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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by gabe [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Of course, trucking deregulation resulted in more competitive choice for shippers, railroad partial deregulation did not. That might explain why rairoading has not increased its share of freight movement in this country. [/quote] So you are saying that railroads would haul more freight right now if they were not deregulated by Staggers? Might customers who haul freight via trucking have more choices due to the natural advantage over trains and the changing nature of the consumer economy, which allows a higher and quicker return on investment for trucking and provides for more impetus for competitors to enter the trucking market? Gabe [/quote] Gabe, I'm not saying that railroads would be hauling more freight if Staggers hadn't been passed, because if railroads had continued in the regulated marketplace, I'm not sure they would have survived into the 21st century. I am saying that railroads would haul more freight if all prospective rail shippers had absolute access to competitive rail rates and services, something that was absent from the Staggers legislation. I will reiterate, Staggers was partial deregulation, liberating the supply side of railroading, but not the demand side. Compare that with trucking deregulation, which resulted in liberation of both supply and demand. I also don't buy the argument that trucking has a natural (or did you mean net ?) advantage over railroads. What railroads lack in door to door access is more than made up in efficiency, especially with intermodalism. Since the BTS report is about tonnage as well as value of commodity movements, modal efficiencies would play a major part in determining how commodities "choose" to move. If you look at the numbers, intermodalism has also been stagnant, staying at around 5% from 1993 to 2002, when all the innovations in TOFC, bi-modal technologies, and double stacking should predict a noticable increase in intermodal's share of freight. Obviously, something is lacking. I will agree that there is greater impetus of investment entry into trucking as compard to railroading, and this I believe is due to the de facto intent of Staggers, which was designed to allow the railroad industry to eliminate "excess" capacity until only enough remained to allow the railroads more price control. Of course, the problem that railroad managers in government apparently did not foresee is that with GDP growth over the last two decades, demand is now exceeding the supply being offered by the railroad companies, and with the conservative nature of businesses who have a certain degree of market control those capacity improvements will not take place in an expedient manner for the nation's shippers, because that incentive is just not there. "Rail banking" provisions in railroad deregulating legislation was woefully inadaquate, thus there was more incentive to scrap the "excess" capacity instead of preserving it until demand warranted. Those rail expansion projects that are taking place now are not in pace with projected trade growth. Thus, not only have railroads engaged in defered maintenance to enhance short term ROI's, they are also engaged in defered expanion. This will only lead to trucks garnering a greater share of the commercial freight activity reported to the BTS for it's 2007 report. Deregulate the demand side of railroading, and you will see significant gains in rail's share of commercial freight activity.
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