Thursday, February 22, 2024

The Go-kart

Go kart V1.0

When I was a kid, the Saturday activity was heading to the hardware store and lumber yard - via the train station - to get supplies for the current household project.  My mom and dad were always doing home improvement.  Improving kitchen storage, built-in bookshelves and mantle for fireplace, fininshing the attic.  There was always something going on.

Part of this, was I learned to use hand tools at a young age.  A really cool thing my dad did, was to help me build wooden push-style go kart when I was in the 3rd grade.  Kind of a glorified wagon.  Each day he would leave instructions on the next step, complete with illustrations.  Drill holes and install the threaded rod for the axle.  Install eye-bolts for steering cord.   Every day a new set would await me when I got home from school.  

This project never really got completed as we moved that summer but we did play with it a good bit in the new neighborhood.

Go kart V2.0

Like every kid, the Sears Christmas catalog was THE thing to peruse every fall.  They had every toy you could ever want.  The section that always caught my attention was the go karts.  Not something I could ever afford or even ask for...  However, somewhere, perhaps Boys Life, there were adds for companies that sold go kart parts mail order.  ...maybe we could build a REAL go kart.  My dad agreed provided I pay for all the parts.  So,  ordered the mail order catalog and started saving.  I think he was interested in the design and build challenge.

Somewhere in the 8th grade, we got started. We ordered the parts we needed from the catalog and an engine from the Sears catalog.   A front axle assembly, tires, wheels, a live rear axle, bearings, band brake, pedals, centrifugal clutch, sprockets and roller chain.  He designed a frame made from 1" steel electrical conduit.  We bought the tubing and rented a bender and cut and bent and drilled and bolted and double nutted a frame.  We attached steel (or aluminum?) angles to allow for mounting the engine, seat, front axle, etc. 

The whole thing looked pretty cool.  Did it run?  Mostly.

Here's video of it running around the neighbors yard in the summer of 1969.


Notice the steering wheel is cut from plywood.  Couldn't afford everything!  Everyone had fun taking a turn until the chain fell off.  

The frame flexed enough that sometimes the chain had enough slack to jump.  We tried many ways of stiffening the engine mount.  Never really fixed the problem, though it did get a bit better.

Next problem was the drift pin the mounted the steering wheel to the hub fell out and the kart careened through a bush into a fence.  Scary.  Nobody got hurt.  Pin replaced with bolt.  Problem solved.

Next, the frame design wasn't quite up to the stresses from a kart with no suspension.  The tubing cracked and broke at several places.  We just plated over the breaks with angles to reinforce the weak spots.  That worked...until another break occurred.  Damn low cycle fatigue!

An continuing problem was getting the engine started.  It was terrible.  Even sent it out for a tune up by a small engine specialist.  Always took a whole lot of pulling the started rope to get it going.

A couple of times, we put it in the back of the station wagon and had mom drive us to some nearby trails in the woods around a sand pit. (off Wilson Rd for those familiar).  Had no idea whose property it was...but it seemed like a good idea.  We had to cut the top of the roll bar to get it to fit in the car.

For, um, safety, we had an ancient industrial hard hat - that we spray painted and put STP stickers on -   and a web strap for a seat belt.  Probably totally useless.  

The go kart had a top speed just short of 20 mph, calculated from engine max RPM and drive geometry, but when we drove it on those dirt paths in the woods, it felt like 90!  The engine would wind up all the way to it's limit and we kept the throttle all the way open as long as the path was straight.  It was really, really cool.  And really, really lucky nobody got hurt.  We could usually get a few runs in before something quit and we had to take it back home.

After a few years, the novelty wore off and real driving started happening and I sold the go kart to some younger kids.  They had good luck with it on paved parking lots where some steering would break the rear wheels "loose" (live axle, remember?) and they could drift/steer around the lot.

What a blast!


Monday, December 11, 2023

How to Kill a Rail Renaissance - and Maybe the Whole Industry

 Once upon a time, there was a Railroad Renaissance.  Traffic grew.  Revenue grew.  Railroads started making real money.  Stock prices went up. Flowers bloomed in the desert.  Wait.  Not that last one.  But, things were good.

And they looked like they were going to continue to go that way.

And then things got cloudy.  I wrote about it.

https://blerfblog.blogspot.com/2018/05/railroad-renaissance-or-dead-man-walking.html?m=0

It was just about then that E. Harrison Hunter went on his march to make all North American railroads in his image.  His brand was PSR which stood for Precision Scheduled Railroading.  It was a "bottom line" strategy that smoothed out operations so that resources could be trimmed precisely to fit, reducing costs to a very low level.

It worked. Railroads that adopted PSR netted trainloads of cash.

But, it looks like it killed the Railroad Renaissance.


The chart above show car loads of traffic - containers and trailers for intermodal.  It's adjusted for GDP.  A flat line would mean traffic is growing with the economy.  

You can see the Rail Renaissance really only applied to Intermodal.  There was real and steady growth until 2006 when some capacity issues impacted growth and the 2008 recession hit.  After that, the growth took off again topping out in 2018 before declining.

Coal was declining a bit and then nosed down with the advent of fracking about 2010, when natural gas started replacing coal in earnest.  

Merchandise traffic has just been on a steady decline the whole period. This is just the nature of business in the US. Supply chains aren't very well supported by fairly slow, large lot shipments.  What will remain of it is boutique business.  Specific commodities in fairly large quantities from specific shippers to specific consignees, like beer and sand.  Also, freight that can't economically go another way, like chemicals and ethanol for blending with gasoline.

So, what's revenue look like?


Better.  Again, data is normalized so that a flat line means revenue is keeping up with inflation and GDP growth.  There is some real revenue growth in Merchandise up until 2013 and intermodal revenue growth is more or less steady.  Coal declining after fracking boom, as expected.

The Merchandise story is one of raising rates on traffic that doesn't have real alternatives.  Here's the Revenue per unit in constant 2017 dollars.


Rates increasing on Merchandise much faster than inflation.  Rates for Intermodal relatively flat.  Coal is just trying to squeeze out the most money from a dying franchise.

So, what does this have to do with PSR?  Look at the units chart after 2018.  That is when NS started all in on PSR.

Merchandise keeps up it's steady decline.  Coal keeps dying in fits and starts.  But, intermodal starts a steady downturn.

Why?

It's because of how PSR is designed.  PSR optimizes the railroad for "what is", not "what will be".  Smooth and steady flow tends to blend traffic and eliminate day of the week variability.  It also tends to want all types of traffic to move at similar speeds and often, on the same train.  Extra track for trains to pass each other is reduced.  Once everything is "right sized", extra locomotives and engineers and conductors are eliminated.  Costs are very low, but there is little surplus for handling anything out of the ordinary or getting things back on track due to extraordinary circumstance, like snow storms or floods.

To be fair, the advent of Distributed Power, where you can run very long trains with locomotives dispersed throughout the train, also had an effect.  Railroads built for 100 car trains often have trouble finding places to stop and start 200 car trains.  They don't fit in passing sidings or yard tracks.

The combination of these two things meant railroads were optimized for:

THE EXISTING TRAFFIC OPERATING UNDER IDEAL CIRCUMSTANCES.

This is not a growth strategy, and it is showing.  New business means you have to have capacity available AHEAD of the time you take it on.  Adding track, personnel and locomotives takes quite a bit of time.

Optimizing your plan around dying merchandise traffic makes it difficult to accommodate new intermodal traffic and trains.  Part of this is inertia.  Railroads have long believed they were born to handle box cars and would just fit those "new" intermodal and unit coal trains in around the flow.  What's become clear in the past 20 or 30 years, is they are becoming primarily intermodal carriers and will have to tailor the railroad to that reality and figure out how to fit the boutique box car traffic into that flow.  

 Railroads need to pivot and go "all in" on intermodal growth.  This means investing the huge sums of cash currently being generated on building routes and equipment designed for future logistic flow.

Anything less, they are just having a glorified "going out of business sale"

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Rail Trail - Florida style

Florida has quite a bit of abandoned railroad right of way.  Some of it has been turned into some really nice rail-trails.  I've ridden the St. Augustine to Palatka trail a good bit in the last year.  

It's a nice one.  Here's an overview.  

Let's start at the beginning.  The very beginning.  The 20th century development of the east coast of Florida was caused by the building of the Florida East Coast Railway by Henry Flagler.  The original mainline of the railroad from St. Augustine south ran inland, southwest to Palatka and then SSE back toward the coast.  In 1925, the Florida East Coast built the Moultrie Cut-off - a direct line from St. Augustine to Bunnell and points south.  This effectively make the old mainline to Palatka a little-used secondary line.  It was gradually abandoned starting in the1960s.  The rail trail was started in 2004 and completed in 2018. https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/palatka-st-augustine-state-trail/history

There is a stub of the old mainline that is still in use from St. Augustine to just west of I-95.  Where this stub ends, the trail begins.

Trail beginning.  I-95 overpass just to the east.


This is a stub portion of the trail.  There is no way to start or end your ride at this spot.  The nearest access is at Vermont Blvd in Vermont Heights.  A small dirt lot and trail information kiosk are there.  A much better access point is the Vermont Heights trailhead where the trail comes out to meet SR 207.  Here, there is ample paved parking, restrooms, bottle filling station and picnic tables. The facilities are clean and well maintained.  It is a popular starting point for riders.  From here, it's about a mile to the Vermont Blvd. trail access point and another mile and half beyond that to the east end of the trail.

Vermont Trailhead pavilion with restrooms



bottle filling station

My ride

A trail kiosk

To the west, the trail follows SR 207 on the north side.  It is worth noting that in the places the trail follows SR 207, it is it's own path, separated by 30 feet or more from the highway.  This makes biking pleasant and easy.  After a mile, it crosses to the south side.

Bike crossing with signals

The highway curves away from the trail after another mile or so and heads into some shaded woods.  Then over a creek and to a short stub to the Armstrong trailhead. 


Stub to Armstrong trailhead

facilities at Armstrong


There are signs along the trail in Armstrong telling the history and importance of the railroad to the town.



From Armstrong, the trail goes through a pine forest and along a fancy horse farm before coming to the hamlet of Spuds.  The trail crosses SR 207 back to the north side.

Signaled crossing at Spuds

The trail heads off into the woods again, crossing Deep Creek on a long bridge. It is not rare to see paddlers on the creek as there's a put-in point along SR207.



The trail then goes right through the town of Hastings.  Hastings is the center of the potato growing area in Florida.  There are still plenty of fields along the trail planted in potatoes, but the Hastings' best days seem behind it.  Even the Potato Grower Association building is for sale.  



Anyone need a Potato Growers Building?

At the west end of  Hastings is the Cora C. Harrison Preserve trailhead.  This is 9 miles from Vermont Trailhead and about 10 miles from Palatka.  This is a good point to start a round trip in either direction.

Stub to Cora C Harrison Preserve Trailhead

There is excellent parking here as well as a well maintained, clean restroom and bottle filling station.  There is also a small pavilion with a picnic table here.



Hastings used to be the source of farm goods for the Flagler Resorts.

Heading west from here, you cross a short bridge over a creek and come out to SR207 again.

On your right is potato farm with a few interesting things to take see.  One is the pun-ily named "Bulls-Hit Ranch and Farms.  They have a couple of long horn steer you can see from the trail surrounded by a fence made from old concrete railroad ties. 


There is also what was once trying to be a transportation museum, complete with old freight station (moved from Hastings?), a caboose, small locomotive, fire truck, airplane and old farm machinery

Hastings Freighthouse




locomotive


once fledgling museum?

The trail runs along the north side of SR 207 for a while, both surrounded by farm fields before the highway veers off to the south and the trail continues along the back side of some rural housing in the shade.  The trail then goes through East Palatka to US17.  Here you can get some snacks at a Raceway and a Burger King.  There is also some trail parking adjacent to the Burger King. 

The trail heads towards Palatka proper along the side of US17, going over the St. Johns River.  The trail is essentially a wide sideway on the east side of the bridge and is well protected from the highway lanes.  This is the only real hill on the trail.  You can then follow the Palatka Urban trail through town if you wish to connect to the Palatka - Lake Butler rail trail on the other side of town (there is a couple mile gap between these trails that requires on-the-road riding)

I usually go as far a the Amtrak station in Palatka.  There are restrooms and a small railroad museum inside. 



Along the Palatka Urban Trail

Palatka Amtrak Station.  Two trains a day between New York to Miami stop here. 


Old planter.  ACL stands for Atlantic Coast Line Railroad - now part of CSX.

The trail is pretty well used by a variety of people.  There are recreational riders like me, road bikers getting in some miles, casual bikers doing a few miles on beach cruisers and e-bikes, walkers, dog walkers, joggers, runners and even the occasional roller bladers.

However, this trail has a few drawbacks and could use some improvement to reach it's potential.

The most obvious is the trail doesn't connect to St. Augustine.  The "on road" bike lane along SR 207 between Vermont trailhead and St. Augustine is not very inviting.  I'm not going to try it.  If the state, county and Florida East Coast RR could get together and figure out a way to put a path along the railroad into St. Augustine proper - even with a fence to keep trail users off the tracks, the trail would be a great tourist attraction and perhaps an economic boom to towns on the route.  

For example, it would be fairly easy to rent e-bikes and do a 36 mile round trip from St. Augustine to Hastings and back with a stop for lunch along the way.  It might help open up the trail to touring with trips from St Augustine to Lake Butler (once that trail is complete) with multi-day trips supported by B&Bs along the route.  



This is one of the few places you can stop along the trail to get a snack and/or a beverage - and it's on the other side of SR 207.

The trail could also use a bit of maintenance.  It's asphalt the whole way, and for the most part it is very smooth riding.  However, there are some places along the way were tree roots are pushing up making for a bit of a punishing ride in spots. The roots are from trees that have sprouted up on the old rail right of way after the railroad was abandoned.  Apparently, only those where the pavement went were removed, leaving others very close by with offending roots.  The spots need to be flattened and the offending trees removed.

The trail often gets a patina of fallen leaves and pine needles making riding a bit tricky.  The trail needs to be blown off regularly by the county.  

Overall, this trail is fun and interesting to ride.  I ride it pretty often when we are visiting the St. Augustine area.  If you see and old guy in a yellow helmet on an old blue Schwinn Continental, that's me!