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Railroads and Midwest shippers discuss what’s on the horizon
Florida East Coast no longer competes with truckers for loads in and out of Florida. Talk to any truck driver. There are almost no remaining loads going north, south of I-4. Unless of course, we are talking scrap aluminum, scrap cardboard, scrap paper, and pallets. The current freight rates south of I-4 require a truck driver to take a loss on the load, because of the over-abundance of drivers living in that state. South Florida doesn’t produce anything of significance unless it is very time sensitive or garbage.
Seems to me that the last paragraph summarizes what makes shortlines profitable on the routes spun off by the class 1’s. Maybe the latter are learning that a bunch of unit trains don’t cut it if there is not enough customer service to provide the carloads.
Norfolk Southern’s running empty unit grain trains into Des Moines over the Iowa Interstate RR from a Peoria regional is an interesting development for Iowa’s corn crop. The unit trains are turned around in almost 24 hours and sent out back over the Iowa Interstate loaded. This in spite of the NS’s trackage rights on the BNSF into Des Moines.
Jeffery, The situation in South Florida must make you very happy. As you point out in your comment: what we have here is a transportation company(FEC RR) running on an infrastructure (steel on steel) who receives almost no tax money support, successfully competing against an industry using concrete highways that happen to be at least 90% paid for with tax money. Isn’t that what private enterprise is all about? You must be ecstatic!
Jeffery, you inferred that the root of the low freight rare is an excess supply of truck drivers. I assume you really meant truck owner/operator’s. As you see supply /demand curves, what is the problem. The excess supply of drivers, should drive the drivers to another market with short supply of drivers, right?(sorry, I couldn’t pass up the chance to say that) By the way, as I am sure you are aware, at the moment, and foreseeable future, we have a national shortage of drivers. How did Florida get so many?
I did a quick search for TL freight in Florida. For tomorrow 624 loads looking for drivers.
Jeffery I love your research.
Hope they start to ship natural gas and oil on the Powder River basin to keep the flow of traffic going/