Thanks for the primer on rail tariffs. Pretty similar to the LTL, except that most of the freight moved on LTL class rates, with “discounts” given. These discounts started at 10% off of the LTL rates in about 1980 and were based on multiple pickups…several LTL shipments at one time from one shipper. Then it got completely out of hand and by the time I left the industry by 1990 the discounts were at the 50-60% level. LTL carriers were chapter 11ing in droves and the industry was a mess, but the shippers were happy.
Very few commodity rates were in place as most of those were truckload and the union carriers were out of that aspect of the business in a hurry, as the non union and OO carriers took that.
I still remember well the tariffs we had, as I was the “traffic manager”. Nothing like rating 450 LTL shipments in one night when the rate clerk called off. This was before the computers rating began.
And who could forget the smoke filled rooms of the tariff bureau meetings where we sat with anti-trust immunity and established collective pricing?
I still have a few tariffs somewhere and also some rail tariffs I picked up in abandoned depots.
You were spot on. The initial challenge to the ICC in courts cleared the air (in favor of the Southern Railway). The ICC eventually ended up expounding the theory and belief that it (the ICC) had the responsibility to preserve the intermodal niche of each of the modes. Lest, one mode unfairly competes with another mode. How was that possible?
The late and unlamented ICC argued in essence that the trucking mode didn’t have tracks and locomotives and could not offer effective cross-modal completion to freight rail because of course they solely hauled freight on public roads that they paid for through road use taxes; and, where states were able to set truck and cargo container size and gross vehicle weight limitations, that made it impossible for trucking to even attempt to compete with this change in freight rail.
The ICC also argued that their already ruled constitutional enabling legislation allowed them to do, exactly what they had done; “define” the fairness and degree of unfairness of intermodal competition. It was a similar argument they were prepared to make between intercity bus transportation, and emerging low cost airline carriers (who were of course regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board).
The Success of the Southern Railway led to a more broader attack on what (by the 1970s) had become, a classical regulatory state view of the role of bureaucratic “experts”, who saw their 1930s era legislation (in the 1970s) as necessary to “protect” the public at large, by protecting not individual market participants, but whole firms and industries.
They also saw their regulatory role as a necessary check on “runaway” technical innovation that would put “end-of-train” devices on freight trains, as opposed to the brightly colored caboose. Or freight train handling software operations, which permitted longer
To sort of add some details to this discussion; Here is a link to a TRAINS Newswire from 6/5/2015: Re; Donation by NS of ‘Big John’ Covered Hopper #8744 to the Southern Appalachian RR Museum @ Oak Ridge,Tn.
"NS donates ‘Big John’ hopper car to Tennessee museum" June 2, 2015
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Norfolk Southern has donated former Southern Railway “Big John” covered hopper car No. 8744 to the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum. The car has a connection to Tennessee, as the Big John hoppers were maintained during the first half of their careers at the now gone Coster Shop in Knoxville.
It will join the collection of vintage Southern Railway freight cars at the museum.
Big John hopper cars are among the most significant freight cars built, since they established the railroads’ ability to establish incentive pricing for large shipments, over the objection of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which attempted to maintain the status quo.
The cars were built at the direction of legendary Southern Railway President D. W. Brosnan. Built by Magor Car Co., the first cars arrived in 1960 and were nicknamed “Big John” after a popular country music song of the era. Made of lightweight aluminum with a carrying capacity of 97 tons, the cars featured four compartments so that multiple types of grain could be shipped in the same car. An additional order, with a 100-ton capacity,