So what you are telling me is that Railroads cant do everything that used to do in the era from 1850-1979…That LCL,LTL and express is not profitble. That single car railroading is not worth the railroads time? That Railroading is a very specialsed transportation industry capable of doing only a few things well or right? That railroads are not a panacea to our nations transportation and enviromentle woes? Am I supposed to unlearn everything that I have been taught Mr Hemphill? Please tell me when did Trains magazine become a apolagist for the railroad industry? Amtrak Express was a great idea whos time had come and why is no one complianing that they are selling off there Express boxcars at way below market rates? I believe that something fishy is going on here
Remember the old adage: The only thing permanent is change. Of course my fantasy of railroads reclaiming all the old steam engines they donated to parks and having to put them back into operation probably won’t ever happen.
Jock Ellis
Yup! I was right! There is a mouse in the house …again!
ouch
Loose car railroading is barely profitable because the truck was invented and took much of the single boxcar traffic that railroading used to have. LCL and package express are both labor-intensive and the truck and airplane can do it faster and go to more places.
LCL and REA were mainly tacked on a passenger train. This worked well in the 20’s when passenger trains went everywhere frequently, highways were primitive, and labor rates were cheap. Wake up and smell the roses. Times have changed and we can never go back to the “good old days”.
Mr Hemphill
The fact that you responded does it fact mean that you have considered my position
and respectfully disagree. But to believe everything that Amtrak tells you or any corperation without question is a diservice to your readers. The fact that Ed Elis was not metioned in the Trains Artical on Mail and Express seems to be a oversight. You could least have told us that he had no comment.
This traffic is profitable, it just goes down the railroad in a UPS trailer.
LOL That is some good lyrics.[:D]
You have some hell of a nerve coming in here and starting a flame war with someone like M.W Hemphill. I don’t know what your problem is and “frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. My suggestion is that you apologies to the man and stop trying to be a s*&^ disturber for that sake of being one. Bergie and the rest of us won’t put up with it.[:(!]
Cleveland, M.W Hemphill,
Guys, Please, let’s keep it cool and enjoy the info exchanged with each other. Cleveland, just relax and continue to read the info on here and on line.
I remember the LCL days. During the 80s, the Class 1 railroads were “making an effort” to get rid of LCL traffic as the semi-truck was dominant in this arena. Truck trailers from then til now have gotten longer. 40ft was the standard, then 45 ft., and last I checked 53 ft. And of course the “explosion” of container traffic which, ironically, has benefiited the railroads. Conrail reps openly stated that thier primary target areas were “Bulk Shippers”.
During the early 90s my friend Steve, who worked for CSX, stated that management was making a “concerted effort” to cut down on the one and two car delivery traffic. It still exists but on a very small scale, where the industry specifically had to have freight cars for special or unusual shipments like we have here in Florida.
Remember also that it costs a lot of money for a Class 1 railroad to: Fuel and prepare a locomotive, assemble a crew, pay the crew for their time, consume fuel, wear and tear on locomotive components, etc. Plus the potential “risk” of employee injury, a derailment, or grade crossing accident, and lawsuits. Weigh these factors. Now Cleveland, If the deliveries are few and are scattered througout a division, the profit margin would just be too small for a Class 1railroad to justify taking these actons.
Amtrak Express: Remember the big complaint? Too many delays and passengers grumbling. Amtrak trains were often delayed due to the switching of the express cars on to or off the Amtrak train. Passengers were not happy with the delays. [:(!] Yes, this was common back in the streamlner days but now even people on vacation don’t like long delays. David Gunn acknowledged that there
So the Railroads have contracted out there LCL and LTL to third partys? I have also heard that UPS is larger then CSX, So can UPS buy a railroad? The fact of the matter is that the executives at Conrail took goverment money and made the railroad profitble at the expence of the small shippers by cuting sidings,ending LCL and giving favorable rates to large corperations. The result was that small lumber yards no longer get single cars,Intermodal trailers spend a longer time on the road and short haul is cloging up and polluting our nations roadways. Conrail abadoned the Erie mainline so that a Compeetor could not get it. IT is Hypocritcal for the Feds to be anti-trust and yet create a monopoly in the form of Conrail
Yes, but why? They’re a Billion dollar fortune 500 company with too much already on their plate. Plus the last thing UPS managers would want is to have to deal with more unions. IMHO, UPS purchasing a railroad would not be a wise move.
Sounds like you have something there, but again, Class 1 railroads are looking to “Maximize Profits”. The revenues earned from smaller shippers were viewed as too low for the cost of the railroad providing the service. I don’t always agree with corporate America but the fact remains that management’s strategic plans always include looking at COLD HARD FINANCIAL FACTS.
Re: Conrail. Remember though that Conrail was created as the result of the bankruptcies of six major railroads with the Penn Central being the “Linch Pin.” I remember reading about the merger back in the 70s. The government was to support Conrail for a set time period, after that it was to become independent…which did happen. When first formed much of the infrastructure was in poor shape and many people (including me) back then were certain that Conrail’s creation was an expensive
Even with all that “unfairness”, Conrail STILL wasn’t earning the cost of capital. That means they were slowing going out of business - “eating their foot” so to speak, to stay alive.
RRs lost LCL traffic LONG before it started showing up again in UPS trailers. Even a regulated trucking industry was able to win that traffic from the RRs in the 30s and 40s.
Oltmannd, one thing though.
Don’t some of you remember the TRAINS issue a decade or so back that on the cover had a very nice, overhead shot of a brand new Conrail SD60 or 70 with the safety cab. There was also a shot of the president or ceo of Conrail. [:D]
Apparently Conrail, business wise, seemed to be doing O.K. [;)] but I honestly don’t remember the details anymore. I had the magazine back then and I now regret that I didn’t keep it!
I suggest you spend 8 hours with a yard or road crew that devotes their tour of duty to actively switching industries, and all the work and effort that is involved and then restate your hypothesis of how railroads can become profitable in trying to catch every stray carload around an industrial area. Were you able to apply the ‘magic hand’ from model railroading you might be able to do it. Real railroading does not have access to the ‘magic hand’ and therefore has to expend too much effort (effort = money) to receive too little revenue (revenue = money).
Railroads do not subscribe to the theory, ‘We lose money on every unit we make, but we will make a profit by making more units’.
Okay here! On one hand you had conrail which had just a single mandate to become profitble and other hand you have amtrak which has a double mandate of providing a public service and turning a profit? If Conrail had a double mandate things would a little diffrent. The fact that Fedaral Conrail was hostile to passenger trains does not help things much. You had one end of the Feds being for passengers and the other against. The creation of Amtrak was a concesion to relieve the freightsof passenger service.
Amtrak was designed by Congress to be a failure, and Congress is succeeding.
Mookie the mouser.
Mr. Cleveland. The USA is not a socialist workers paradise, and railroads are in business to earn money. If you don’t like the capitalist system, you have two choices. Join the Socialist Party and devote your life to changing the USA legally. Or move to a real welfare state like Sweden. The Government got back with interest all the money it invested in Conrail. No one bilked the taxpayer because of Conrail. The salaries of its managers and CEO were in line with other railroads. Its decisions on branch lines and service levels were the best practice of other railroads.