INTEGRAL TRAIN SYSTEMS

This book is the first to deal with integral train technology. It therefore necessarily includes material covering a wide range of topics. The book presents the basics and some illustrations that can help managers, engineers, regulators, and traffic men to use the new technology and the services of men skilled in its application. This book assumes some familiarity with transportation, particularly rail transportation. This book is divided into four parts: (1) Concepts, (2) Technology, (3) Money, and (4) Commercial Exploitation. Integral train technology starts with some obvious but ordinarily neglected concepts. They amount to a strictly commercial plan to run each train as if it were intended solely to produce low-cost transportation. The train needs accessories to load and unload, service, fuel, and maintain, it. The entire system is an integral train system. It also follows that an integral train system will use and pay directly for only those railroad plant and facility components that it needs. It will also contribute to "overhead and profit," and this money can be used in any way that management chooses. Engineering decisions derive from commercial ideas. Engineering design consists of selecting, for each function, the tool and method associated with lowest total cost. It does make a difference how the work is done. A first commercial choice is usually a single-purpose facility or device. Few existing transportation systems and accessories survive such analysis. Each bit of business must meet at least its own incremental costs. Budgeting is an important part of the planning process because costs enter into all design decisions and commercial considerations. Integral train systems have the incidental but useful characteristic of enabling most of their costs to be isolated and hence indentified. It is also characteristic of integral train systems that their management can be largely isolated from the management of the rest of the railroad. Therefore advances in technology and operational science need not wait for the rest of the industry. The savings from such advances can be realized and identified at once. The two appendices concern: (a) Some projections that will help anticipate next-generation equipment. (b) A glossary of terms which have special definitions in integral train technology.

• Corporate Authors:

  Kalmbach Publishing Company

  21027 Crossroads Circle
  P.O. Box 1612
  Waukesha, WI  United States  53187-1612
• Authors:
  • KNEILING, J G
• Publication Date: 1969

Media Info

• Pagination: 216 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Unit trains
• Old TRIS Terms: Integral train systems
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00041628
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 15 1974 12:00AM