Yes! Track Abandonments. More and more is happening every day. So what does it mean for the rest of our Great Railroad system? What does the Future hold in store. Our Nations Rail System is getting much smaller. More ans more Trails are taking their place. What is realy happening to our Great Rail system of today? The future looks very gloomy. Allan.
Well if my understanding is correct the trails are “banked” rights of way and can be reclaimed if needed again. If the trails were not put there and the right of way again became viable it would be tough to run the line through what is now a sub-division.
While this is true in theory, there are few, if any, examples of a RR reclaiming a ROW from a trail group.
LC
Well alot of Railfans would like to see the Cowboy line put back in. That is still a very hot debate. And I am one of them too because there was alot of Grain business along that line.
Perhaps abandoning of rail mileage that is not profitable will allow mileage that is profitable to remain and flourish…
Odd…Nebkota (NRI) just petitioned the STB to abandon Rushville to Merriman under AB-988X (Rushville to Valentine is already gone up there in Nebraska’s great empty spaces) …The railroad is trying desperately to save the Chadron to Rushvlle segment, but carloadings continue to decline.
Well said Quentin… and Allan, reality and perception seem to have parted company here.
Allan,
You may think you’ve seen a lot of abandonments recently, but this is nothing compared to what took place through much of the 1970s. Try to find a map of the C&NW from about 1971 and compare it to the earliest time you remember. And that’s just one railroad.
Then, keep in mind that the lines that are disappearing are doing so for a good reason (usually). They contribute next to nothing to the big picture. In most cases, the customers disappear before the tracks do.
And another thing to remember: nearly every year lately, the railroads as a whole have consistently set records for ton-miles hauled. They talk about what a marvelous job railroads did moving goods during World War II–they’re 'way beyond that now, year after year! So if they’re abandoning tracks and performing this feat, that’s got to say something for what’s left. You aren’t that far from a couple of the success stories: the second track restored to the old C&NW main line across Iowa, and the third track added to the UP around North Platte. Not to mention the completely new line into the Powder River Basin…oh, that may have been here all your life. Still, it wasn’t as “wide” as it is now.
Don’t give up on the railroads just yet!
The bottom line is if there is anyway to squeeze another dime out of a line the railroad will do so by either selling it or leasing it to a shortline to operate. If there is even one customer either receiving or shipping on the line they may be able to make a go of it. The bottom line is no customers no railroad. [2c]
Abandonments are more a reflection that the railroad business has changed and continues to change than it is a reflection on the health of the industry. As others have said the total amount of freight carried by railroads continues to increase which is more indicative of the importance of the railroad industry to the overall transportation system than route miles.
Ahmen!!! Its not how many miles you have but where you have the miles that count in the long run. [2c]
All I can say is thank God I was still around when the CNW made the “Last run” on the Cowboy line on that day right before it’s demise. Allan.
I like so roads gone but i would rather see them running.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Limitedclear
Except, of course, the Browns, Grayville, & Poseyville railway and the 22.5 miles they are reclaiming between their namesake cities in Illinois and Indiana
The problem is, abandonments are not done soley for reasons of poor traffic. They are also initiated in a short sighted attempt to prevent freight from moving in and out of certain regions and/or to keep potential freight hauls out of the hands of other railroads or other modes.
Usually what happens is that Railroad A has a mildly profitable Branchline from Mainlineville to Secondaryville (where Railroad A has a secondary mainline), Railroad A sells the secondary main to Regional Rail operator as part of a great plan to sex up the corporate balance sheet, Railroad A then decides that the last few miles of Branchline track into Secondaryville should be lifted because they have another connection with Regional Rail a few hundred miles away (thus Branchline loses one of it’s main connections), then customers on Branchline that once used it to make shipments down to Secondaryville are told by Railroad A that they can ship the roundabout way to Secondaryville (which now takes weeks to ship carload where it used to be a few days at most), customers are forced to use trucks to ship to Secondaryville (reducing overall traffic levels on Branchline), then Railroad A notices the reduced traffic and sees this as a bad omen, so they sell the rest of Branchline to Shortline operator with promises of car supply which they have no intention of fullfilling, then Shortline operator decides they can’t make a go of it because they have too hard a time getting car supply from Railroad A and file for abandonment, thus Branchline is no more.
It’s sad, but railroading is the only business out there that thinks marginalizing itself will result in more business. It is also true most of the time that branchlines that end up with reduced traffic levels do so due to internal forces, not external forces. Death by a thousand slices as the saying goes, except in these cases the slices are self inflicted.
Would not Reginal rail screem bloody murder when Railroad A applies to abandon track to Secondaryville as well as the shippers affected by this.[?]
It appears likely that FM believes that there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll.
LOL!
The “second shooter” was in the SS car immediately behind the presidential limosine, everybody knows that.
If you aren’t earning the cost of capital, you have to “eat your foot” to stay alive. If you have assets that are worth more to somebody else than to you, you sell them to stay alive and hope for a better tomorrow.
Where a railroad still runs but the traffic is gone.
In the summer of 1958, I worked at one of the sash and door plants in Merrill, WI. There was a day engine assignment that switched the place I worked and all the other plants in town. Maybe 20 to 30 cars a day from Merrill went south on the evening freight, and there was also a significant movement of lumber and other materials into those plants. The line was MILW, then WC, now CN. It may have been 30 years or more since any rail traffic went in or out of that town.
Obviously, the industry did not go away because of the railroad leaving town. So who do we blame?
Jay
Regional rail is also dependent on Railroad A for it’s revenue traffic, so to complain about a loss of a branchline connection is not in their best interests. A case in point: Montana Rail Link, who is dependent on BNSF to supply the revenue overhead. A while back MRL had the ambition of adding to it’s system aka UP’s Pocatello-Butte line, BN’s Spokane to Lewiston line, et al. Then BN significantly reduced the number of trains it sent over MRL. “Bad MRL, no biscuit!”
MRL has behaved a lot better since!