Transport / Rail
Freight Trains

The Largest Rail Yards In The World - Freight Trains History

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

The Largest Rail Yards In The World - Freight Trains History

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Published on Jun 9, 2016

The Largest Rail Yards In The World - Freight Trains History

A rail yard, railway yard or railroad yard is the US term for a complex series of railroad tracks for storing, sorting, or loading/unloading, railroad cars and/or locomotives. Railroad yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock stored off the mainline, so that they do not obstruct the flow of traffic. Railroad cars are moved around by specially designed yard switchers, a type of locomotive. Cars in a railroad yard may be sorted by numerous categories, including railroad company, loaded or unloaded, destination, car type, or whether they need repairs. Railroad yards are normally built where there is a need to store cars while they are not being loaded or unloaded, or are waiting to be assembled into trains. Large yards may have a tower to control operations.

Read More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_yard

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0:08yeah START OF SEGMENT THAT IS ABOUT THE MARSHALLING YARD AT NORTH PLATTE, NEBRASKA 0:10welcome to North Platte Nebraska home of the largest rail yard in the world

6:25Pacific system START THE SEGMENT ABOUT THE HISTORY OF RAIL TRANSPORT IN THE UNITED STATES 6:30the Bingley yard maybe the largest rail yard

11:49was set up to compete among each other START THE SEGMENT ABOUT GE DIESEL ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE MANUFACTURE 11:52we're suddenly having to compete with a new outside competitive railroads

21:19outpace the last START OF SEGMENT ABOUT A BIG TRAIN GOING OVER A PASS IN THE ROCKIES 21:22today's freight locomotives are able to haul more tonnage than ever

30:09something START OF SEGMENT ABOUT THE RAIL LINK OUT OF THE PORTS ON THE WEST COAST 30:11now I was no my train down with some air brake

32:59minutes START OF RECENT CHANGES IN THE INDUSTRY AND THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN RUNNING A RAILROD 33:01it's really a national asset what the element of Carter represents is probably

Transcript

English (Automatic Captions) 0:00yeah 0:08yeah START OF SEGMENT THAT IS ABOUT THE MARSHALLING YARD AT NORTH PLATTE, NEBRASKA 0:10welcome to North Platte Nebraska home of the largest rail yard in the world 0:17Union Pacific's Bailey yard 0:20the yard is approximately 3,500 acres it's eight miles long about 2 miles wide 0:26no other rail facility like in the world real yards of the hugs of railroad 0:30operations here freight cars from across the system are funneled in sorted and 0:36then we assigned a new trains 0:38it will bring them closer to their final destination just about anything that's 0:43produced in the united states has shipped by rail 0:45so if you're talking about wine or cheese fresh vegetables televisions 0:50radios automobiles automobile parts 0:53you name it just about everything that America uses on a daily basis come soon 0:57or the plot the Bailey yard is strategically located in the center of 1:04the Union Pacific rail network 1:06the place is so large you can't see more than a third of it from any point in the 1:12yard 1:18well that is except from the computer screens of the command center 1:22we're all rail activity on the yard is monitor what we do in the bcc Bailey 1:30command center is coordinating the movement of between honor 1380 trains 1:34per day 1:36utilizing the latest computer based controls the center monitors all traffic 1:41over Bailey yards 315 miles of track 1:45in addition to locomotive movements workers process 10,000 freight cars 1:50through the yard each day for some of these cars their first stop is one of 1:55the two classification yards or hump yards 1:58this is where we process each bound trains trains that come into North 2:03Platte are going to be sorted here to there for destinations 2:07so we are taking these cars apart that have come in on a train and then we're 2:12sorting them to go out destinations for the points from here 2:16the hump is a three-story man-made hill that allows up to four cars a minute to 2:21roll into its bowl 2:23gravity pulls them off the hill the computer picks up the weight of the car 2:27that goes over the scale rails here 2:30the car then passes through a system of computerized retarders or breaks that 2:36pinch the wheels as they go through to slow the car down 2:41it slows them down accordingly not only to distance that it needs to travel to 2:47the other end but it also computes how much distance is left in the rail and 2:52the computer will go all the way from 12 miles an hour down to one mile an hour 2:55if necessary to allow for safe and careful handling of the great that's 2:59inside these cars 3:01it's pretty amazing that the mat attorneys that's going over this hill 3:04I'll softly at handle down here when it gets the bottom and the destination of 3:10each car is entered into a computer 3:14it automatically switches the track so the car rolls directly onto its assigned 3:18rail 3:21at the trim tower at the other end of the ball our trim crews and what they do 3:25is they actually build the trains that are going to leave North Platte 3:28so we take them apart here they put them back together down there remote 3:32controlled switch engines less powerful locomotives used for switching cars in a 3:38railyard assemble the trains when enough freight cars going to a single location 3:42have been pumped 3:45the hump used to be the focal point of the railroad yard 3:49pretty much all traffic was handled in this fashion let's change that has taken 3:54the pressure off of this 3:56are trains like you see leaving over there they leave the originating point 4:00all in one big chunk they arrive at their destination in one big chap unit 4:05rate or an entire train consisting of the same type afraid like a coal train 4:09is treated differently since it doesn't need to be reassigned for unit freight 4:15there are 26 1 through tracks some with pat areas which allow trains to pull up 4:20refuel and depart without having to detach from the locomotive 4:25every train that comes in must have a mechanical inspection by our car forces 4:32we have a nascar pit team concept for locomotives 4:36they're a team of five men and women that attack each locomotive that comes 4:40in with had to be fueled the oil has to be checked that shine the windshield 4:44they get to love motivating to go 4:46our goal is to do it in 45 minutes to service the train completely and then we 4:51expect the train through to be here as soon as we drop our protection which is 4:55blue flag 4:57in addition to these pit stops the Bailey yard boasts a locomotive repair 5:02depot the size of five football fields 5:06this is not a heavy-duty repair facility what we do here is quarterly maintenance 5:11semiannual and annual and tri-annual standard maintenance are locomotives and 5:19just as importantly real cars are serviced at the Bailey yard as well 5:30part of the issue we have the taramis on occasion our wheels or axles failing and 5:35route and so our car department glories really focusing on the condition of 5:39wheels and axles as they're coming to our run-through facility 5:47on a daily basis we're averaging between 55 and 60 wheelsets changed out a day 5:53here at North Platte inspect over 13,000 freight cars a day to this facility the 5:59Bailey yard is home to four thousand Union Pacific employees work around the 6:05clock 365 days a year to keep Freight moving 6:09there's an absolute production mandate at North Platte whether it's rain snow 6:13sun blizzard 6:16high winds we must hit those production targets because if we don't we will back 6:21up the road on both sides and we cannot have that kind of impact on the Union 6:25Pacific system START THE SEGMENT ABOUT THE HISTORY OF RAIL TRANSPORT IN THE UNITED STATES 6:30the Bingley yard maybe the largest rail yard 6:33servicing the largest railroad in north america but it's also a mammoth car in a 6:38much larger machine 6:41we're talking about a 40 billion dollar a year industry 6:46we're ninety six cents of every dollar made by the railroads comes from frayed 6:52the system so large it encompasses over a hundred and forty thousand miles of 6:56track 6:58and extends to nearly every corner of the continental United States but it's 7:02more than that 7:04its twenty two thousand locomotives and 1.3 million freight cars 7:09it strains 100 cars long extending over a mile and a half its 1.8 billion tons 7:16of freight crossing the country each year 7:20and it was the movement of freight that was the driving force behind the 7:24creation of the railroad 7:30yeah 7:31the railroad business was born in the form of rudimentary horse-drawn carts 7:36like these maneuvering over rails and coal mines and stone quarries in the 7:41eighteen twenties 7:43the whole principle is that you have steel wheels on steel rails and that 7:48lowers the coefficient of friction you could pull more with less power on a 7:53steel rail then if you are trying to pull a wagon over the mud or dirt roads 7:58railways that utilized horses to move public goods soon emerged after 18 31 8:05with the Tom from and the first successful steam engines the best friend 8:09of Charleston and those early ones they proved that steam was reliable and more 8:15powerful than horsepower steam engines quickly replaced horses and mules on 8:21rail operations and it didn't take long for railroad entrepreneurs to set their 8:27sights on capturing the american freight business a market cornered by the 8:32growing East Coast canals 8:34just about the time it was taking them to build the canals to a standard where 8:39they would be really useful 8:40you could build a railroad next to the canal and just beat the pants off the 8:45canal boats with the train and the railroad simply technologically replaced 8:49the canals 8:50almost overnight laborers built tracks as fast as humanly possible 8:57by the eighteen fifties railroad tracks extended from the east coast to the 9:02Great Lakes 9:04in eighteen sixty nine the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad met at 9:09promontory summit utah and completed the Transcontinental Railroad 9:15the railroad business expanded very rapidly because you can make a lot of 9:20money at it 9:21there was hardly a holler and West Virginia that didn't have a branchline 9:25reaching a coal mine there was hardly a Hillary valley in the Pacific Northwest 9:30that didn't have a lower road in it 9:33railroads change the landscape of America creating new towns along their 9:38tracks 9:40supplying the new population with building materials and other necessities 9:43and carrying far-flung crops to markets bakkies they could send their money in 9:50their gold and stuff back from California to the bankers in the east so 9:53they could sit there on Wall Street and count their money 9:56this was all because of the road and people out west could get fancy French 10:02fashions from broadway in new york and have it delivered to market street in 10:07san francisco all of the things that people wanted and needed to be brought 10:12in by train into the 20th century railroads continue to expand and develop 10:18faster than any other industry in the country 10:21what separates the United States from the rest of the world is that the 10:24American railroads were all private enterprise 10:27they were all private companies highly competitive companies often run by 10:32robber barons who would have financial Wars of the whole business 10:36due to the infighting among the rival railroads no cohesive system existed to 10:42move Freight efficiently across the various independently owned lines 10:47during the First World War there was concern that the railroads wouldn't be 10:50able to keep up with the demand for service and the federal government took 10:54over the operation of the railroads one of the United States railway 10:58administration 10:59their idea was to standardize railroad operating procedures and try to make the 11:05railroads more efficient 11:07soon after the war the government returned the rails to private enterprise 11:13twenty years later by World War 2 the collection of independent railroads 11:17operated as a coordinated system and no government intervention was needed 11:23the steel backbone of the nation played its part and winning the war but by the 11:29nineteen fifties the railroads monopoly on freight transportation was quickly 11:33eroding trucking and the newly created interstate highway system threatened to 11:38derail the railroads then the railroads which were a network of little fuel 11:44domains of different railroads all competing with each other in a system 11:49was set up to compete among each other START THE SEGMENT ABOUT GE DIESEL ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE MANUFACTURE 11:52we're suddenly having to compete with a new outside competitive railroads 11:57responded by merging as well as upgrading and modernizing 12:03yeah 12:04and today freight trains are still the number one way to move Goods long 12:08distances 12:09but to keep themselves on top 12:13they're locomotives would need a 21st century overall just inside the doors of 12:21general electric's building tanks and erie pennsylvania 208 ton 4400 12:27horsepower diesel electric beasts are coming to life 12:35these low emission locomotives are slated to be the workhorses of the 12:38global freight rail industry for the next 20 years 12:43General Electric needs approximately 26 days to completely build one of these 12:48steel Giants 12:51and the last 12 days are spent in this final assembly building the station 1 12:55the first station of a force station final assembly process for the 13:00locomotive 13:00in station one you can see where the platform is brought in and inverted in 13:05the upside down position 13:07it's here that workers install sensitive electronics and piping to the 13:12undercarriage 13:15next is a staging area for pre-built components waiting to be installed 13:20this is an example of the evolution series engine that is really the heart 13:24and soul of the evolution series locomotive the 4400 horsepower diesel 13:29engine produces with 12 cylinders but the previous engines needed 16 cylinders 13:34to accomplish 13:36the new evolution series locomotive engine is three percent more 13:40fuel-efficient than its predecessor engines 13:43the average local water will burn approximately 350 thousand gallons a 13:48year and if you expand that over 20 years 13:51life the three percent improvement in fuel efficiency correlates to about 13:56200,000 gallons less diesel fuel was burned over the life of the product with 14:04the frame now upright the engine and other components are ready to be put in 14:08place 14:08this is really where the local assembly process turns into an automated assembly 14:13the platform from the station one is brought down and put in its upright 14:18position and here we will start to place the end 14:22your cabs and components on the platform and start something the final assembly 14:27of the local 14:29the locomotive starts taking shape as it advances down the line and what workers 14:35call the world's largest air hockey table 14:39what happens it will connect an air hose to the air Jack's the air will slightly 14:43elevated me 14:45local out of platform and move it down from one workstation to the other which 14:50is kind of impressive when you think of as it nears the final word station 14:54it's over 300,000 pounds but the 75 foot long 16 foot high steel behemoths aren't 15:02finished yet 15:03at this point the local law is essentially complete except for the 15:07truck assemblies 15:08from here we'll lift the local mode of assembly off the air Jackson taken over 15:12the station for you 15:14a crane operator lips the 150 ton locomotive over the factory floor and 15:20deposits it gently onto a set of trucks or wheel assemblies 15:30after walking water is completed in station for is brought back to one of 15:34our paint booths and you can see here in the initial stages of being prepared for 15:39the final paint job 15:41each paint job is specific to the customer that has ordered the locomotive 15:45an example here as a finished paint job for a BNSF loca modem 15:51this shiny new Goliath is much smarter and much cleaner and the power and might 15:56that ruled the rails for nearly two centuries before 16:01the development of the steam locomotive was both evolutionary and revolutionary 16:07the biggest problem initially was finding the proportions the proportions 16:11between the boiler the cylinders the drivers and the the linkage mechanism 16:17the first locomotive really got it all right in the right proportions was a 16:21locomotive called the John Bull mechanics put the John Bull into 16:27Commission in 1831 and it became the first locomotive ever to be duplicated 16:35but the wood-burning model was quickly outmoded as locomotives increased 16:40rapidly in size and power wood was used generally in the American railroads 16:47still some time right after the Civil War and what happened was that a lot of 16:52territories that the roads are going in in the prairies and the planes there 16:55weren't any trees around most locomotives introduced at the end of the 16:5919th century burn coal 17:02back in those days about every 3-4 years you'd get a larger locomotive 17:09they just kept advancing the technology of the couple years and it's like your 17:14automobile somebody would come out with a new bottle and the railroads to try it 17:18out 17:19find out that now this is pretty efficient and and we'll buy some of 17:22these early 20th century locomotives easily dwarf their predecessors 17:28their size and power may have changed drastically 17:32however there were a few fundamental changes in how they worked 17:37pressurized steam and there's one side of the cylinder and pushes the piston 17:41away 17:43eval ships the same to the other side and forces the piston back 17:48our series of connected rods convert the Pistons back and forth motion to the 17:53rotational motion of the wheels 17:56by the Second World War the steam locomotive had reached its pinnacle of 18:00technological development 18:03they were a source of pride for the men who had a chance to work on 18:08I like 51 years for the d NH to several other owners and the in term and finally 18:15the Canadian Pacific 18:17I work - 22 years with the tools so to speak of the firemen an engineer i like 18:24to call them glorious years now that the rover dn8 on 40 fantastic 18:31challenger type locomotives and I guess it with the biggest power that operated 18:35in the northeastern part of the country 18:37I can't think of anybody that had anything bigger 18:41gorgeous gorgeous machines by the time Bernie O'Brien started on the railroads 18:47in 1948 his days as a fireman and on steam locomotives were numbered 18:52the diesel was introduced in the nineteen twenties 18:58it was not considered to be a real Road worthy locomotive they were used to 19:03switch engines they were using specialties they were using lightweight 19:07streamliners but they weren't really considered a threat 19:11when the first virus - that was a type locomotive the D&H but somebody was 19:17telling me they were going to replace the challenges that just couldn't 19:21believe what I I laugh because the rs2 locomotive sitting alongside the 19:26Challenger was like a giant and a small person you know the electro-motive 19:32corporation in cleveland ohio decided that until they could replace a 19:37full-size steam locomotive with a diesel the diesel wasn't going to get anywhere 19:41so if 1939 they created the FT freight diesel which was a two-unit diesel had 19:48to 16 cylinder engines rated at 1,350 horsepower each and that locomotive 19:55single-handed killed this evening there was a set thing for me to see that 20:00happen our last challenges were 20:03we're only six years old when they came out of service which is just pretty hard 20:08to breathe the steam locomotive do not fail as a machine because it wasn't a 20:14good polar free the steam locomotive was extremely labor-intensive and it 20:20required a lot of care 20:22the diesel is like your automobile it's automatic 20:25you fire it up and it go the mechanics of a diesel locomotive are very 20:30different from those of a steam engine 20:33in the cylinder a fuel-air mixture is compressed by the piston to a point 20:38where it ignites the explosion forces the piston down which turns the 20:43crankshaft 20:45an alternator then converts the motion of the crankshaft into electrical power 20:49which is fed down to individual traction motors on each axle to turn the wheels 20:55of a locomotive 20:57one of the advantages of diesel power is that you could couple as many units 21:03together as you needed for power to get it over the the road just depends upon 21:08how much power you need it and 11 man control all of those units like their 21:14steam predecessors each generation of diesel-electric locomotives continue to 21:19outpace the last START OF SEGMENT ABOUT A BIG TRAIN GOING OVER A PASS IN THE ROCKIES 21:22today's freight locomotives are able to haul more tonnage than ever 21:26but it's a feat that requires more than just horsepower 21:30especially when you're going over one of the most treacherous roots in north 21:34america 21:35with its punishing uphill grade tight curves and steep descent Southern 21:42California's Cajon Pass is one of the most treacherous railroad roots in the 21:47United States 21:48Patrick Marquez a locomotive engineer for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe 21:54must make this grinding journey up the mountain pass several times a week 22:05he does this with a mile and a half rate which weighs upwards of six thousand 22:09tons 22:10trailing behind the engines 22:14it's normally a two-man operation a conductor who serves as the manager of a 22:18train and it's rolling stock 22:22SF 7644 you from trial and the engineer or train driver but for this grueling 22:30journey a second engineer with two helper locomotives couples on to the 22:35rear of the train to push it to the top of the hill 22:39yeah 22:41bumper is going to contact me and let me know when he's getting a release on the 22:45rear end of the train and then we'll leave here we go 22:52so now you just gave me the signal that their brakes releasing we come right off 23:00brakes give it some throttle and we take off 23:15this is we take this corner you're going to notice our speed dropping 23:17dramatically because the hill is all the way up that the summit right on the 23:23engines must provide 64,000 pounds of tractive effort to propel the train 23:28forward 23:30the more power we insert into the traction motor the more likely that that 23:36will has the opportunity to spend in order to keep it from spinning will use 23:42sand and that will put a grit or sand paper underneath the wheel 23:48so we don't have metal the metal and it will keep it moving 23:51today's locomotives are equipped with an electronic traction control system the 23:57system uses compressed air spray sand from a nozzle in front of each wheel 24:02if I spin my wheels the computer all sense of a wheel slip you know like I 24:07got a car you know you feel it and you also fill it in here and i'll get a 24:11little signal in here it'll say will flip their block engineer Marquez is in 24:17constant communication with the helper locomotive engineer at the back of his 24:20train 24:21if we didn't pick up those helpers we'd probably be getting a lot of will flip 24:26the wheels would just be slipping that we wouldn't have enough power to pull us 24:30up the hill 24:31it takes a lot of effort to get more than 12 million pounds to the top of the 24:35hill 24:36gravity pulling it that way I'm trying to pull that way i have it happen 24:42yeah 24:52if we stopped out here and if I release my break without giving it power with 24:58start rolling back with all the tools on board to keep his train moving forward 25:03Marquez can sit back and enjoy the ride to the top well sort of 25:09that's an alert like a safety device to space need to keep me away from 25:15capacitated somehow and the alert of times out here 25:18it'll up apply the brain chemistry just slow the train down gradually to come to 25:24stop just hit this button alerter reset that every time pops up 25:28if I do something with the throttle and brakes like that it will reset it to 25:33because it's showing that on the way you know i love the controls 25:37Marcus has to stop his train at the summit to let off the helper inches 25:44all i gotta do is throttle down and the train will stall out come to a stop 25:52this stop was planned but not all of them can be 25:59we're moving 20 mile an hour and we're coming down my great territory in this 26:03train ways of roughly 6,000 times or more 26:07it could possibly take a supporter of a mile to stop the train in an emergency 26:11application and is every year early railroader new being unable to stop a 26:18speeding train was well the train wreck 26:26the earliest railroads use pan breaks of various types office was as simple as a 26:33lever with a wooden block going against the wheel as the car's got bigger 26:38they would go to what we would call a stem-winder that tighten the chain that 26:43pulled iron shoes against them 26:45the wheels but they all had to be done by hand every five or six cars would 26:51have a break man who had to apply the brakes on each of his cars and the 26:55brakeman was probably one of the most dangerous jobs in railroading because 26:59there was this chance that you would be thrown off the car or lose your footing 27:03am at but you had to walk from car to car on the roofs of the cars applying 27:08the hand brakes in order to stop the train 27:11but back then the workers were considered expendable and that's what it 27:14took to stop trains 27:17in 1866 george westinghouse took on the challenge of finding a more effective 27:22way to stop a train and by 1870 free 27:26he developed what remains to this day one of the most significant safety 27:30inventions of all time 27:32the automatic air brake the air brakes on a freight train are supplied with 27:37compressed air from the locomotive as the air reservoir in each car fills it 27:42trips of valve to release the brakes on that car 27:46only when the last car disengages its brakes in the train move the system is 27:53fail safe as any reduction of this air pressure such as a rupture in the air 27:57supply hose causes the brakes to be applied when diesel electric replace the 28:04steam locomotive 28:06it brought with it another revolutionary technology 28:09dynamic braking to supplement air brakes 28:12back at the Cajon Pass engineer Marquez relies upon dynamic braking to start is 28:19down hill descent 28:20I'm in dynamic braking now and it just turns the traction motors into big 28:24resistor e instead of feeding power to the wheels 28:30the traction motors now take power from the wheels 28:33this energy is dissipated as heat the under our traction motors have become 28:39hard to turn thereby providing resistance to the wheels slowing the 28:45train 28:48the more i move this lever forward and demands more apps which basically i 28:52close the motors down a judicial system so there's they're the ones doing it 28:57down which means I got to be prepared to add more apps that people are paying any 29:01control dynamic brakes are very useful on downgrades and save a considerable 29:07amount of wear on air brake shoes 29:10thus lowering maintenance costs gravity is this up bonus down in like i said i 29:17have a resistance on my head in that turn these traction motors and the 29:22resistors 29:23so the wheels are turning I'm trying to slow us down the engines of trying to 29:26close down the change is pushing against our engine and I can from told my feet 29:32with the dynamic breaks as we get faster if I don't want to go too fast i'll add 29:36more dynamic brakes to slow down or keep our speed constant I want to gain some 29:42speed 29:43I can reduce my dynamic braking which means the wiltern easier 29:48it means gravity of Chef more but the dynamic brakes may not be enough to keep 29:55this freight train from becoming a roller coaster ride 29:58I'm in full dynamic breaks I'm demanding 35 killer pounds from my motors and all 30:04that resistance 30:05the trains going too fast I'm just gonna keep picking up speed unless I do 30:09something START OF SEGMENT ABOUT THE RAIL LINK OUT OF THE PORTS ON THE WEST COAST 30:11now I was no my train down with some air brake 30:14essentially he's riding the brakes the rest of the journey down when Marquez is 30:23six thousand ton train reaches the bottom it becomes yet another train that 30:28has successfully negotiated the Cajon Pass 30:33and transported hundreds of freight containers over the mountains 30:38and the containers it carries are significant beyond the goods they hold 30:43with the increase in imports coming from Asia these freight containers have come 30:48to rejuvenate the railroad industry 30:52over seven million containers enter the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach 30:56every year 30:58yeah 31:00more than anywhere else in the United States 31:06they are intermodal loads containers designed to flow easily from one mode of 31:10transport to another 31:13and they have revolutionized and revitalize the rail industry 31:17intermodal containers are extension of the container ship operations that are 31:21here at the port of los angeles lakers come off the ship they move on to the 31:26doc and they're either moved out by truck moved out by rail over 50 trains 31:32leave the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on a daily basis 31:36each carrying approximately 220 containers 31:41that keeps about 11,000 trucks off congested Los Angeles freeways every day 31:48the advent of trade with Asia especially in the last 20 years and specifically 31:52china in the last ten has doubled the amount of volume is coming into the West 31:56Coast ports over that period of time and the container trains have really been a 32:01way to be an outlet for that for large volumes and intermodal train traffic 32:06coming out of the ports is expected to double to 100 trains daily in the next 32:11two decades over sixty percent of the cargo that comes through these ports 32:16containerized cargo in the form of imports is destined for the rest of the 32:20nation and the first stop where the first passage if you will for that 32:24traffic is on the alameda Carter's it heads used to service the rest of the 32:27nation 32:29the 20 mile long corridor is essentially an expressway for trains 32:36connecting the ports to rail yards east of the city 32:39this 10-mile section that we finally referred to as the trench was kind of 32:44the crown jewel of the program it's 10 miles long represents about one half the 32:48length of the overall Carter in the trench trains travel unimpeded we need 32:54city traffic a journey that once took almost two hours has been cut to only 45 32:59minutes START OF RECENT CHANGES IN THE INDUSTRY AND THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN RUNNING A RAILROD 33:01it's really a national asset what the element of Carter represents is probably 33:06one of the strongest links in the Transcontinental real network at this 33:10point in time 33:13intermodal freight has surpassed coal is the number one revenue generator for the 33:18rail industry and the articulated well car designed to carry intermodal 33:23containers health railroads remain relevant in the competitive world of 33:27freight transportation 33:29each car is able to fit one container and depressed well area with another 33:35resting on top 33:41the well area lowers the height of the load allowing it to make Bridge and 33:45Tunnel clearances as well as lowering its center of gravity 33:49the double stack opportunity provides two for the price of one in a given car 33:53space so the loading volumes can increase the cost per unit drops and 33:57makes the rail very very efficient and cost-effective way to move cargo of 34:04course the well car isn't the first freight car to fill a special need 34:09the earliest great cars were simple platforms with wheels attached but soon 34:14enough 34:15sides were added 34:16this particular type of car here is a gondola now it's gondola not gondola all 34:22those are in Venice 34:23they're not on america's railroads this particular type of car was one of the 34:28earlier types of cars but gondolas were no match for harsh winters extremely hot 34:34summers and long tracks between settled areas of the US this cold morning closed 34:40car 34:41thus the boxcar an icon of american freight railroading was born 34:47boxcars often function is rolling billboards for the railroads they served 34:51box cars are modified and several other car types with open slats on the side 34:57it was modified into a cattle car to carry cattle with heavy insulation and 35:01ice bunkers in either end it could be used as a refrigerator car - all 35:05perishable items reefers or refrigerator cars change the way America ate the 35:12refrigerator car was essentially a nice box on wheels and this worked well until 35:17the advent of the frozen food industry 35:20enter the mechanical refrigerator car in the early nineteen fifties a small 35:25diesel engine was used to power a refrigeration device 35:29the cars then became instead of ice boxes on wheels actual refrigerators on 35:33the spell the doing of the ice 35:36reefer the rail industry was able to accommodate just about every market in 35:42the united states 35:44petroleum age led to the introduction of the tank car 35:47the automobile Revolution led to the emergence of the auto rack and the 35:52piggyback or TOFC trailer on flat car was developed in response to trucking 35:58competition in the nineteen fifties 36:01but with the proliferation of freight car designs came the demise of another 36:04railroad car 36:05the caboose 36:08radios made possible to work with fewer people 36:12so you didn't need four or five people are on a train you could run the Train 36:17pretty effectively with two or three people 36:19the caboose became an unnecessary appendage on the rear of the Train 36:24technology caught up with the caboose in the form of friend 36:29fred beans flashing rear end device for the men who lost their jobs as a result 36:33of this the F had a different connotation the dumb Fred can be 36:40anything from a blinking light to a simple red flag stuck on the end of the 36:44last car 36:45smart Brad or the end of train device as it came to be called and radio 36:51information about the airline pressure as well as let the engineer know what 36:56the cars at the end of the Train are doing but it's not just the end of the 37:00Train that's gotten smarter 37:02railroad operations are moving full throttle to the very cutting edge of the 37:09information age 37:15at any given time there are thousands of trained staking their way across the 37:19North American continent 37:21their pants intersect they share some of the same rail and may even use the same 37:26line in opposing directions 37:29it may sound like a train wreck just waiting to happen 37:34but every move of every train is closely monitored and calculated by dispatchers 37:41located at operation centers throughout the United States 37:45the train crew has a responsibility to operate the Train 37:48but the train dispatcher gives them their out to run on train dispatchers of 37:53the rulers of the rails 37:56and no move can be made without their authorization BNSF railways network 38:03operations center is command central for the dispatchers of one of the largest 38:07rail roads in North America 38:10the facility is 45,000 square feet about the size of a football field 38:14we have at any given time about 225 employees 38:18there's a 94 different dispatching workstations 38:24each dispatchers territory is 200 to 500 miles and they're planning horizon is 38:29two to three hours ahead 38:32he or she has a screen with the track layout on the computer screen and it's 38:36all . and click the dispatcher can point to a switch or a route and direct that 38:43trains movement over that was just a point-and-click operation 38:46this way it's the dispatcher that selects the path of the train not the 38:51engineer 38:53so it's imperative that the dispatchers know exactly where their trains are at 38:57all times 38:58we've got two different tracking mechanisms once through the signal 39:01system that actually tracks trains through electric current in the rail 39:05that brings the information into the train dispatchers dispatching system and 39:09then secondly we've got a wireless aei automatic equipment identification that 39:14wirelessly transmits information into the train dispatcher and give him or her 39:18location and round and this is basically an RFID that we place on all the rail 39:25cars all the locomotives on every rail car in north america 39:30BNSF has around 500 hey I readers and as the trains go by these readers that 39:36energizes the tag and captures what car that is or what locomotive that is 39:42and then we use that information to update our mainframe and and identify 39:46exactly what's on the train at that point in time within a few seconds of a 39:52train going by a reader 39:54the information is available to the dispatchers at the network operations 39:57center as well as to customers online but since readers may be up to a hundred 40:03miles apart and conductors set out cars at various points along the route 40:08dispatchers need even more accurate reporting bnsf on a daily basis has 40:14somewhere around 1,200 trains running at any point in time and basically if there 40:19they are going by a reader there 40:21they're reporting a lot of their information through the voice train 40:23reporting application the application automatically converts verbal 40:27information into computer data so they basically just use the radio that they 40:32have they tell us what they did 40:34within nine seconds that information is updated our mainframe 40:38this information can be anything from picking up cars to leaving cars out at 40:43various side tracks and yards along the route 40:47handheld computers are also used to report card movement 40:51this would be very summer what UPS does in that that's how they keep track of 40:56their packages and this is how we keep track of our rail cars and if you 41:00consider a rail cars just a lot bigger package 41:03this is basically where we track where we left the car when we left it there 41:08and it's how we identify to the conductor 41:12you need to go pick up that package railroads are now exploring innovative 41:16ways to utilize Wi-Fi and GPS technology is to increase rail safety an example of 41:23a safety initiative is electronic train management system or eat ems as we call 41:27ET ms is a virtual safety net for the train and has the ability to 41:33independently slow down or even stop a train electronically the locomotive 41:38onboard system would have the authority that's granted to the train the speed 41:43the distance that there they have to travel with the authority has been 41:46issued 41:47the system automatically takes control of the train of the engineer exceeds the 41:51authority given to him by the dispatcher fails to acknowledge a signal or even if 41:56he's about to take a curve too quickly 41:59the system constantly monitors information about the path ahead of the 42:03train and determines what actions are required from the engineer 42:07it gives a warning to the engineer if he's not taking the appropriate action 42:11to stop or slow down the Train 42:13if they violate that or I don't react to stop the train before they get to the 42:18end of their authority it it will automatically stop the train 42:21once implemented ET ms will allow railroads to run trains more safely and 42:27efficiently so as we move deeper into the 21st century we can be sure that the 42:33rail industry will continue to be the best and most cost effective way to move 42:38great 42:42yeah