Do Railroads create a strong economy?
From what I have seen in video across the globe that where there are operating Railroads there are strong economies. When goods are moved into and out of an area from long distances, the trade potential is greatly improved. Railroads seem to be more reliable for moving bulk goods in mostly all terrain and mostly all weather. Without bulk goods moving over long distances economic conditions will be weak.
Is my view accurate?
Andrew Falconer
I think the question you are really asking is “Are railways essential to an industrial economy?” Because there are quite a few strong economies that have no railways at all, e.g., several of the Persian Gulf emirates such as Abu Dhabi.
For an industrial economy to develop, either water or rail transportation is required. There are plenty of examples historical and at present of highly successful industrial economies reliant almost entirely upon water, air, and highway transportation, e.g., Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Israel, several of the Gulf States, and arguably Ireland. And originally the railway was intended to be a method to haul coal to tidewater.
However, if one is to develop an inland industrial economy, absent navigable rivers railways are a key part of the necessary infrastructure, along with electric transmission, telecommunications, highways, air transportation, water and sewer, health care, security, and competent governance. Take any one of these out and the system collapses.
Railways do not create a strong economy. They are a tool to get there. There are plenty of countries with railway systems that have virtually no economy at all.
S. Hadid
My view is that railroads do not, in and of themselves, create a strong economy. Railroads can play an important role, particularly in an industrial economy or a consumer-based economy, in that they are efficient at bulk transport.
But almost every country in the world has at least somewhat of a rail system (there are a few exceptions). And some of those countries have had those rail systems for a long time. And yet they remain third world, non-emerging, countries.
Competitive and High-Density Railroads appear to have a greater effect on a nation or state’s economy.
Non-Competitive and low-density railroad lines appear to do nothing to improve the economy of nations and states.
If railroads are to be built, there must be many companies and many lines to get the goods and people moving at the proper volumes to substain economic development.
This lesson could be applied to all those Countries with thin and weak railroads and thin and weak economies.
Andrew
All due respect but these assertions are at best gross generalizations and at worse balderdash. Western Europe developed an immense industrial economy (remember Germany circa 1939?) with state-owned railroads, while the U.S. rail system until the 1920s was on average long and thin, and the western U.S. railroads until the 1970s were on average long and thin. And there are some countries today that have both state-owned and relatively low-density rail systems that seem to be doing quite well, e.g. Turkey.
Cite some facts.
S. Hadid
War creates a strong economy.
I guess youre not including France, Germany, Austria or Russia in 1918. There was also England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Czecholvakia, Hungary, Poland, USSR, China and Japan in 1945.
1918??
1914 is the date you were thinking of.
Kurt
No I was not; I was thinking of 1918.
In my spare time (ha!) I am working on a study that compares the US 1860 census data with the US 1880 census data for the states/territories impacted by the transcontinental RR. That is 10 years before completion vs. 10 years after completion. So far the results are very interesting but now I am finding I will have to compare a few states/territories that did not have the transcontinental to provide a baseline. Intial findings show that all areas exhibited growth – but I still can’t answer the question, “How much was due to the railroad?”
dd
Railroads are a conveyor belt, an efficent steel wheel on steel rail platform which offers little rolling resistance in it’s simplest terms. There is no simple reductionist answer. In developing countries, most often they open up markets. In existing economies, now they are primarlily used for bulk commodities. Everything in an economic sense is reciprocal, if there are no markets, rails are torn up. So are rails essential to a market? Or are markets essential to rails?
These days with markets you can count on one hand, coal, chemicals, perhaps intermodal if you discount trucks, grain…etc they are intergal and difficult to replace so in that sense they are essential. Otherwise, no. Critical assumptions can change fairly rapidly. If coal is replaced by nuclear power and China loses it’s economic edge as the defacto manufacturing base for the U.S whether the cause be political or economic, they would certainly stumble. They are no longer woven into the fabric of everyday life. So my answer is in most cases…no.
If you look at figures for the percentage of the public employed by railroads, it has shrunk by draconian measures of efficency, specifically with the passing of steam, followed by computerized dispatching, etc. While I am not a Luddite, one has to wonder if capitalism and technological efficencies are at loggerheads as employment opportunities decrease. I think we are seeing the rising of a large achilles heel. We were talking about galesburg Il on another thread, Poppa Zit pointed out that now BNSF is the largest employer. A rarity indeed as a situation but everything else in the maufacturing base has evaporated as it has in most mid sized cities…service industries are on the rise, as the manufacture of goods decline and efficencies of technology rise. The old saying goes we will get so efficent we will all be out of a job…maybe thats whats occurring now…Remember, the ghosts of hostlers, switchmen, crossing watchmen, firemen, boiler makers, machinists, c
I don`t know how it happend bobwilcox but I totally misunderstood your post.
You are of course correct. 1918.
/me pours annother cup of coffee.
Kurt.
You do not need a manufacturing based economy to see the benefits of a high capacity transportation sysetm. Imagine unloading the thousands of containers on to individual trucks at a port. Now think of the same ship unloaded onto container trains. So now the railroad needs to set a rate to pay for the infrastructure to support the trains and they might survive. If the power generation goes to nuclear from coal there is still lots of grain than needs to get from the growing areas to the rest of the world. There are more than a few reasons to support a high capacity, high fixed cost transportation system you need volume and distance. Volumes of customers as well as volumes of products. The longer the distance then the more effecient it becomes.
My answer was not in terms of an economic advantage in terms of scale or efficency… but quite literally, are they absolutely essential? If they all stopped tomorrow and the rails were pulled up, would we all dry up and vanish…? Bulk commodities as you mentioned… as well did I… are coal, grain, chemicals and arguably intermodal containers are better moved by rail. It’s a very short list. Coal…perhaps slurry lines or as in the West powerplants… at mine heads…grain by barge and truck…chemicals same…etc. What I am saying is that their absolute indispensible nature is not as strong as it once was…to the economy. If critical assumptions on where manufacturing takes place or what generates power…they will be hurting…if you feel otherwise, it’s understandable but I do not think verities last forever. If someone said to me as a youth that instead of mailing you a response by dropping it in the post office box, it would be instantly read by you in another state, I would be highly skeptical as well. If you told me the passenger train going by my school would be eliminated on a national scale in a 20 year span, I would be skeptical…If you told me most maufacturing for the U.S would take place in China…I would have had a good laugh…at my own expense…Japan was the home of cheap junk tinplate knock offs…not high end electronics…and so on…
Look at the Northern Half of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. It used to be crossed by mostly the Pere Marquette, then the C&O took over. There was little competition for transportation except for highways. Heavy Industrial Business and Railroads in that center section of Michigan have evaporated almost simultaneously.
Andrew
The North American Economy might be able to move without Railroads, but it will require a large change in how people behave and how highways are used and constructed. North American nations and states will need to build commerical traffic only highways that are used to manage all the new freight.
Andrew