08-08-2011, 01:06 PM
Alaska is kind of a special case. The Alaska Railroad has virtually no truck competition because it is so remote. Most freight shipped into Anchorage comes in on rail cars on a ship to a small harbor 100 miles from Anchorage if I remember correctly. The rail cars are then assembled into a train the delivered to Anchorage where trucks are used for local delivery.
For your area, you mentioned no large agricultural facilities other than livestock which are shipped almost entirely by truck now days. Is there either heavy logging or large mining operations in the area? If you have heavy logging or mining operations requiring heavy equipment, you might have a Caterpillar Tractor Dealer along the railroad. Most of Cat's heavy equipment is too large to ship by truck except with special "oversize load" permits that entail a lot of extra cost including the need for a pilot car in front and behind the rig hauling the tractor. They have to deal with special routes to avoid low overhead or narrow passages, and may also have to deal with restricted hours when the load can be moved. The result is the Cat dealers receive their new tractors from the factory via rail. Typically the tractors have components such as blades removed and lashed to the flat car between two tractors, large earth moving dump trucks will have their beds removed from the chassis and lashed to the flat car to reduce the height of the load. In other words the Cat dealer will receive new machines broken down into component parts with a large crate of hardware, and as many machines as will fit to fill a flat car. The dealer mechanics do the final assembly of the machine before either putting it on display for sale in the yard or delivery to the local customer. The Cat dealer will also have a 2 or 3 large "low boy" tractor trailer rigs to use to pick up for service or deliver heavy equipment to customers.
For your area, you mentioned no large agricultural facilities other than livestock which are shipped almost entirely by truck now days. Is there either heavy logging or large mining operations in the area? If you have heavy logging or mining operations requiring heavy equipment, you might have a Caterpillar Tractor Dealer along the railroad. Most of Cat's heavy equipment is too large to ship by truck except with special "oversize load" permits that entail a lot of extra cost including the need for a pilot car in front and behind the rig hauling the tractor. They have to deal with special routes to avoid low overhead or narrow passages, and may also have to deal with restricted hours when the load can be moved. The result is the Cat dealers receive their new tractors from the factory via rail. Typically the tractors have components such as blades removed and lashed to the flat car between two tractors, large earth moving dump trucks will have their beds removed from the chassis and lashed to the flat car to reduce the height of the load. In other words the Cat dealer will receive new machines broken down into component parts with a large crate of hardware, and as many machines as will fit to fill a flat car. The dealer mechanics do the final assembly of the machine before either putting it on display for sale in the yard or delivery to the local customer. The Cat dealer will also have a 2 or 3 large "low boy" tractor trailer rigs to use to pick up for service or deliver heavy equipment to customers.