http://www.rtands.com/chicago-perspective/freight-passenger-or-both.html
and the article in The Economist :
I haven’t read the article, but why can’t they coexist? They did before Amtrak and the government got involved.
There is a nice discussion of this on the Classic Trains Forum; the thread is “Early 20th century Freight and Passenger Operations.” It begins with the question as to how freight and passenger operations co-existed, and there are several posts which illustrate how railroading has changed in the last fifty years and how the changes militate against frequent fast operation of passenger trains on the same tracks owned by freight railroads. It is not the involvement of Amtrak and the government (the government used to be more heavily involved), it is that freight trains are longer and faster and more are operated.
The only ‘passenger’ trains that made money were high speed freight trains (mail and parcels) that also carried passengers. A lot of others survived ONLY because they carried the U.S. Mail. When the Post Office moved first class mail to planes and everything else to trucks, the subsidy went away. If rail management had had their way, the service would have ended RIGHT THEN - but various State and Federal regulators (who were still living in the 19th century) insisted that it had to continue.
Since 1971, freight operations have changed dramatically, to the extent that they are barely compatable with the ghostly shadow of passenger service that is Amtrak. Also, people are even less tolerant of delays and disruptions than they were forty years ago - and will sue quicker, for bigger claims. To rail management, more (and better scheduled, less delay-tolerant) passenger service on their freight railroads would be the Yokozuna in the preschool play yard - instant raiser of negative flags.
If they both have to exist, it’s better that they don’t try to coexist. Separate rights of way, and possibly different routes, would better serve the interests of each, since passengers want to travel downtown-to-downtown and freight doesn’t need to.
Chuck (Sumo fan)
Americans are conservative, a status quo seeking people. Our railroad system is stuck in some ways as being what it acheived to be 50 years ago in the minds of the owners/operators, the shippers, the various governments, and the public in general. Perhaps it is time to stop thinking that way and think outside the box we are in. Instead of thinking railroads and tracks, perhaps we should be thinking rights of way and routes. Almost redesign the the business plan, the engineering plan, the private-public sectors. Instead of trying to put new ideas and technologies onto existing railroads and railroad managements, railroads and railroad managements should look at changing who and what they are, redesigning and redefining who they are, what they do, and where they do it. Why not take line X through heavily populated and use it for passenger service and take line y which circumvents the population centers and devote it to freight? Today we must have owner/operators and public planners sit down and virtually start over, stop thinking 1960 and start thinking 2060 and 2100. There will be loosers, but there will be more winners and more growth in the long run. Stop bickering, politicizing, posturing, and holding on to the past and start thinking what has to be done for the future of the country and its transportaiton system as a whole and not just rairoads in particular.
If you want all them fancy tracks and relocations, lay your money on the table Sir! Otherwise, no one is going to listen to you or anyone else with dreams of pie in the sky or utopia. It is their private property, not yours.
It’s about money. I only invest where I am going to make money, and currently, I am making a good buck from my RR stocks. As I like to say, quit salivating o
Henry6: While there are certainly valid arguments to the freight railroad operators needing to rethink how they operate, the most radical change has to come from the public side. They need to protect the railroads as a critical piece of infrastructure rather than mostly milking it as a cash cow. Some are finally seeing the importance of protecting abandoned rights of way, but fewer recognize that various government actions often caused their abandonment in the first place. Rather than 1960, we have to move public planners out of 1910.
The “Line Y” you describe that circumvents the population centers is generally the first one that was abandoned. After all, it didn’t have much on-line business to start with. It usually no longer exists as the “planners” allowed, and even encouraged, it to be broken up for other uses.
In the same general theme, often towns and small cities want the railroad to relocate out of town, so they can redevelop the central yard area and maybe use the original right of way to widen a street. In the short term it may be good for both parties, but when (if) passenger service returns there may be much complaining about how inconvenient the station location is. Can any of the former terminal station locations in Chicago be resurrected if Union Station cannot handle all the increasing traffic?
John
But the railroads didn’t pop up overnight into what they are today. It took years and generations to shape it into what it has become. It would be foolish to think that we can wave a magic wand and change the fundamentals of the system - with the principle foundation being that the freight railroads are a profit-driven, private business.
You are not just talking about reshaping railroads, but reshaping America. While we all have dreams, we cannot lo
If the USA is to get TRUE high speed rail transportation it cannot coexist on tracks used by main line freight transportation…freight would pound the track structure out of high speed specs in very short order. Additionally the clearing time for a freight to run and not impeded the operation of a High Speed passenger train would mitigate the effective operation of freight.
Secondly, most of today’s existing rail routes were laid out in the early 19th Century by surveyors on horse back depending upon strong Irish and Germans to be the earth movers for the right of way and designed for the operation of trains at 20/30 MPH in the 19th Century.
Do we want to operate 21st Century High Speed, high technology trains on horse & buggy rights of way.
Risk, is a major part of any decision making in boardrooms in any industry. The Directors and Board members are cognisant of the fact they are using investors money. They also understand that available cash is limited, and must make the best use of it. That, and profit motive, are leading drivers. When you add money that is not earned, nor with any accountability, you loose that focus on making the best decisions. It’s free, there are no consequences.
As far as freight, the system is working fine. Investments are made to add or enhance capacity, safety, and reliability. I feel when looking at the system now, that it’s current infrastructure can be enhanced even more when, not if, but when more capacity is needed. And it does not include major alterations of current properties. Improved technologies, along with more profit motive from those in the front lines.
I use as my example, the idea which the DME’s leader, Mr. Schieffer dreamed up about a coal line. A decade or more later, not one investor, not one tie laid, not one coal train running. I have said over and over, if it was such a hot idea, where was the money? If the Utilities were in such dire straights, demanding alternatives, where was the money? Today, it has Nada, and the current management has shelved the project.
Yes, money is made from people with ideas. But, those ideas must get other peoples money to produce results. Before others take a risk, they want more than a dream.
I have been watching this subject as it has emerged in several threads here plus coverage in Trains, over the last year or so. My general feeling about it that its significance has been largely underappreciated.
Railfans seem to be the most enamored with HSR for obvious train reasons. But HSR also has a fashionable “green” cachet, which makes it the darling of the news media. For the same reason, HSR is also the darling of the Obama administration and the current congress. Pushback is coming from the NIMBYS who don’t want new trains running through their neighborhoods, and from patriots who believe that the U.S. is spending itself over a cliff. But the greatest conflict of all will be when the ideology of socialized passenger rail collides head-on with the capitalism of private U.S. freight railroads.
Everybody has heard that the freight railroads are doing very well these days.
For sake of harmony, let’s assume that HSR and freight cannot coexist on the same tracks (although there are ROW’s - old NYC - on which the number of tracks was reduced where new track could be laid). But let’s leave that alone. Between the east coast and CHI within the US, there used to be 5 main lines: NYC, PRR, Erie, NKP/DL&W and B&O. Maybe others, but those are the only routes that occur to me. It is my impression that several of these routes are only lightly used or even nearly abandoned. What about the possibility of using one of those routes to build a dedicated HSR? And lest some think it’s the evil government taking over private property, let the owners be paid market value, whatever that currently is, for a nearly defunct ROW.
RRKen defined my postulation of maintaining the status quo with his statement that freight railroads are working fine. It is this thought for today instead of plan for tomorrow approach that brings the topic to the forefront. And Bucyrus’s comments concerning HSR are certainly to the point: it is displayed and discussed but not understood in terms of past, present and future, it just feels good to be talking about it. Nobody has a plan today to meet the transportation needs of our country in the future in terms of delivering the transportation that will be demanded by society for both goods and people. With that thought, neither is there a plan on the table to pay for it. That is the whole point: there is no plan, only bickering, posturing, and perserving one’s own ass so to speak. If no plan can be launched from the present platform ( i.e., the existing transportation structure) then the only way to get the job done is to start with a clean sheet of paper. I don’t believe the clean sheet of paper is needed, though. I believe a revising of the mindsets of all concerned, a revising of the physical plants (operating and abandoned properties), and a clear understanding and definition of what has to be accomplished (goals) to be met at any given future date can utilize the good and throw away the bad of today’s operations, It can’t rest on a status quo just because it has served us up to now and will pay a dollar dividend by midnight tonight.
Just to be clear, I believe that the intention is to run HSR on its own dedicated track rather than share the same tracks with freight trains. What is being proposed is to only share the corridor with the freight railroads. The fact that the corridors date back to the horse and buggy days does not necessarily make them obsolete for HSR application. Much of that old corridor is straight enough for HSR, and what is not will simply be re-worked. It is still much cheaper that acquiring a new corridor that will spawn a legal battle for every foot. So, one might ask why the freight railroads would be dragging their feet on this.&n
Well that is pretty much what I was saying. concerning the CHI to east coast. And one benefit to the railroads that seems overlooked (I fail to understand why) in the discussion is that moderate (up to 160 mph) high speed lines in China (which would be HSR to us) will share track with very fast freight. The benefit? Reclaiming a lot of high-value, high-priority freight currently handled by Fed-Ex, trucks, etc. I don’t think that potential new business is chump change, and as a shareholder interested in the longer range, I don’t think it should be overlooked simply because it is a change from present vision. If the founders of Fed Ex had looked at things with so little foresight, the company would have been stillborn.
I’m curious how much freight you would reclaim from trucks. Not much freight is that important that it needs 100mph+ service. And trucks will always have the advantage of door to door service.
With urban and suburban sprawl, where do you even put the rail lines? That’s the problem. The past 50 years have been decentralizing urban areas. Industries have moved to business parks. People have moved to suburbs and exurbs. The highway system is a mess.
But if we’re going to dream, let’s dream right. Forget about rails. Why not maglev systems? Why settle at 150-200mph?
Either way, it’s nice to dream. But the reality is we are a collection of 50 states with differing political ideologies, with multiple counties (or parishes) in each state, with multiple municipalities in each of those. We also have a populace that has been trained to be afraid of any type of government involvement, usually by politicians using that thought to get elected INTO government. And I believe the only way to develop a true HSR that makes sense is to have it be designed and implemented under federal control.
In the end, the question will always be: Where is the money? With the economy leaving this country for other parts of the world, will we even need HSR in 50 years? True, that is in-the-box speaking so to speak, but it is the reality of the situation, for which many proponents of this system refuse to answer.
In general, I don’t think the numbers work. The cost of moving high value truckload frt by HSR is probably worse than over the road team drivers and wouldn’t be worth it unless you could wring whole days out of the door to door trip time
Yes there is potential to run faster freight trains and develop a whole new class of business, and that will be a change from the present vision. But the far bigger change from the present vision is that the government will be developing this fast freight business as a public sector business. So in that sense, the change from the present vision, from the private railroads’ perspective, could not be greater.
And I am sure that the freight railroads would welcome new business opportunities, however, they worry about what those new opportunities will cost their present business.
Yes, but do the numbers really need to work?
If it is government, public sector, high-speed freight, why should it have to be eco
Several good thoughts from several sectors…Bucyrus your, “do the numbers really have to work?” is pivotal. At the moment the answer is that there is no answer at the moment; nor does there need to be one at this moment. But I do disagree with the last statment that “…only the government can decide that we must have HSR…”, If there is to be a plan for 2060 or 2100 or whenever, all parties have to decide that it is wanted, how it is to be implimented, and how it is going to be paid for. That is why it has to be formally addressed and planned for now rather than having the status quo come up and bite one’s behind forcing an unfavorable and costly solution on those involved. We are where we are today because the status quo has been allowed and no one has effectively altered it; now it is to the point where major changes have to be made. The United States has met such problems head on: high definition TV for example. It has been the standard for the rest of the world for years but an ignored technology until the government had to make the determination and force it on us. Unfortunatley adjusting our entertainment media is more quickly and easily done than our transportation system.