The 1400 miles value is approximately the distance from Fargo, North Dakota to the Ports in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). A 2008 Bureau of Transportation Statistics report (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2008) shows that the quarterly average line-haul speed between 1999 and 2008 ranged from 21 to 25 miles per hour. The STB now requires railroads to report on performance metrics every week (Railroad Performance Metrics, 2015). According to the self-reported performance metrics of Canadian Northern (CN), Union Pacific (UP) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) the average line-haul speed for unit grain trains over the past 52 weeks was approximately 22 miles per hour (Railroad Performance Metrics, 2015). Line-haul speed is a measure of the over-the-rail train speed and does not include the time trains and/or railcars spend at classification yards or at origination or termination points. According to a GAO report (Mead, 1992), railroad train crews typically switch every 7 h. This paper assumes that the delay per crew change is 1 h – this is an upper bound (i.e. a conservative value) on the time required for a rail crew change.