Recently a nice, civil discussion regarding transportation on the Mississippi River was locked, with the reason cited being that the discussion was not “trainsy” (my term) enough for this forum.
As barge traffic on the river is in direct competition with some of the nation’s railroads, and as the discussion was revolving around who should pay for having the river system upgraded (relevant to taxpayers and to the railroads), it seemed like a valid topic of discussion.
I would like to know why the thread was locked. If intelligent discussions regarding transportation issues are to be barred from this forum, then we can just discuss locomotive paint schemes and argue about EMD vs GE forever.
I have to concur. River transportation is both a competitor and customer for railroads. One cannot fully discuss rails benefits and detriments without discussing the benefits and drawbacks of rail’s compeition. There is much more to the rail industry than paint jobs and preference of locomotives.
Maybe we could continue over on the Eleanor Roosevelt thread. But your right about railroad / barge cooperation. Kirby Barge line just announced a service where they transload crude oil from tank cars in St. Louis and deliver the barges to refiners on the Gulf coast that are not served by rail.
When CSX purchased Texas Gas about 20 years ago - their subsidiaries included the Sea Land container shipping line and American Commercial Barge Line that operates on the inland waterways. When intermodal is talked about in transportation circles - it is not just double stacked containers on rail cars. CSX has subsequently sold off the Sea Land ocean container business to Moller-Maersk, the SeaLand domestic container and terminal business was sold off and is now operating as Horizon Lines and it spun off ACBL and it is now operating as American Commercial Line.
Railroads and other transportation modes both compete and work with each other to provide for the transportation needs of their customers.
I don’t think that the topic being waterways was the actual reason the thread was locked. The conversation was becoming more politically ideological, and the tone becoming more abrupt. The moderators had probably seen this movie too many times before, and used the not-“trainsy” aspect for cover to end it early.
The tone was becoming economic. The thread should not be held accountable for being political just because someone sees an economic issue as offending their political ideology.
And it would only be fair for the moderator to be clear as to the reason for locking. How can there be an issue of being off topic when they allow serial threads that go on forever celebrating a complete freedom from topicality?
Mike, surely the moderators could have been a bit more honest as to their reason.
Certainly, we should be courteous to one another as we disagree. Indeed, being discourteous does nothing towards convincing those with whom we disagree that our position is the correct position (why else should we state our positions if we do not believe them to be correct?).
Johnny, they mention politics, but they might have thought that might not end the grumbling, so they played the not-trainsy trump card. Of course, we are still talking about it.
Just a brief observation from the sidelines: Several months back when Murphy Siding and a couple of other moderators(?) hung up their reverse keys,and brake clubs; while passing their moderator duties on to some new, and somewhat untried, anonymous candidates. [X-)]
One of the new guys ( I think he wandered over from MR, if I remember correctly(?). Anyway, He jumped in and ‘pulled the trigger’ on a topic that was kinda wanderin’ toward 'No man’s land. It was certainly not one of those particularly slanderous, and homicidal ad hominen attacks that used to happen on a fairly regular basis when Michael So and futuremodal ( and some others) would go after each other, til the Moderators would pull the plug, and then have to obliterate the Thread that was dripping with verbal venom.
Granted, this FORUM is sponsored, and paid for by KALMBACH ( TRAINS Magazine). The topics have always been interesting, informative, and brought out many a fascina
Those threads are just ‘hiding in plain sight’ ! [;)]
@rdamon - Love that BN Air Freight (?) photo ! Thanks for sharing !
Good thing waterways vs. rails weren’t a verboten topic back when David P. Morgan was Editor of Trains - then John G. Kneiling would have been precluded from using a lot of the grist for his mill, as well as George W. Hilton and William D. Middleton, and perhaps some others. Or perhaps the current Trains staff and/ or moderators think they were all misguided ?!? Sheesh - need I say more ? If this Forum is going to be essentially limited to paint schemes and rivet-counting, it’ll cease to be of much interest to me (see my ‘tag line’ below).
There is somewhat of a “double standard” between what appears in the magazine and what’s allowed on the forum.
Some time back a thread was locked because it had to do with “box car tourists, the kind who normally travel by side door pullmans.” (I don’t want to use the H-word.) The reason being that they (kalmbach) doesn’t want to glorify or romanticize that lifestyle or anything like that. Understandable. They don’t want to put into impressionable minds the idea to ride or hop freight trains, although most posts in those banned discussions normally are along the line of the danger involved.
About the same time there appeared in the magazine a two page spread of teenagers hopping onto freight trains. In living color. Oh, the gyst of captions and short article said how dangerous and stupid the practice is, but I’d bet the average teenager/young adult would see the pictures and think how “cool” that would be to do. If they would even have read the captions/article they’ld probably jus
I guess I was the one who got the thread locked by discussing the (bad) economics of barge transportation. But, as you point out, it use to be a common subject in Trains under editor Morgan. How times and the magazine have changed.
Mississippi barges are subsidized by taxpayers. They should not be subsidized. The taxpayer (including the railroad companies) money used for the subsidy diverts freight from rail transport in an uneconomic manner than harms the economy and the people of the US. It goes without saying that it also harms the railroads.
I was trying to explain why such subsidies are bad for the country when the thread was locked.
So, I guess I’ll go with: "What do you think of those steam generator equiped GP-30Bs that the UP bought in the 1960s? They sure looked neat up front on a mail and express train. It was like “WOW MAN’ to see a picture of some Geep 30s pouring out steam. The UP should have kept them so we could take more pictures.”
Jeff - Yes, I know it’s their sandbox (ball), and so they get to make the rules (or “take their ball and go home”), but that doesn’t make it right, and it’s still intellectually inconsistent and wrong-headed.
greyhounds - Yeah, well, I’m kind of hoping someone challenges me on that. [:-,] Easy first rebuttal: “So what about the Great Lakes carferries ? Aren’t they ‘railroady’ enough to be discussed here ?” And along the slippery slope from there . . . [swg]
To the main point of your post above: Here in eastern Pennsylvania - contrary to the experience and governmental policy on the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and other similar waterways - many nearby canals were practically put out of business early on and finally by the railroads, and never had the political clout to get the special help that the river operators did, as you mention. Exhibit “A” is the Pennsylvania state-built, owned, and operated “Main Line of the Public Works”, a perpetually money-losing combination of canals and inclined planes that was [minor edits follow - I was pretty tired late last night . . . ] killed sold off by its own political parent in the mid-1850’s by to the PRR, which then bought the carcass (assets) and used the best of them for its own purposes (“New Portage RR Tunnel” at Gallitzin summit, water reservoirs to supply steam locos, right-of-way further west, etc.), despite the Pennsylvania state government getting a real “haircut” in that foreclosu
The levy on marine diesel is 20 cents per gallon according to the Inland Waterways Trust Fund. In addition, some states impose an additional tax on the fuel. In 2011 the fund generated approximately $84.5 million in fuel tax and interest revenue. It required an infusion of approximately $90 million from the U.S. Treasury to meets it requirements to maintain the 238 lock chambers on the inland waterways system.
As I noted in another post, to say that the barge operators don’t pay anything to support the inland waterways, including the locks, is incorrect. To say that they don’t pay what they should, given that many of the facilities were constructed to meet their needs, although not exclusively, is a worthy point.
The Congress is aware of the Inland Waterways Trust Fund shortfalls. Earlier this year it held hearings on how to resolve the problem.
The inland waterways system, according to the trust fund, moves 600 million tons of cargo annually. According to Senate Committee Report 112.075, it would take 24 million truck loads or 5.5 million rail car loads to move this tonnage via road or rail.
It is appropriate for rail enthusiasts to discuss competitive modes of transport. After all the railroads don’t operate in a transport vacum. By the same token, it is appropriate to discuss railroad accounting and finance within the larger context of national financial issues as long as the discussions don’t become a political rant. To pretend that finance does not have an impact on railroads is unrealistic.
Paul, could it be that the old style valley-side canals and inclined planes were abandoned because they were obsolete? It was not just an eastern thing, as there were many old style canals in the midwest that were also abandoned. The modern river-based waterways IMHO are efficient, although they could pay more of their way.
