All Rail Shipping Rates Have Declined, Says GAO Report
2006-06-22
In a newly issued report, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) confirmed that rail shipping rates have not increased over the past 20 years, and have actually declined across the board.
Testifying before a congressional committee on Wednesday, June 21, the GAO determined that from 1985 to 2004 “all rate changes were below the rate of inflation and thus all rates have declined in real terms,” noting that coal shippers got the best deal of all, with their rates declining 35 percent.
“I don’t know of many other industries charging less for their services in 2006 than they did in 1985,” said Edward R. Hamberger, president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads. “U.S. freight railroads do a remarkable job of meeting the needs of an extremely diverse group of shippers. Railroads move tens of thousands of railcars to and from thousands of origins and destinations every day, at rates that shippers elsewhere in the world would love to have.”
Did Jay-Etta and her staff write the report? Was the inflation factor the CPI, PPI or POTIC (Price of Tea in China).
Let me be the first to note the that this was the result of hauling the imports from China at a loss and freight between points served by at least two rail carriers at just above LVC. And the report would have been even better if captive shippers weren’t charged 10 to 20 times more than everybody else.
Or maybe the GAO has just been drinking the AAR coolaid.
So the GAO is part of the BNSF’s conspiracy against the Montana wheat farmers. Well, that just figures.
How ever will The Honorable Governor, Brian Schweitzer (Dope-Montana), get elected President of the United States if the GAO is in on the railroad conspiracy? (Don’t laugh, the big dummy wants to be President.)
Of course, if the GAO is right, then the Governor’s ranting and railing against the BNSF would have been just so much hot air. But then, he’s a politician and it probably comes naturaly to someone like him.
And further of course, the Honorable Govenor of Montana could have been fed some false information by someone with an ax to grind against the BNSF