Whats the basic premise of intermodal transportation?
The basic premise of intermodal is an attempt by the railroads to combine the efficiency of rail with the flexibility of highway. What you’re really trying to do is use the flexibility of truck for pick-up and delivery, and then somehow capture the efficiency of rail for the line haul. The challenge that entails is that the economics of intermodal are very affected by the distances involved in the truck-hauling segment. The closer you can get to where that freight is originating and terminating on rail, the more efficient you’re going to be, because you’re utilizing the economics of rail for as much of the journey as possible. Working against that is the fact that the only way you can get rail economics is if you run a big train, so you can’t have a whole bunch of terminals located all over the map. You want to minimize the highway distance, but at the same time you have to have enough volume originating at a terminal going to any given destination to warrant a trainload. So you’re alw
