LInked: http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RailPlanPrelim10-15.pdf
The link to the 2009 FRA Preliminary National Rail Plan ( pdf is some 41 pages in total).
A long read with lots of illustrative figures, some seemed to be somewhat old to be used , but they’re in there.
This should provide a lot of fodder for discussion. Both Don Phillips take, and the Forum members thoughts, and ideas on the potentials discussed.
We have touched on this plan in some previous threads such as the one on the Trains electrification article in the November issue. But it certainly does merit further analysis and discussion. This new FRA plan seems to echo the developing call for electrification for the new sustainability/green objective, as a publicly financed, government administered, national plan.
What is Don Phillips’ take? (as if I couldn’t guess)
Well, I started reading this document. So far I have gotten as far as this statement, on page 3 (and I quote):
“Together these systems provide, singularly or intermodally, the transportation that is required for freight and passengers. Over the past decades, the network has improved in response to shippers and travelers who have demanded more efficiencies from both the transportation modes and the intermodal connections. As a result, freight shippers and their customers have been able to extract logistic costs from the supply chain, and commuter and intercity rail passengers can sensibly choose the type of transportation that best meets their expectations in terms of time and cost.”
And I had to ask, since the network has improved in response to shippers and travellers demanding more efficiencies “over the past decades”, why do we now need to have a National Rail Plan to ensure efficiency?
I’ll continue reading, but so far all I have seen is that Congress sees a burning need to get their fingers around the neck of more of the economy. This discussion should be interesting.
Jim
There was a previous thread called, “What a Nice Thing To Say,” started by greyhounds.
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/162021.aspx?PageIndex=1
greyhounds began the thread by posting the last paragraph at the end of page 4 of the FRA plan. I won’t copy and paste it here because anything copied and pasted out of a pdf file corrupts the formatting in the Trains forum composition box. The only way to avoid that problem is to manually transcribe any material from a pdf file.
Further down, I posted this response, which is my same feeling today:
Greyhounds,
When I read your post, I took the quote from the FRA paper a hopeful sign that the FRA is encouraging the private sector to keep up the good work in their handling of the railroad business. However, I get the opposite reaction when I read the whole FRA paper, with its theme of a “national plan.”
“Paranoia strikes deep” - Buffalo Springfield.
Schlimm-any chance you could address the issue of why we need a National Rail Plan?
“Could you tell me why we don’t?” (facetiously, I ask). There is a strong tone of paranoia in the previous post.
My point is that the author right away detracts from the substance of the Phillips article by launching into a political piece about “creeping socialism” (my quotes), rather than discussing the issues. I have not read the articles in question yet, though I plan to. I suspect they state cases for a plan far better than I could.
There is a BIG LEAP from a NATIONAL PLAN to NATIONALIZATION.
A National Plan would help ensure goals are met in the most efficient manner with the least duplication of infrastructure. It may not have been termed as a “National Plan,” but when the government set standards back in the 1800’s that was the goal of silly things like a Standard Gauge for track. It was not a Nationalization, just an attempt to get the most out of what was being built, a NATIONAL PLAN today would serve the same purpose.
A National Plan is sound planning for the Future, it is not the same thing as Nationalization.
Doug
I never said that the FRA plan calls for nationalization, but since we are going by tone, I think you all ought to read the plan and check out its tone.
Uhmm, the USRA of the 1920’s comes to mind, that came about BECAUSE of a LACK of planning, and that the railroads were unable to work together, and the East Coast rail network came to a standstill. The government DID Nationalize the railroads then.
During World War 2, the Railroads worked together much better, and there was no need to nationalize the rail network. Maybe the lessons were learned 20 years before? and some planning was done?
Doug
By your language, it sure sounds like a strong suspicion of there being more there than the plan states.
Another way to look at it is a government that has learned to embrace and to use systems analysis. Linear thinking of old led to such failures as “quick fixes that backfire”, unintended consequences, and people who don’t buy-in (meaning ‘support’ and ‘ownership’) notions and initiatives about which they were not consulted. So, in my psychological background, if you suspect that someone could have a stake, or be affected even indirectly, and you fail to invite and include their input in the programmes that will affect them, you can expect to be labelled a failure by some onlookers This may only be those few who stand to lose the most, or, if they have advocates and allies, it may be a larger and more problematic number.
So, let’s agree that the term is a new buzzword. So what? If it is understood and has meaning in a context of problem-solving, why not use it? Its evolution is inevitable, and it will be affected over time as people shape the term and eventually discard it…as often happens.
Similarly, I guess you could contenance what governments do as meddling, and their publications to their constituents as manifestos. My impression is that they are promulgated with a view to the deontological notion of “informed consent”, another buzzword. We should beware an inflammatory set of labels that politicize, and therefore act as a barrier to, this discussion.
-Crandell
One last digression:
As an academic in psychology, I encountered the term stakeholder in meetings to plan “shared governance.” Jargon and buzzwords are an unfortunate occupational hazard because they may exclude others from open participation. Both terms always struck me as rather silly but innocuous in intent, and ineffectual in reaching the goal of inclusion of all the affected parties in any situation where the purpose is to arrive at a “good” solution. So ALL parties are included, not just the “owners” (shareholders and management of a corporation) but also its employees, customers and other members of the impacted public, including, but not limited, to governments.
This is just amazing. People just flat out make stuff up . The government never, ever set a “standard” for the distance between the rails, the track gauge. The closest they came was specifying the gauge of the 1st transcontinental line, the UP/Central Pacific. But after that date railroads were built to all kinds of different gauges.
A salient example would be the Sandy River & Rangely Lakes Railroad in Maine. It did a wonderful job meeting the local transportation needs and providing a connection to the outside world via transfer with the Maine Central. It had two feet of distance between its rails. The railroad was started in 1878, well after the transcontinental was complete. Construction of additional mileage continued into the 20th century.
If there would have been some “silly” national gauge standard the development of this efficient transportation system would have been hindered because it would have had to have been built to meet “the standard” instead of being tailored to meet the needs of the market it was intended to serve.
What’s wrong with having a “National Rail Plan” is that such a plan will be wrong. It is simply impossible to develop an all encompasing plan that
The term, stakeholder does refer to people who will be affected by a government project. And the term is used to recognize concerns of those people as to how they will be affected by the project, thus creating the implication that because everyone will be heard, the process will be entirely fair. However, there are other subtleties to the term, stakeholder.
For example, my city spent 2-1/2 years trying to foist a $750,000-1,000,000 grandiose improvement to the tiny road I live on with about 50 other residents. No residents wanted it or could see the need for it. We did not want the road
au contraire!
The establishment of a standard gauge of 4’ 8 1/2" in G.B. (5’ 3" in Ireland) by a Royal Commission in the jolly old UK occurred in 1846.
In the US, the Pacific Railway Act of 1863 pretty well made certain that the standard gauge of most northern rail lines would become the national standard. Very little new trackage was built to other gauges after its passage. In 1886 the southern lines switched over.
Perhaps we could draw some comparisons between the national plan for health care and the preliminary plans for transportation.
Perhaps I speak prematurely as I havent read the report, but doesnt the government have enough transportation to handle with the US Postal Service?
ed
Well, I have already answered that question by quoting from the preliminary plan itself in my first post. Here’s an excerpt from the preliminary plan itself:
“Over the past decades, the network has improved in response to shippers and travelers who have demanded more efficiencies from both the transportation modes and the intermodal connections. As a result, freight shippers and their customers have been able to extract logistic costs from the supply chain, and commuter and intercity rail passengers can sensibly choose the type of transportation that best meets their expectations in terms of time and cost.”
When a government “plan” comes right out and says that the network has improved without the assistance of a government plan, logical people can conclude that the market (there is that darn word again!) is doing what it is supposed to.
I wasn’t asking you what your point was, I will hope to keep this discussion above that kind of back and forth. I started reading the plan, came across a section that led me to ask what I think is a valid question, and in response get a question and not an answer. Hopefully I have addressed your question and you in
Thanks, Bucyrus, for your affirmation. In consulting you, your local government was able to serve you well, even if it meant cancelling a project that they had initiated.
-Crandell
Nuts. You beat me to it!! [(-D]
I looked at the data as presented and also saw that quote and like you had that running through my own head. My only guess—and boy am I stretching here — is that it becomes a part of an overarching transportation plan. All that I see though is more big government expansionism when there really is not the need for it. And any co-ordination of the scale that is being discussed here could very well lead to bureaucratic expansion—there is where the jobs will come from.
Outreach is what I fell over. The new term for marketing the idea–