I used to work for an intermodal company. I loaded army trucks and postal vans onto train cars from the AMGeneral plant in South Bend. Most of the old Army trucks came in by rail, were refurbished, then left by truck or were driven out of the factory to rail spurs around the area, loaded onto trains, and shipped out. That was early-mid 80's.I used to manage projects at an intermodal company. Ship to Truck to Rail or ship to rail was a major portion of their business.
There are three of those along that north/south line I was talking about between Elkhart and Indianapolis earlier. All pretty new. Two have the full loops. 1 is a partial.I was involved in the research and planning of a new poultry feed mill beginning about 10 years ago. Our old mill and its rail siding could only take 10 hopper cars of corn at a time. We got the “single“ car rate from CSX. About $3600 per car, Midwest to NE Georgia. Basically $1.00 per bushel of corn. We used around 50 cars a week or 160,000 bushels at that time.
The proposed new mill with a 1.5 miles of loop siding could take
90 -120 car unit trains. Freight cost was about $2,300 per car or $0.65 per bushel. The simplest justification for a new mill was that the railroad would pay for the new $30 million mill in 10 years or so.
162,000 x $.35 x 52 = $2,948,400 savings per year.
The new mill opened in 2021. I was retired by then thankfully .
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You might not know that mines do have a life expectancy. When these are closed, they are reclaimed.So when coal is outlawed, I wonder what will happen to all the great railroads that transported it?
I see a lot of jobs lost and a lot of abandoned rails….
Then rail fans will cry, “oh no….where did all the railroads go!!!“