It’s wore than I ever thought! I was looking at an interactive US rail map I purchased for $35.00 tonight, and I could not believe how many abandoned railroads (especially in the Northeast and Midwest) showed up. I never imagined there were so many! To me, it’s saddening. What should be done to prevent railroads from abandoning lines?
Railway lines are abandoned because they cannot generate enough revenue to pay for their cost of operation and maintenance. No railway abandons any line on which it believes it can find a way to make money.
I assume you want the government to prevent railways from abandoning lines? That’s fairly simple in accomplish and enabling law is already enacted.
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When a railway files for abandonment of a line, any person or entity, including a state, has the right to purchase the line at either Net Liquidated Value or Going Concern Value, whichever is greater.
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At any time, a state or other government entity can subsidize the operating or maintenance costs of a rail line, or both, in order to keep it in operation, if its revenue is inadequate.
Alternatively, law could be changed to force railways to continue to operate lines that have become uneconomic. This might require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, however, as it would be in conflict with the 5th Amendment. Supposing that was done, however, it would eventually result in bankruptcy of the railroad companies. If that happened, it is unlikely any private individual would choose to throw good money after bad, so if the nation wanted railways to continue to operate, it would have to finance it out of the state or federal treasuries.
RWM
Why would you want to prevent railroads from abandoning lines?
Why is it “worse” than you ever thought? What lines are gone that should have been kept? Why should they have been kept?
I think the restructuring of the US rail network was done in a manner that produced an excellent result. We do have the safest, most efficient, most cost effective rail freight network in the world. Abandonment of no longer viable rail lines was part of the effort that produced that result.
I can think of one significant line removal that may have been a “mistake”. That would be the old Rock Island route between Memphis and Amarillo, TX. Aside from that, I think they got it just about right. Perfection is never an option.
Things are going to keep changing. Rail capacity will need to be added in some places, and it will need to be removed in some places. Why would you want to “prevent” that?
Abandoned for short term profit without the long term needs of the community. The Northeast !
In the Northeast, Fact, not fighting words! A railroad is a for-profit company, most formed in the late 1800s, often by having the State take the needed land for the “Public Good”.
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The way it was in the 1800s, Horse & Wagon, no paved roads outside of the cities, to survive a Town or City MUST have a rail connection.
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The 1950s, everyone must have there own car, passenger service dies (except for large city Commuter Rail), yet the railroads are required, by there charter, to run empty trains. The St. Lawerence Seaway takes away Great Lakes Traffic, trucks use the new Interstate Highways to take the “short haul” freight from the Railroads.
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Cities and Towns impose there Property TAX on the railroads for Stations and little used Track. The cure, Aboandonment and remove the tracks, sell the land. In some States (Connecticut), if the land was taken by “Eminent Domaine” it reverts to the State with any improvments (rails in place), “Rail Banks”.
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Some times the States are given the option to buy a line from a railroad, budgets are tight, the State does not act, the tracks get “ripped”.
Example: Amtrak took over the doubled tracked main line between New Haven, Hartford, and Springfield MA. Not needing the second track, they gave Connecticut the option to buy it, they did not. Today, Connecticut has filed for Federal Stimulus Funds to "re-lay the second track for C
This may come as a surprise, but I pretty much agree with you. Many lines in the midwest and east were constructed in the 1800’s and even in that era when they had a near-monopoly, there was considerable redundancy. We can all probably think of some specific routes it would be nice to bring back, but for every one of those, there are a lot of others that made little economic sense in the 20th century.
“Saddening” perhaps, but THAT is an emotional issue. And no one I can think of would be happy to shell out the $$$ required to maintain functionally obsolete lines just to appease nostalgia addicts .
Unless you are talking about burning taxpayer dollars (see “Amtrak”) just to keep someone’s hopes alive. my take? “no thankyou”
Let me suggest that you might be looking at the wrong end of the equation. Many duplicate lines that never should have been built, were built by contending entities for only the intent of taking business away from their competitors, there may have never been enough business potential to justify multiple lines between points “A” and “B”, but someone may have felt they could out compete existing operators. and eventually (since not enough business did exist to justify multiple lines) one triumphed over the other, leaving the former in ruins.
Railwayman’s explanation that at abandonment anyone may purchase a defunct line at cost is certainly intriguing, but I have to suspect that in many instances - railroads have gone out of their way to prevent potential competitors from picking up valuable corridors
Might make for an interesting trains magazine article of how the surviving class ones bought up competitors and kept just enough to make sure the segments they thereafter abandoned would NEVER be of any use to anyone (against them).
CSX’s restrictive lease of the former PRR mainline to C FW&E comes to mind
Welcome to the real world all you dreamers and wannabe’s. All it takes is $$$$$.
DMU = MA has to be one of the worst railroad custodians out there. Politicos may have had the right idea, but failed miserably in the follow-through.
Read the ICC Termination Act – it is designed specifically to make it very easy for anyone – repeat, anyone – to purchase a line on which abandonment has been filed. All they have to do is (1) pay the greater of NLV or GCV (usually, it’s the NLV value that is greater), (2) demonstrate financial responsibility, (3) agree to assume the common-carrier obligation.
No railway goes out of its way to make it impossible to purchase a branch line, or drive away the traffic, because it generates carloads that help pay for the main line while offloading much of the cost of service onto another company. The biggest fear a Class 1 has is that the purchaser of a viable short line will be incompetent and run the property into the ground, killing the traffic.
I think what you’re referring to is main line corridors that are parallel, for example, the former Erie to the former PRR, NYC, B&O, etc. If there is local traffic on the corridor, then it can become a branch line. If it’s sole remunerative traffic is overhead, and the abandoning road has consolidated the overhead traffic onto another line, then it’s hopeless unless another railway can generate traffic at one or both ends. There are many examples of this – that is, not in all cases does the parallel line turn to dust. Every one of the Class 1s has within it at least one significant main line that was created within the last 25 years out of something that another, competitive Class 1, would otherwise have abandoned.
RWM
This is probably the phase of railroad operations that is the least understood aspect of the “life of a line” by many of those of us on the outside looking in. As interested (but not truly involved) parties; I think we tend to allow the emotion of an issue to take over, rather than let the financial numbers speak.
As previously mentioned elsewhere in the threads, the MIddlewest and Northeast regions seem to have a plethora of abandoned lines, seemingly running all over the area we live in. “Why were they abandoned?” From the outside there seems to be no reason, but you have to expect the Abandonment step was taken for good reasons.
The maps of not only Kansas, but Iowa are covered with long gone lines. Iowa in particular, has a real network of abandoned lines. The one has to step back and realize, one of the posters mentioned the reality of that situation. Most of the abandoned lines were built when the only available bulk transport was by wagon, and farmers had to get their product to market, and people needed to be able to travel, as well. Thus the railnetwork came into being to being.
Kansas has a whole web of abandoned and former Class1 ROWs. We are also home to the Watco,Co.( in Pittsburgh,Kansas). Watco operates a number of seemingly disconnected segments, strung together to connect Wichita to Pittsburgh, to Tulsa,OK. Rough looking properties, to the uninitiated, but apparently moving a lot of freight for a lot of folks. It’s still railroading, and they seem to be successful at what they do. As Railwayman has stated there are many other operational (shortline)companies who are making money where the Class 1’s were not able to make their operating margines.
One thing for certain is that society needs goods, and foodstuffs to survive, and transportation will be the answer, but i
There is certainly an appearance in some cases that this strategy has in fact been reality. Incremental abandonment effectively prevents anyone else taking over and I suspect it has been so used.
First of all abandon say 30 miles in the middle of the line. There is no way that that can become a viable operation on its own, and the rails disappear. Then shorten one or both stubs by another 15 miles; again completely unviable for any other operator. Finally the rest get abandoned. A short line or regional might have been able to succeed with the entire line, perhaps developing new local business, connecting parts of their local empire, or to a new interchange. But it would be foolish for them to buy up the portions as they came up for abandonment since there would be no possible return on the investment until the whole route was available, at best many years in the future and possibly never.
The above is a hypothetical case, but I have seen some instances in Canada that resembled this approach more than a little. The old rules under the ICC and other state (and Canadian) agencies made it very difficult for the railroads to get out of money losing lines. That all too often led to bankruptcy of a railroad; we are well rid of that rigid and confiscatory regulatory regime.
On the other hand I can see value for some control to discourage incremental abandonment, perhaps by requiring an interval, say 10 years, before the next portion can be abandoned. Usually the entire route has no role in the long term strategy of a Class 1. This would encourage them to make it available as whole and give
In the book The NorthWestern the reason for abandoments was due to the fact that there were many lines next to each other and with the greater number of large trucks, grain can be hauled to more centralized grain elevators.
Branch and short rail lines were abandoned when smaller grain elevators were closed or demolished that were served by those lines.
In Michigan there are some old, small grain elevators and warehouses where there is evidence of former branch lines.
Andrew
A good example of that would be certain areas to the north of London ON. Many of the older routes that went through small divisional hubs like Palmerston ON were slowly abandoned over a 30-40yr period. Owen Sound ON, a lake port town had both CN and CP running along both sides of the inlet there----both no longer present and no trains now running. A lot of that abandonment took place by just cutting the lines practically in two—seperating the line and then using another way back through by another route. Thing here being that there was redundancy in trackage as well—
Goderich and Exeter RR though did manage to get a good section of the trackage in that region hence the Port of Goderich still has trackage that winds its way back up the valley from the harbour area, with the Sifto salt mine produce as well as a couple of grain elevators still there sending produce out via the RR.
I find that the abandonment did take place not just because of ‘disinvestment’ by CN and CP but also due to movements of population going to places like Toronto ON or London etc, furniture fa
Sometimes it helps to look at the reason for building the line in the first place.
Was there a mine to be served? A series of small agricultural towns with bunches of homesteaded farms and other marginal producers? An interurban built to siphon off the Class 1’s passengers by offering more frequent service?
Mines play out. Those homesteaded farms were either bought up by corporate agrobusinesses or simply allowed to revert to wilderness when the old folks get too old to work them and the youngsters all left for nice indoor jobs in the city. Henry Ford made the Model T affordable for everybody, and the states and counties improved the roads…
So, suddenly, profitable rail routes no longer generated enough revenue to cover the cost of ownership. The railroad companies simply couldn’t afford to operate and maintain them. Like it or not, it’s all about money.
In the mean time, new mines open and rail capacity is made available to serve them. New industrial parks are built, and the steel tentacles reach in to connect them to suppliers and customers who ship and receive by rail. A whole new agrobusiness virtually pops out of the ground, shipping a commodity that can ONLY be moved by rail… What goes around eventually comes around.
A century from now, somebody will probably be lamenting the loss of the great transcons, while far below his feet capsules will be rocketing along the tubeways that move America’s freight at what would be supersonic speed if the tubes weren’t sucked to vacuum…
There is only one constant. Change.
Chuck
A few points:
(1) I think this post is a great example of how misunderstandings of outsiders–like myself–lead to great discussions. This is one of the better threads I have read in a while (educational value is my sole criteria for evaluating a thread).
(2) Greyhounds, I 50% agree with you. However, I think there are two lines that should not have been abandoned–and I think there are a lot of people in Chicago who agree with me that the North Shore was a tragic loss and would be extremely useful to have today.
(3) If I have one complaint about abandoning rail lines–from my novice perspective, of course–it is the lack of effectiveness of rails to trails in allowing trails to be converted back to rail lines. I think rails to trails made it easier to abandon some rail lines, under the theory of, if it is a mistake, at least we can fix it later. The reality is, the popularity of those trails will make it all but impossible to return a rail line to them. I was actually talking to a City Counsel person in Indianapolis on New Years. She sees the popularity of rails to trains as votes, wants more of them, and proposes that we be more proactive in targeting rail lines in the City so they could be used for more valuable trails. JUST AS AN FYI, THE LINE THAT SHE HAS HER EYE ON IS THE DOUBLE TRACK CSX MAIN RIGHT THROUGH DOWNTOWN THAT SERVICES THE AMTRAK STATION AND PROBABLY SEES 100 TRAINS A DAY! Of course, that will never happen, but I think it makes the larger point that the trails are unlikely to become rail lines again. I think the best way to preserve a rail line for future use is to make it a tourist line–you will notice that Indianapolis did that for the line they are serious about preserving for future use.
Anyway, great topic.
Gabe
Gabe,
Your post was very interesting to me. To me the original post is a prime example of a totaly unsupported political post. If Kalmach was strictly enforcing its “no politics” rule the moderators would have excised it immediately and we whould not have the benefit of your take on rails to trails, with which I concur by the way.
Mac
A stupid question from this little one–
Was there ever talk of ‘rail banking’ ‘surplus rails’ at some time??-----[%-)]
—or was I imagining this?[%-)]
Mac,
Was the original post altered? All I see is a rather terse indication that he believes there are too many abandoned rail lines?
I think the above-posted commentary by RailwayMan and Greyhounds have been truly informative to me.
Gabe
Line abandonment is a part of the political process. One cannot abandon an existing line without appropriate governmental review and approval. That is a political process open to all parties both pro and con.
I wonder, if you got a map of your hometown, showing empty commercial buildings, and worn out factory buildings, would you feel the same way? What should be done to prevent companies from closing factories and tearing down commercial buildings that have worn past their usefullness? Rail lines, like old buildings, have a lifespan. They wear out. A rail line with an economic future is constantly being repaired and rebuilt. A rail line with no economic future eventually goes away. To hang onto a rail line or old building once it’s reached that mark is money wasted.
There are rail-banked lines, I believe there are some in Michigan, there is one in Ohio, a Norfolk Southern line from Cincinnati to Portsmouth, OH, that is still used on roughly 30 miles on the west end of it and has a bridge in need of repair on the very east end of it. Still, it’s all there and not abandoned but has little on-line business.
Somewhere in Georgia, I believe, NS also had a rail-banked line that had been a Central of Georgia line. Sometime in the past five years or so, they started using it again. I’m sure someone knows more details.
There are lines that the succeeding mega-systems wish the predecessors hadn’t abandoned, one is the Panhandle (PRR) from Columbus, OH, to Chicago. Another line that frequently is discussed but had little on-line business and (I think) some clearance issues, is the B&O across southern Ohio, via Chillicothe.
Always interesting to speculate, though.