This responds to the inquiries you have made about the possible
shipping of
personal household goods and furniture items by rail. As you have
indicated below, you are not an existing shipper located adjacent to or
reachable by the rail system. You have indicated also that you want
“station to station” or “team-track to team- track” service in boxcars
from
the involved railroads (CSXT and NS), but note that you can give no
indication as to where such shipments would originate or terminate.
You
have noted further that the involved railroads indicate that they do
not
handle personal household goods and are not willing to handle the
less-than-carload shipments you have requested. Further, you suggest
that
the involved railroads refuse to provide free team-tracks without a
contract even though state laws require them to have loading and
unloading
stations. While I appreciate that you are making certain of these
inquiries on behalf of Amish families, it is my opinion that you have
misinterpreted a number of issues involving the obligations of common
carrier railroads. First, railroads have no obligation to provide free
facilities for use by existing or prospective shippers, and if access
to
team-tracks is required by existing shippers, they are customarily
leased
to the shippers for their use. Second, railroads have tariffs or
pricing
documents that describe the services they hold themselves out to
provide,
the attendant costs for those services, and the terms of carriage.
Based
on the railroads’ responses to you, it would appear that the railroads
do
not hold themselves out to handle personal household goods or
less-than-carload shipments of furniture. Third, railroads are subject
to
Federal Law and not State law, therefore state law would not apply to
Are you trying to give railfans a bad name? I’m sure Mr. Clemens is a busy man and does not need to have his time wasted on responding to something as dumb as this.
It is not “dumb”
As we need to lessesn our energy dependence we need to use rail more and more.
But railroads only want to handle large shipments even though they have and can handle Less then Carload. We also helped bail out the railroads in the 1970s. The Very least they can do for us is allow Induvidules to ship by them. The railroads are not just for the corperations for the use of large corperations
You can use the railroads. You just arn’t going to do it in a boxcar with less than a carload. Or even a whole carload for that matter. Ever heard of intermodial. There is a reason railroads don’t like to deal with a single car on a team track at some odd location. It’s called efficiency. And running a locomotive (or more likly a train) out to that team track twice (drop off / pick up) is going to use a lot more fuel than a truck would use. And how are you going to get your goods to the team track? probably a truck. Why not just take the trailer and put it on an intermodial train?
OK, You tell me how loose car railroading for lcl is more energy efficient than intermodial?
If you are willing to pay the true costs of such service, I’m sure the RR will be glad to provide it. Since the RR is no longer into LCL service, you’ll have to pay for an entire car whether you fill it or not. Add to that the cost to deliver and pick up the car, the cost of having it in a place where you can load and unload it (ie, renting the space, plus the per diem for the car), and the cost of moving it over the road, and you’ll be looking for other alternatives.
Then call up North American, Allied, Mayflower or any other van lines and get a price from them. And the boxcar rate does not include switching at the terminals, loading / unloading , or drayage of the goods to / from the boxcar-Origin/destination. And the van lines will even wrap your stuff in furniture pads and box up your stuff too.
They probably did some research on this so called potential railroad customer and realized they were being duped. The very fact that they were kind enough to respond without the lack of professionalism you desearved, should have been satisfactory enough.
Did you even make an inquiry with the railroad in mind? Did they respond? Did you just send the letter to the STB just to stur the pot? I have a good idea what some of the answers might be…
“Finally, under Federal Law, railroads do have a common carrier obligation to
respond to reasonable requests for service from shippers located on their
lines.
However, based on the information you have provided, I do not see how
this obligation applies to the demands being made by you.
I hope this response is helpful to you.”
I know what,
Lets write the FAA, and demand they build him a runway and terminal, (under the common carrier act) and force Delta and United to land there so they can move house via air!
I bet they would send him a response to that one, too!
If we really want to conserve energy we ought to focus on all the ongoing new urban and suburban development that’s accessible and functional for motorists only. Driving a private motor vehicle on a public road is a privilege, not a fundamental right. Does one have to be a civil rights lawyer to understand that development for motorists only violates the constitutional rights of citizens who cannot, should not or choose not to drive. How many of our friends claim they’re “forced” to drive but make no effort to point out the culprits who’re doing the forcing. We’re supposed to be living in a free country.
Why are the Amish moving? Did the county exercise power of eminent domain so Wal-Mart can put in a new store that’ll be accessible only to people who drive cars?