, who owns the car does not matter to the shipper or receiver or in the rate charged. There are payments back and forth between the railroads concerning use of cars owned by other railroad companies. There are a number of publications that cover this stuff in varying levels of detail. One book is The Railroad, What it is, What it does. I believe this is written for the interested but not the insider.

In theory, at least, a freight car built to the standards approved by the Association of American Railroads, which covers such things as strength, wheels, brakes, couplers, etc., can run on any railroad between northern Canada and southern Mexico. Can't go south of there because the railroads in Central America are of a different track gauge.


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## Inerlogic

from Gary Sease, a CSX spokesman:

On average, railroads can move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel. This is a rail industry statistic calculated by *dividing* the 2006 annual *revenue ton miles* (1.772 trillion) *by the fuel consumed* (4.192 billion), which equates to the *industry average of one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel*.

(The 2006 data was the last full year for which total industry data are available.)

Revenue ton miles are those miles for which railroads are *compensated for moving freight*. (We move empty cars to reposition them, and we move company materials for which we are not compensated). The industry did not include fuel consumed by passenger trains -- *just freight trains*.

A revenue ton-mile is the movement of one ton of freight, for revenue, one mile. A ton of a railroad's own ballast, moved in work trains, would not be counted because the railroad is not getting any revenue for moving the ballast.

The (Association of American Railroads) 423 miles per gallon can be verified by anyone that retrieves the data from the Annual Report R-1 that each Class I railroad files with the Surface Transportation Board. Gallons of fuel are in Schedule 750 of the R-1, and revenue ton-miles are in Schedule 755. *If the gallons of fuel used for empty freight cars were known and excluded, the 423 would be even higher.*

Many railroads use gross ton-miles per gallon instead of revenue ton-miles per gallon. This is appropriate for their purpose, but the AAR's purpose is to measure *efficiency in hauling freight* -- so revenue ton-miles are used. GTMs per gallon will be higher because the weight of the freight car is included.


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## JAChooChoo

*I'm not sure if this point has been made.*

* *

*An SD70MAC weighs 207 tons, so just moving itself 2 miles, it has generated 414 ton miles, close enough to 423 to say that it gets 2 miles to the gallon, not unreasonable.*


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## Bob Dawson

Green Maned Lion said:


> A Ford Excursion, getting 10 mpg, when loaded to its capacity of eight passengers, gets 80 passenger miles per gallon. Ton/miles per gallon is not a measure of consumption, but of efficiency.
> I need to move 400 tons of (800,000 lbs) of stuff 423 miles. A a truck hauling 80,000 lbs gets about 4 miles to the gallon, IIRC last time I was looking at peterbilts. So to move that 400 tons, I need 10 trucks. So I am going to move these items .4 miles for every gallon consumed, so to travel the distance of 423 miles, I need to us 1057 gallons of diesel fuel. Alternatively, I can tack it onto the back of a freight train (CSX isn't all that much more efficient than its competitors, btw), and it will take 400 gallons. So this 18-wheeler moves one ton of freight 162 miles.
> 
> It ain't a ridiculous increase in efficiency, you understand. About 2.5 times. But its a big solid demonstration of the advantage of moving things in bulk.
> 
> To further the comparison, let us move these 400 tons of stuff via a Ford F350 with single rear wheels, which can carry 4000 lbs, or 2 tons worth of stuff. It gets around 10mpg fully loaded. To carry 400 tons, you need 200 F350s. It will take 42.3 gallons of fuel per truck to do the move, or a total of 8460 gallons of fuel. This F350 moves 1 ton of frieght 20 miles per gallon of fuel.
> 
> Its the best way to measure haulage efficiency of bulk freight. And in this regard, the railroad is clearly superior.


This is a fine calculation for level ground, perfect surface, no resistance, optimal temperature, optimal tire pressure, no loss due to mechanical wear, no load shift, no acceleration necessary, and no alterations of speed or direction due to traffic conditions. I'm no mathematician or locomotive expert, but I perfectly understood the point of this CSX ad. If you want to try to move that many 2 ton loads with an F-350 (I am an automotive master technician), you had better have a warehouse full of parts ready (and a good welder) as this vehicle was not designed to handle this kind of load and stress. The train on the other hand can, up to a point, continue to add on more cars with minimal loss of efficiency up to a certain point. This is all common sense to me. I don't see why so many want to wrestle so over the issue. You sound like a bunch of demopublicans and republicrats (just poking a little fun at all of you, there are many intelligent posts here). But the fuel efficiency issue between trucks and trains does seem pretty clear to me. Of course the ugly and the beauty lies within the variables which can make either source of transportation the better one for the specific job. The train can get the 100 lb feed sacks to the city closest to my town cheaper, but without a Pete or K-Whopper I'm going to wear out a lot of shoe leather and my back during the hundreds of 30 mile trips to and from the rail stop. Here's where the big variable comes in. Trains don't stop at many people's driveways. The short haul needed by truck to and from the railcar vastly decreases the overall fuel efficiency of the total cargo transfer by rail. The longer the haul by either mode of transportation (or the singular use of one) will increase the savings of course.


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## Green Maned Lion

Naturally. I know what you are talking about. I was just trying to explain the concept of ton-miles/gallon in a easy to comprehend way. Naturally there are several dozen factors I am not taking into account, but I was trying to simplify something, rather then make it more complicated.


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## bugleboy

Green Maned Lion said:


> Naturally. I know what you are talking about. I was just trying to explain the concept of ton-miles/gallon in a easy to comprehend way. Naturally there are several dozen factors I am not taking into account, but I was trying to simplify something, rather then make it more complicated.


I understand. It would seem that ALL vendors would want to send at least the very long mile shipments by train. I know we don't have the rail access locally that we once had. At one time, not SO long ago, even an individual could easily ship small parcels to the nearby towns by train. So many businesses had spur lines at their loading docks or had a freight platform close by. I'm a good way from retirement, but even at my age I remember this. Do you think we'll ever get back to a time when the railroad will be as important a community resource as it once was? I remember when the regular rural passenger service ended here in the Southeast, and I fondly remember my trips on the trains I loved so much, sometimes just to ride for fun. I could see things noone could see from a highway. The trains would stop or pull through our town, and it was so much fun to watch the dining cars (few were left even then) and the pullmans all lit up at night, wondering where the people were headed and if they were looking back out at me wondering their own thoughts. We could travel these rails on our high school senior trips to DC or elsewhere, and that was one of the dreams of the younger kids seeing the older brothers and sisters off on their way. I used to ride to the next small town where my mother worked, about a 30 mile one way trip, just to get to ride. These days will never return, but I have hope for the industry to increase it's availability to the general public. The railcars carry UPS trailers, but why not have its own package delivery? The railroad companies would have to try hard to give poorer service than some of the parcel delivery services offer. Sorry for the trip down memory lane, but we sustain so many services in this country that are not giving anything back, why do the rails, which made this nation possible and powerful, get left behind? The presidential candidates would do well to park those expensive fuel guzzling jets and go back to stumping from trains. It's still possible. It would give them a more personal voice and bring a lot of attention back to the rail service. They could even carry their campaign bus with them. I still like to watch trains.


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## Joel N. Weber II

bugleboy said:


> It would seem that ALL vendors would want to send at least the very long mile shipments by train. I know we don't have the rail access locally that we once had. At one time, not SO long ago, even an individual could easily ship small parcels to the nearby towns by


Vendors typically would like to ship things by the method that ends up costing them the least. If they have the option of shipping by rail, where the cost of their shipment is going to directly reflect the cost of maintaining the tracks, or shipping by highway, where some of the road cost is covered by income taxes, they may find that the infrastructure costs outweigh the fuel costs.

Additionally, the railroads seem to be reluctant to build enough capacity to carry everything that would most sensibly go by rail.

Amtrak's express package service does allow what is essentially checked baggage to travel unaccompanied by a passenger, but that only works between cities where Amtrak offers checked baggage.

Intermodal freight is an option that wasn't so readily available many decades ago; carrying containers between city by rail, and within cities by truck, may make a lot of sense.


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## Alice

Joel N. Weber II said:


> bugleboy said:
> 
> 
> 
> It would seem that ALL vendors would want to send at least the very long mile shipments by train. I know we don't have the rail access locally that we once had. At one time, not SO long ago, even an individual could easily ship small parcels to the nearby towns by
> 
> 
> 
> Vendors typically would like to ship things by the method that ends up costing them the least. If they have the option of shipping by rail, where the cost of their shipment is going to directly reflect the cost of maintaining the tracks, or shipping by highway, where some of the road cost is covered by income taxes, they may find that the infrastructure costs outweigh the fuel costs.
> 
> Additionally, the railroads seem to be reluctant to build enough capacity to carry everything that would most sensibly go by rail.
> 
> Amtrak's express package service does allow what is essentially checked baggage to travel unaccompanied by a passenger, but that only works between cities where Amtrak offers checked baggage.
> 
> Intermodal freight is an option that wasn't so readily available many decades ago; carrying containers between city by rail, and within cities by truck, may make a lot of sense.
Click to expand...

I was an owner-operator (truck driver) early and mid-80s specializing in high-profit shipping such as just-in-time. For instance, I hauled a lot of fast food kitchen equipment where the recipient didn't want me in the way until they were ready to unload me, and they didn't want to pay a crew to hang around waiting for me. I hauled from factory to customer so there was noone else to blame if I was late or the merchandise was damaged. You can imagine they paid a lot extra for the premium service.

One load was from (I think) Seattle, somewhere up there anyway, to the Albertson's warehouse in the Los Angeles area. This was toilet paper. Toilet paper?! So I asked the shipper why they weren't using rail (Golden Pig service was big then). He said he was tired of his loads never arriving and the rail or truck company not knowing where his containers were. He said my babysitting was well worth being able to make a promise to his customer that he was confident would be met.

So, freight rail may have a reputation to overcome.

OTOH, there is a huge shortage of truck drivers right now with companies paying bonuses. Some in the industry think driver standards are being lowered on account of this, which will lead to increased preventable accidents and pressure to use more rail. Many companies have added fuel surcharges to their usual freight fees. So this is a good time for rail freight to get new customers. CSX (from earlier in this thread) may have recognized that.

Also from early in this thread, the question arose about how much weight a particular locomotive could haul. I can't answer that, but on a SAC-DEN trip listening to the scanner, a freight engineer told Amtrak his tail was hanging out at a siding because he was 7500 feet long. That doesn't address how many engines of what kind he had, of course, or how many cars or what they weighed. But I'd say if Amtrak wants to haul a long train, the limits are more station length than power. That private car get-together in LA had 22 or 23 cars behind 2 Amtrak security-blanket engines and steam. They loaded it in the Amtrak yard we toured because it wouldn't fit in Union Station, and they blocked the crossing in Old Town for a very long time for unloading and loading (long enough for me to drive around to a different crossing and park nearby).


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## WhoozOn1st

I'm truly amazed at the long life of this topic.


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## bugleboy

Joel N. Weber II said:


> bugleboy said:
> 
> 
> 
> It would seem that ALL vendors would want to send at least the very long mile shipments by train. I know we don't have the rail access locally that we once had. At one time, not SO long ago, even an individual could easily ship small parcels to the nearby towns by
> 
> 
> 
> Vendors typically would like to ship things by the method that ends up costing them the least. If they have the option of shipping by rail, where the cost of their shipment is going to directly reflect the cost of maintaining the tracks, or shipping by highway, where some of the road cost is covered by income taxes, they may find that the infrastructure costs outweigh the fuel costs.
> 
> Additionally, the railroads seem to be reluctant to build enough capacity to carry everything that would most sensibly go by rail.
> 
> Amtrak's express package service does allow what is essentially checked baggage to travel unaccompanied by a passenger, but that only works between cities where Amtrak offers checked baggage.
> 
> Intermodal freight is an option that wasn't so readily available many decades ago; carrying containers between city by rail, and within cities by truck, may make a lot of sense.
Click to expand...

It took negative change to put the rail business where it is, why not accept change to take it where it needs to be? I know the romance is gone from our roads and rails, but the railroad still has unreached potential. When UPS began with one old cluncky truck, noone would have thought parcel service could become what it is today. A more modular service is ONE of the answers for the rail business I think.


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## Guest

rmadisonwi said:


> not1word said:
> 
> 
> 
> This ad has been bothering me, too. Perhaps I'm missing something crucial, but even with everyone's calculations, all we've been talking about is freight tons and gallons consumed, with no mention of number of miles travelled. One can use all the abstruse formulas desired, but at the base is still the basic idea that X number of miles travelled divided by Y number of gallons of fuel consumed equals Z number of miles per gallon used. This is the mental thrust of the commercial which is aimed at the average listener. It has to be the presumed basis of the reasoning, the commercials being aired as they are, and, one hopes, the assumption that can be made of the average listener. Most people don't take too much time to figure in ton/miles, double stack train cars and rates of inertia while driving from the take out window to the next stop.
> What is at the center of the ad is honesty. I don't believe that their locomotives are actually able to travel 423 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel. That would be a very simple thing to prove, by putting a gallon of diesel in a tank, and seeing if the engine is able to go 423 miles. My simple mined guess is that it would not (even without a full load on), but this is the mental picture being put forward by the ad. The reality gets even worse, since CSX is running this ad as some sort of proof of rail road's efficiency and environmental concern. Actually, rail road is less efficient than OTR trucking, since rail cars can only travel on restricted rail ways and can only pick up/drop off loads at centralized locations, often very far away from the actual final destination of the freight.
> 
> But then, that's just the view from where I'm sitting.
> 
> 
> 
> It is no less honest to use ton-miles per gallon when calculating fuel efficiency of freight engines than to use cost/loss per passenger-mile when calculating the financial performance of a passenger train.
> 
> Using ton-miles (or passenger-miles, as the case may be) as the basis for calculation is really the only way to get a valid comparison when you want to consider all factors. You can't just say that the engines run at x miles per gallon. You have to do it in terms of the amount of freight that is moved. After all, CSX is in the business of moving freight, not engines. The simple, plain truth that the ad is trying to convey is that if you are trying to move a lot of stuff, you will do so on less fuel by rail than by truck. Whether you use ton-miles per gallon, or stone-furlongs per barrel, you have to consider the actual payload being moved when you want a true comparison. After all, a single-occupant SUV uses less total fuel than a 40-passenger bus, but if you wanted to move 40 people, the bus is the better way to do it.
> 
> I don't understand why this is the subject of so much debate.
Click to expand...

The reason why this topic is so long and keeps getting replied to is because it affects millions of people. We deliver America. Without trucks America stops. No if, ands or buts about it. EVERYTHING touches a truck. Nothing made short of God's hand designing man or the earth or the universe hasn't been on a truck some time or some where. Trains are cool, but trucks are a vital source of America's economy....and they are just as the Farmer's, coalminers, and other blue collar jobs a milined (SIC) and under appreciated group of workers. We do our job in all kinds of weather, safely and effeciently sometimes being disrespected more than any human should have to bear. We spend many days and weeks and months away from our families and loved ones. We are nickled and dimed by our companies, we are charged more at truck stops than normal stores, we sometimes go days without showers, a healthy meal or even a simple hi, thanks for what you do, all for an industry that has seen freight prices stay around 1.50 a mile for the past 30 years, all the while our cost to live out on the road or do our job has progressively increased. CSX might move a large amount of freight on one gallon of fuel, but they don't do it in one day, or 2 days across the entire country like a team can. And I doubt any of you plan on giving up your "On Demand" Burger King, my way right away lifestyle anytime soon. So the next time you pass a switching yard and you see all those beautifully muraled (SIC) train cars sitting around waiting to be staged on your way to your local 24 CVS to get some medication for little suzie or johnny because they are terribly sick, make sure you think about the trucker that delivered that medication so you wouldn't have to wait until the morning to take them to Dr. Smith.

www.theasphaltblogger.com


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## rrrhythm

TRUE: CSX operates at an efficiency of 423 ton miles per gallon (ton*miles/gal)

FALSE: CSX trains move one ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of gas.

_Because of how they worded their ad_, *the CSX ad is FALSE* and misleading. Read it carefully and think about it.

If their ad were true, we could load one ton of freight onto their train, fill the tank with one gallon of fuel, and the train would be able to drive 423 miles. That's what it says: One ton, 423 miles, on one gallon of fuel. It should be clear to everyone that that is simply not possible, because it means the engines operate at 423 miles/gallon (when loaded with one ton of freight). Not even on a flat track, at a constant speed, and with a hurricane for a tail wind could that possibly be true. No engine travels 423 miles on one gallon of fuel regardless of the load. You agree?

The ad is WRONG. And that is what people are objecting to.

Obviously I don't know the exact MPG the engines get, but a more reasonable estimate would be that their engines operate at 10 miles/gallon (when pulling 42.3 tons of freight). Can you agree with that? 423 mpg is absurd, 1 mpg is probably too low, and 10 mpg is in the right ballpark.

That means we could load the train with 42.3 tons, give it one gallon of fuel, and expect it to go ten miles. That's perfectly reasonable, and still has an overall efficiency of 423 ton*miles/gal.

But pulling 42.3 tons for 10 miles (or 423 tons for 1 mile to illustrate the point more extremely) _*is not the same*_ thing as pulling 1 ton for 423 mile, even though they both have the same ton*mile/gal efficiency. You agree?

The point about trains being more efficient (than trucks or cars) is absolutely true, and shouldn't be lost sight of. But neither does that give CSX permission to play loose with the numbers, and thereby utter falsehoods. Sadly for CSX, "moving 42.3 tons of freight 10 miles on a one gallon of fuel" just doesn't sound as catchy or impressive as what they said. But what they said is wrong.

RJ


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## PetalumaLoco

What's the CZ typically weigh? I remember last year eastbound they refueled at Denver and took 2000 gallons for the lead engine and 1800 for the 2nd.


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## George Harris

No. I do not agree.

The ad is true. You are having a basic logic problem here. They are not moving one ton by itself. They are moving several thousand tons of freight in a train. Multiply both numbers by 10,000 and maybe that will help your understanding.

A train carrying 10,000 tons of freight moves 423 miles. To cover this distance, the locomotives burn 10,000 gallons of fuel. That is one gallon burned for each ton of freight carried. No where do they say they operate trains that carry only one ton of freight. The number they give is an average and it should be obvious that this is what they intend to be giving. Thus, your conclusion beginning, "If their ad is true, . . ." is what is false, in fact it is a conclusion that would be in any discussion of logic be classed as absurd.



rrrhythm said:


> TRUE: CSX operates at an efficiency of 423 ton miles per gallon (ton*miles/gal)
> FALSE: CSX trains move one ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of gas.
> 
> _Because of how they worded their ad_, *the CSX ad is FALSE* and misleading. Read it carefully and think about it.
> 
> If their ad were true, we could load one ton of freight onto their train, fill the tank with one gallon of fuel, and the train would be able to drive 423 miles. That's what it says: One ton, 423 miles, on one gallon of fuel. It should be clear to everyone that that is simply not possible, because it means the engines operate at 423 miles/gallon (when loaded with one ton of freight). Not even on a flat track, at a constant speed, and with a hurricane for a tail wind could that possibly be true. No engine travels 423 miles on one gallon of fuel regardless of the load. You agree?


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## rrrhythm

George Harris said:


> No. I do not agree.


OK, I respect that.

Can you tell me how their ad is worded? I believe it says: "CSX, our trains move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel."

Is that how the ad is worded?

RJ


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## George Harris

rrrhythm said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> 
> No. I do not agree.
> 
> 
> 
> OK, I respect that.
> 
> Can you tell me how their ad is worded? I believe it says: "CSX, our trains move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel."
> 
> Is that how the ad is worded?
> 
> RJ
Click to expand...

This is a true statement. Remember, *they are not moving one ton by itself.* What we have here is probably best called economy of scale. They are moving the "one ton" along with a whole bunch of other "one tons" Take the total fuel consumption, divide by length of trip and weight, in other words, ton-miles produced, and you get 423 ton miles per gallon, which can correctly be said as moving one ton of freight 423 miles on a gallon of fuel. I do not know how to make it any clearer than it has already been stated by some of the others here.


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## jackal

With all due respect, rrrhythm, it seems you're nitpicking. Yes, CSX worded their ad in a manner that sacrifices exactitude in order to be provocative, and so yes, you can _claim_ that it's inaccurate and misleading, but anyone with common sense watching the ad will understand what CSX is trying to convey.

FWIW, you can also claim that the EPA estimates for a car are inaccurate by claiming that if you put one gallon of gas in the car, you should be able to drive the city MPG estimate before your car dies, when in reality, you're not going to get that far because of the gas used and time spent starting the vehicle, backing it out of the driveway, approaching the multitude of stop signs in your neighborhood and idling at the stoplight that takes forever to let you out onto the main road. You'd be lucky to get 10 miles on that single tank of gas. But averaged over the full tank and normal city driving habits, you'll get close to the EPA estimate.


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## Erie Dog

Well this is a very close number as most freight trains average from 5000 tons to 12000 tons once these engines have done the work to get them to track speed, the rest is momentumn and the fact that each steel wheel is only occupying about 1.5 inches square on the ball of the rail which adds to their effiecency. After we are rolling it takes very little throttle (other than grades) to maintain proper speed. This is why it takes us so long to stop,even in emergency.

Erie Dog


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## DET63

> FALSE: CSX trains move one ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of gas.


Of course it's false. They use diesel fuel!


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## Elliott R

Great, informative thread.

So how many miles (nautical and statute) can a cargo ship move one ton of stuff with one gallon of fuel?


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## leemell

George Harris said:


> rrrhythm said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> 
> No. I do not agree.
> 
> 
> 
> OK, I respect that.
> 
> Can you tell me how their ad is worded? I believe it says: "CSX, our trains move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel."
> 
> Is that how the ad is worded?
> 
> RJ
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> This is a true statement. Remember, *they are not moving one ton by itself.* What we have here is probably best called economy of scale. They are moving the "one ton" along with a whole bunch of other "one tons" Take the total fuel consumption, divide by length of trip and weight, in other words, ton-miles produced, and you get 423 ton miles per gallon, which can correctly be said as moving one ton of freight 423 miles on a gallon of fuel. I do not know how to make it any clearer than it has already been stated by some of the others here.
Click to expand...

This engineering/statical/financial process you are talking about is called "normalizing" and is used to compare different processes by creating a common metric. Very common and very valid.


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## Long Train Runnin'

WhoozOn1st said:


> I'm truly amazed at the long life of this topic.


Well it just won't die! :lol:


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## ALC Rail Writer

Long Train Runnin said:


> WhoozOn1st said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm truly amazed at the long life of this topic.
> 
> 
> 
> Well it just won't die! :lol:
Click to expand...

And the best part...

It runs on only one gallon of fuel.


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## AAARGH!

ALC_Rail_Writer said:


> Long Train Runnin said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> WhoozOn1st said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm truly amazed at the long life of this topic.
> 
> 
> 
> Well it just won't die! :lol:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> And the best part...
> 
> It runs on only one gallon of fuel.
Click to expand...

Don't you mean one cubic yard of hot air?


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## Gavain

In terms of its impact on the environment, each mode of transportation needs to be evaluated for its energy and resource-consumption over the entire life-cycle of the engine. We would want to know how much energy is invested in the production of a locomotive engine and rail cars versus the energy invested in the fabrication of the number of semi-trucks required to haul an equivalent tonnage. So, it is important to factor in both how many cars (and, hence, how much tonnage) the average locomotive hauls, as well as how many trains run at the same time, in order to get a sense of how much train is required to haul the total annual ton-miles, and so add in the energy cost of fabricating that much train. Truth be told, we would also want to figure the energy investment of decomissioning or recycling all that train. But, purely for the operational period of the life-cycle, freight trains seem to be far and away the most energy-efficient (except for maybe freighter ships?).


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## PetalumaLoco

Gavain said:


> ...But, purely for the operational period of the life-cycle, freight trains seem to be far and away the most energy-efficient (except for maybe freighter ships?).


Inland barge is the most energy efficient.

From Trains Magazine, July 09.

Miles per gallon carrying 1 ton of cargo.

Truck freight: 155

Freight railroad: 413

Inland towing: 576

Their source: Texas Transportation Inst. 2007


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## George Harris

PetalumaLoco said:


> Inland barge is the most energy efficient.
> From Trains Magazine, July 09.
> 
> Miles per gallon carrying 1 ton of cargo.
> 
> Truck freight: 155
> 
> Freight railroad: 413
> 
> *Inland towing: 576*
> 
> Their source: Texas Transportation Inst. 2007


Presumably an average. But, there can be a huge difference between upstream and downstream. I have watched upstream tows going past Memphis upstream running flat out and barely moving, and the downstream ones using only enough power to maintain control.

Know about the Natchez Trace? It owes its existence to that issue. Flatboats propelled by human power and current would float downstream form Nashville or thereabouts on the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers to Natchez, which the ocean going ships of that time could reach. The flatboat men would then walk back to Nashville along the trail that became known as the Natchez trace.


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## PetalumaLoco

George Harris said:


> PetalumaLoco said:
> 
> 
> 
> Inland barge is the most energy efficient.
> From Trains Magazine, July 09.
> 
> Miles per gallon carrying 1 ton of cargo.
> 
> Truck freight: 155
> 
> Freight railroad: 413
> 
> *Inland towing: 576*
> 
> Their source: Texas Transportation Inst. 2007
> 
> 
> 
> Presumably an average. But, there can be a huge difference between upstream and downstream. I have watched upstream tows going past Memphis upstream running flat out and barely moving, and the downstream ones using only enough power to maintain control.
> 
> Know about the Natchez Trace? It owes its existence to that issue. Flatboats propelled by human power and current would float downstream form Nashville or thereabouts on the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers to Natchez, which the ocean going ships of that time could reach. The flatboat men would then walk back to Nashville along the trail that became known as the Natchez trace.
Click to expand...

Cool. I love little historic tidbits.


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## Ispolkom

And barge traffic is limited seasonally, as well. It wouldn't be very efficient to try to push a barge to St. Paul in January, and navigation on the Missouri, at least, is often maintained in low-flow periods only at the expense of upper-river interests.


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## George Harris

Years ago I saw a map showing traffic volumes on the various US inland waterways. Thought I might come up with it on-line. No joy. What I did find was this piece of government financed propoganda that includes a map of where the designated US inland waterways are located.

LINK


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## Walt Lipski

WhoozOn1st said:


> CSX currently has an ad running in which it claims to be able to move 1 ton of freight 423 miles on 1 gallon of fuel. Now I wasn't exactly a math major, so I'm wondering if anybody knows how they arrived at this figure. I'm aware of ton miles, but would that claim include all phases of running, or just once the train is up to speed, or what? Also, it would seem the claim must be based on a certain rate of fuel consumption, so which type of locomotive(s) pulling how many tons at what speed, etc.?
> Get out your slide rules
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and gimme some help here, folks!



What they really mean, in my opinion, is their fuel economy ( efficiency) versus what they carry...in other words, their diesel engines burn X number of gallons over a certain distance, and the weighted load they carry that distance, when divided by the number of gallons gives them so much weight moved per gallon. Their statement on the tv really means that their trains are more efficient than trucks or cars for carrying a certain weighted load....


----------

