I wrote about this in my college thesis on the first generation of automatic train control, as a peripheral but important effect. I think greyhounds has done much more extensive research into some areas.
As has been mentioned, there was a considerable amount of government involvement and ‘meddling’ right from the earliest days of railroad construction (e.g. when competition with state canal projects was involved, or charter issues were a perceived opportunity) but the primary drivers for the kind of government “interference” Gallamore disparages came comparatively late, and it would pay to write a discriminating analysis of the actions and reactions over time (comparable to the thesis discussion of Federal control in the WWI years… an extraordinary inspiration to thesis writers anywhere!)
The original ICC came out of populist and ‘grange’ agitation in the mid-1880s, much of which was either perceived or actual ‘gouging’ and rate manipulation by railroad management to ‘charge what the traffic would bear’ without regard to those originating agricultural traffic. It remained, I think, largely as Hilton depicted it through the advent of Federal control (the excuse for which was other reasons from normal Government regulation) with the major Federal meddling (application of the antitrust provisions, and notably the Hepburn Act of 1906). What I found interesting was that in many cases the Government 'reaction
As to regulating train length, what should be the limit. Taking the case to the extreme. Could railroads act like a conveyer belt inserting cars at one end of a train and taking them off at the other end thus blocking crossing for a day. When trains get to be three mile long strings and slow down to under 20 mph, they can tie up towns for in my view excessive amounts of time. There will be cases where first responders are delayed. When I was about three years old (1940), I lived in Glen Ellyn IL on the South side of the tracks (C&NW + CA&E) and a house burned down because there was only one fire dept and it was on the North side of the tracks. And a slow moving C&NW freight had the crossings blocked. A couple of years ago, a CN train on the former EJ&E had the Barrington area tied up and an ambulance had to take a long detour to get the patient to the hospital. Who will be the DECIDER on what is acceptable.
Interesting example. First you’d need a political ‘groundswell’ of sufficient influence to get specific restrictions made up and enacted – take as a starting point the restrictions that a crossing can’t be blocked by a standing train for longer than a specified interval before either moving or breaking the consist enough to let traffic pass. I suspect this would not take the form of train length but rather of maximum crossing occupancy time … and this might be fixed at some lesser time than the 15 minutes stopped, eliminating any loophole or malicious-compliance issue for slow but still moving consists or those that stop and start to ‘reset the clock’.
I expect the argument to be made that running available traffic in ‘longer’ monstrains also implies fewer overall trains per day, hence fewer obstructions… this argument only holding much water if proper PSR “schedules” the trains away from peak traffic time. The argument of course says less than nothing about fires or ambulance calls, which can’t be predicted, let alone ‘scheduled for in advance’ – but there are clear potential benefits in having fewer free crossing times per day, too.
As an incentive away from the present tendency to shove multiple blocks together and run them at cost-trimming slower speeds, time-restricting legislation might act as a good incentive… provided the penalties for non-compliance and the consistency of enforcement are kept ‘meaningful’ for the financiers whose pockets are involved. I see an intermediate level of new hell for T&E crews who now have to juggle times on crossings as well as all the other conflicting stuff piled on them in addition to running trains safely, and I’d have to worry about discipline resulting ‘automatically’ from a citation bein
I would opine that length is only part of the problem, as already mentioned. Case in point is good ol’ Deshler.
Through trains on both the E-W line and the N-S line generally run through at around 35 MPH, barring other traffic. Someone else can do the math to figure out how long a hypothetical 13,500 foot train would block crossings at speed.
On the other hand, trains using the transfers (wyes) are limited to 10 MPH, resulting in much longer crossing blockages, obviously. And we won’t talk about trains having to hold for other traffic, sometimes resulting in significantly longer blockages.
I think most states already have laws on the books regarding blocking crossings. In many cases, it’s more a matter of enforcement.
Multiple states have had rules on their books governing how long crossings may be blocked. Unfortunately, Federal courts have struck down each of these as Class 1’s have challenged them.
Until the Federal government steps in, either Congress, FRA or STB and establishes a national blocked crossing rule, the railroads will continue to block grade crossings to their hearts content.
What has not been discussed is the origin of the crossings. The railroad was, in many-most cases there first and when the growing city wanted to cross with a street they made a contract/agreement with the RR. The content of those agreements governs not only the maintainence of the crossing but other factors that may apply about occupancy.
In some parts of the country, rail lines were given incentives to locate their ROW through a given small, growing town. You know a lot has changed with rail operations in the past 100-170 years (train length, frequency, etc.) on which agreements were based. So should crossing issues.
The creation of the ICC in 1887 was an attempt to stabilize railroad freight charges. These charges began to fall rapidly in 1867 and continued to fall. As the rail network was built out there was more competition. Both route and market competition. The added competition drove prices down. This troubled the railroad people and the financial people.
As created, the ICC had almost no powers. But the act did require that railroads have a written rate on file with the ICC before they could use the rate to move traffic. This meant they couldn’t play “Let’s Make a Deal” as auto dealers do. It created what I’ve seen called a “Sticky” or “Kinked” demand curve. It held prices up. It was predatory regulation designed to protect the producers (the railroads) against competition. This, of course, was to the detriment of the American economy and the American people.
If you want a clear, salient example of the “Sticky” or “Kinked” demand curve in operation today, look at a corner with three gas stations all displaying their prices. The prices will be the same or nearly the same. Why?
Well, each station operator knows that if he/she lowers the price in an attempt to sell more volume the other station operators will also reduce their price.&nbs
Greyhounds, I agree with your assessment of the impact of the ICC. I think its creation was made possible because of ruinous price cutting by eastern railroads and monopolistic actions by western railroads though. I think of all of these actions as abuse of power by those who had decision-making power In the era in question.
I see these actions as different from say John Rockefeller and Standard Oil. His decisions were based in making oil products affordable to all.
Rockefeller’s decisions were based on enriching himself, not some altruistic goal of making petroleum products affordable. Consider rebates paid to his firm on freight rates paid by his firm and his competitors.
Train blocks access to house fire near Valley (ketv.com) The train was tied down because of a derailment in Illinois. The crew thought they had cut the proper crossing. One that they didn’t cut had an occupied house that no one on the railroad knew was there.
Oh, I’ll disagree again. John D. Rockefeller did a whole lot of good.
He became rich doing so. So what? The beauty of capitalism is that it incentivizes people to serve the common good. JDR sure did that.
Before he started producing affordable kerosene people had to use candlelight after the sun went down. Have you ever tried to live by candlelight? He enabled people to have and afford decent light after the sun went down.
Rockefeller played hard ball business. And that’s good. You don’t waste a dime. He’d drive hard bargains. And that’s also good. Walmart does that today. And that’s good for us.
You might want to read Ron Chernow’s biography of John D. Rockefeller before judgement:
He improved medical care. Medicine and doctors were a joke. You were a doctor if you called yourself one. Medical school was maybe six months. The exception was Johns Hopkins. Rockefeller would approach “Medical Schools” and offer money if they would adopt the Johns Hopkins standards. It worked.
He supported education. He was instrumental in the founding of the University of Chicago. He also focused on educating black women. Both done with his money.
He modernized and improved steel making in the US. This was necessary for our economic growth. He kind of just fell into this by accident.
The known iron ore deposits in Minnesota were controlled by a family that was in well over its head. The ore was being shipped to the steel mills in small sailing vessels. Despite controlling the ore deposits the family business floundered. They kept needing to borrow money and pledged their ownership shares as collateral. Rockefe
(Yes, the chart is in British Pounds, but you get the idea)
There is a description of the various technologies that allowed the cost of light to steadily drop as the industrial age progressed. Almost all of the innovations that allowed that price drop were due to new technologies created by individuals persuing profit in a free market economy. They made money and consumers paid less and less, to everyone’s benefit.