In a previous post I talked of the merits of railroad nationalization. In my view a better idea would be not to nationalize railroads but complement them. Canada did a similar thing with Canadian National Railway. You could create a corporation who’s purpose is to provide rail serivce where it no longer exists it could also provide competition where there is no competition where there is none. Such a railroad would complement rather than replace. You could call it national rail corporation or something like that.
During WWi the USRA proved that they could make a mess of running the railroads - note that the Federales kept their hands off during WWII.
Conrail was a government attempt to do just what you’ve described. Highway trucks ant the privately-owned railroads ate Conrail’s shorts. NS and CSX cherry-picked the corpse.
We already know just how successful Amtrak really isn’t, except in the few places where corridor service makes sense.
Given the above, and the fact that there are paved roads everywhere and no shortage of common-carrier truck lines, your proposal is either a hallucination or 150 years too late.
Chuck
But Conrail was a success…it did just what it was designed to do: take the eastern bankrupts, make one railroad, trim the fat, create a viable railroad, sell it off to private sector.
But Conrail was a failure…it abandoned hundreds of miles of railroad, abandoned hundreds of communities, downgraded and misused some exceptional pieces of railroad, it trimmed the northeast down to one viable railroad.
But Conrail was a success: its ability to become so big and useful that it could sell itself off to two other Class Ones giving CSX and NS the ability to compete for and successfully capture railroading east of the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Coast has been exceptional.
But…the story continues. And is argumentative. It depends upon your point of view.
Taken literally you are suggesting building a SECOND national rail network to compete with the first. Not a credible idea.
Mac
Nonsense. IT would be simply to restore lost service rail service both freight and passenger urban and nationwide at record low levels of service in terms of both the amount of service and quality of service, despite record of levels of demand for service. There used to be around 275,000 miles of railroad trackage there is now around 100,000. Most towns with a population 3,000 or more used to have streetcar system now only large cities have a light rail system of other rail system and in large cities service had been reduced. In many regions there is only one railroad and thus rate regulation is still effect, providing competition would allow regulated pricing to be done away with.
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I fully agree with Mac. Just what the H problems are you trying to fix?
The US has the safest, most cost efficient, and extensive rail freight system in the world. And you want to F with it by getting the government more involved? Sure, that’s gonna’ work.
Despite its world leading status, the US rail freight system would be a whole lot better if the government fools hadn’t inhibited domestic intermodal development for 50 years. Or if the same government fools hadn’t blocked unit train rates; or, for that matter, if they hadn’t diverted the long haul perishable movement to truck through their sheer stupidity.
You have little, if any, comprehension of transportation economics. So please go get some education and experience before you promote changes to the best rail freight system in the world.
The damage is greater about 430,000 miles.
You seem to have the wrong impression about why and how Canadian National Railways was created. Several major railways had sunk into deep financial trouble, yet were too important to the economy to be allowed to cease. In broad terms that sounds not too different from the Conrail situation. The rescue of the Canadian Northern Railway may have been driven in large part by the danger of one of Canada’s major banks collapsing and affecting the entire Canadian economy. Once the bankrupt companies were merged into the CNR it did not take very long before abandonments of duplicate routes started to take place. Sound familiar?
Thereafter CNR was (at least nominally) operated no differently than the other major Canadian railway, the CPR. Both shed unprofitable branch lines as fast as the regulator would let them, and were subject to the same crippling bureaucratic rate regulation. Today’s rail map shows only a skeleton of what once was a fairly dense network of rail lines on both railways.
Having the government as the fairy godmother to occasionally refinance CNR more or less compensated for the additional political pressures they had to accommodate. In that respect, CNR was sometimes forced to be slower at abandonment, especially in the Atlantic region.
John
And we will finance all this extra capacity how? The rail network as it exists is basically profitable, even though only NS & UP are earning above the STB’s break even standard. With 275K miles and everything you are talking about the system was headed to total chaos before the Staggers Act and the formation of ConRail. Rail lines exist on economics - they either earn enough to stay open or they get shut down. Just like all the Big City Department stores that no longer exist. My town had 3 high quality Department Stores - none of which could make the financial jump into the 21st Century.
We already have threats of shutting down the governent over such things as the debt limit - and you want to pile more debt on the government???
Well, at least you got that part right. The current system is what can be supported with the revenue that the lines generate. The lines that are gone, are those that cannot be supported with the revenue they generate. I f you don’t understand that basic idea, you won’t understand anything else that anyone tries to tell you about this.
As several have already suggested, a rail system that resembles what the railroads were early on would not be profitable.
The early rail lines were built when there were no alternatives to even short haul freight movement (or people movement, for that matter). And they survived in that state precisely because there were no real alternatives.
I have in my possession a railroad shipping document for household goods from Pulaski, NY to LaFargeville, NY. The trip was about 66 miles by rail, and still required an eight mile trip, likely by horse team, the final eight miles to their final destination.
By road today, the move to the final destination would be 45 miles. In fact, most people would rent a trailer and make several trips.
Once the roads became sufficiently passable to get from here to there, it was no longer necessary to ship your product by rail to the next town, or to travel yourself. Barring a major rail based industry, the lines no longer had a reason to exist for many towns.
With the exception of a few lines that were removed and have been put back in because there is an economic reason for them to exist, the rail system is pretty much what it needs to be.
Economically, the government has no reason to get involved in day-to-day operations.
John (cx500) states the matter of the creation of the Canadian National succinctly, especially in describing the abandonment of duplicate track. There was quite a bit soon abandoned in Alberta and going into British Columbia (and good use was made of the rail). Some of the duplicate tracks were laid quite close together as the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian northern Alberta/Canadian Northern Pacific headed for, and crossed Yellowhead Pass–and the better track was kept, whether it had been laid by one road or the other. This is an instance in which consolidation guided by government produced a good result as it removed unnecessary duplicate track.
The old crown corporation CN is sometimes unfairly characterized as a poorly run organization when in fact it did ok given that it was also the trash can for all things unwanted relating to trains in Canada . Passenger trains are unprofitable?.. make them a division of CN called VIA. The Newfoundland Railway is a money loser? Hand it over to CN and let them deal with it. The rail lines in PEI are unprofitable, always have been, and always will be? Too bad, keep them running anyway. One locomotive builder is markedly better than a competitor? Suck it up CN, you have to buy from all of the builders as per your mandate. So if you want GP9s make sure you get some crappy Trainsmasters and 244 engine MLWs too.
CR was hardly a success. It just got by. The only thing that saved their behinds was Staggers deregulation.
If the other railroads got away with ignoring regulations and creative accounting like CR did, they would be rolling in dough. (CSX and NS’ collective jaws hit the floor once they got a good look inside CR…and then there was the curious deletion of records in Philadelphia when CSX and NS came to get records)
Thank god the Prince Plan never happened.
OK, ya got me. Prince Plan?
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Kevin C. Smith:
Post WW1 and pre-WW2, the ICC & USRA tried (unsuccessfully, thank you) to merge all the railroads into semi-regional systems during the Great Depression that would be competitive and somewhat profitable after USRA almost destroyed them (They managed to destroy Colorado Midland and DL&NW here in Colorado, others were left crippled) when they effectively took over the railroads in WW1.
http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/133.html
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Miscellaneous/ICCPlan.htm (lists the systems)
Catastrophe averted.
Yes, MC, I recall reading something of these plans to merge the railroads in the encyclopedia in my high school library, back in the early fifties. I did not understand much, if any about them, but they did seem to be something that would be forced upon the railroads and not something that the roads were interested in.
As to the CM, I have the impression that a bunch of little boys used to playing with toy trains looked at all the routes between Denver and Salt Lake City, found the CM, and exclaimed, “This is the best route; let’s send all traffic over this line,” and had no thought at all of the power required to move the traffic–nor of how to arrange all the meets necessary on a single track line. Then, when the CM was choked with the traffic, they said, “Bad, bad, you won’t do what we asked you to do, so we are going to take all the traffic from you.” Perhaps these men should have been required to personally pay for the damage they did?
No government should finance any expansion. However the use of tax credits to allow the RRs to determine w2hat routes to build is a much better way ? Sale of these credits probably should be severely restricted to keep benefits for RRs into the long term ?
What’s the difference between government financing, and tax credits? A dollar received from the government seems no different than a dollar not paid to the government?
I recognize that fact but the RRs can much better know what improvements are needed and probably at definitely reduced cost therefore less gov costs. Adding in government bureaucrats just slows down any improvements. Rail improvements are needed to start now.
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