The railroads have been in a fight for their existence for longer than any of your readers have been alive yet you don’t seem to have had an article specifically on the threat. Many have it as a second point, such as the VANISHING FREIGHT article in the November 2019 issue. I would like to know more about the internal operations on modern trucking if just to better understand them. Something has changed as I am seeing new grain bins of a size that use to require a rail line that are clearly truck only.
Some key dates I know off are the introduction of the Model T in 1908, a truly affordable car produced in large numbers with other brands to follow. Cars quickly converted Interurban from breakthrough technology to a money pit. The first REO Speedwagon in 1915 is a symbol of the transition from slow moving hard tired trucks that competed with Oxen and horse teams to fast rubber tired trucks with full transmissions that could move fast enough to start beating trains in delivery time.
WWI has been described as “The Truck Beat the
In staying abreast of the railroad business one also needs to stay abreast of what is taking place in the modes that railroads compete against for business. You can’t do one without doing the other.
And perhaps less well known or acknowledged, how the two modes work well together. We aren’t always at each others’ throats… far from it. The “us verses them” mentality was largely a byproduct of overly restrictive and outdated economic regulation that for a long time favored trucking over rail. Had deregulation happened in 1940 instead of 1980 the railroads likely would have been able to keep up with the times and right size themselves to avoid the mess they ended up in by 1970. Eventually we’re going to get to where we’re all TRANSPORTATION companies… not truckers or railroaders. And then, finally, carriers will utilize whatever tools are best to get a particular job done… whether that’s a boxcar, a container, an envelope, or a combination thereof. We’ll get there.
True for people still seriously engaged in the business. Most of the people that like Trains don’t fit that category!
If a reader wants a superficial comparision of rail vs. trucking, this may be the place to get it. But if h/she wants to do a deep dive into the data, this is not the place to get an indepth understanding of the trucking industry.
Without the business of hauling freight and doing so with modicum of profit - railroads don’t long exist for the bright paint schemes and their ‘funny’ equipment.
If you want to continue being a ‘railfan’ you also need to be knowledgeable about the business enviornment that railroads participate in and those who compete with railroads for business and how the competition endeavors to take the business from railroads and vice versa.
Kalmbach has to write for their audience. I doubt trucking articles would go over very well with most of them. A lot of people are just interested in bright paint schemes and funny equipment.
As I seem to recall from my childhood in reading Trains - David P. Morgan cared about the business side of the bright paint as he understood without the business there would be no bright paint.
In my teens and early 20’s the business forces came very close to having railroads become a postscript of history.
If there were such an article or series of such articles that showed the interrelation between rail and truck traffic I doubt that any of the current readers would react as one reader did when the first “All-Diesel Issue” came out in the fifties–soon after the issue was mailed, David P. Morgan received a copy that had been torn into two parts. (There was a picture of a steam locomotive in the news section.) Also, when the magazine began havinig items about foreign railroads, one reader declared that the magazine should be for USA railroads alone. Mr. Morgan was not cowed by these two readers.
There probably is a fair amount on-line including newspaper articles). Perhaps we could have a blog thread cover some of this. And even an occasinal list of links in the magazine.
I agree that Trains should not devote much space, but a little could be helpful. Off topic I have been wondering for some time how goods get to Vancouver Island - not much room for trucks on ferries. I suspect barges. Perhaps there might be enough subscribers for a general freight newsletter.
I believe a fair and balanced article showing the relationship between rail and highway could be interesting. Recall that at one time several railroads had a sizable trucking arm - a historical aspect.
I would suggest that such an article would not be about trucking in and of itself, but the interaction and dynamics between trucks and rail - and there is a lot of that. Perhaps it could include a comparison of the commodities hauled by each, and those which use both.
I don’t think Trains should just branch out and delve into trucking like they delve into railroading. But a technical/business article about how railroading might cope with its competition with trucking in the most competitive traffic might be very well received as being basically a railroad subject. The key would be to make it easily understood while getting into the details of how each mode is limited with different types of traffic, and what might be done to extend those limits.
My boss has an extensive business that couldn’t exist without the railroad. We’re on track to have ship or received over 1000 cars this year between the plastic resin blending and the frack sand transload we manage. Then throw in the brokerage loads we do get hauling repair parts to locomotive shops and car shops. You would be amazed at how much stuff is hauled in a truck for the RR. Those in the logistics industry that is what I work in we all pull together. When one of the horses gets lame the others are there making sure that our customers don’t know what happened until after the issues are fixed.
Yes I will say it sometimes even the railroad has bailed out the OTR industry. 1973 was one time for sure when the Teamster Union went on strike.
An article or two would be fine, especially as it relates to rail. Would be of broader interest than, say, some obscure branchline no one has heard of and which is of no interest to anyone but the locals. Which sounds more interesting… how trucking and rails interact and compete?..or… how the Podunk and Western plans to use its new GP38?