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Rail Development Corp. enters French freight market
The real culprit for a shrinking freight market is the socialist government trying to run a socialist railroad. Socialist governments can’t compete with anything in the private sector, unless the governments pass laws limiting the private sector. In a real world, people need the necessary goods, so the private sector truck drivers pick up the slack and run with it. In much the same way as in this country before somebody got smart and used Staggers to get Washington out of socialist price fixing. The real solution is for all the European governments to sell off all of their railroads to private investors and operators and let the competitive free market own and run it as the market sees fit. It is amazing what profit will accomplish.
I saw in a British magazine some time ago that the problem is the unions; they not only strike against company proposals but also against government policies they don’t like. Every time they strike the freight network takes several days to recover from the stoppage. As a result the service is not reliable enough for companies to use unless they really have no alternative.
Didn’t Trains have an article about an intermodal company that was running a hub and spoke service across western Europe? The SNCF didn’t like any competition and put them out of business. I wonder how long this new carload service will last.