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jeaton, 1. The cost of going to the STB is high due to the extreme delays in getting a case settled. 17 years and still the McCarty Farms case is in limbo? Maybe the STB needs a God Squad to get these cases expediated. 2. The Highway Trust Fund (and the Waterway Trust Fund) are already raided for non highway/waterway use. Some of this is in the form of intermodal funding, while other is going to transit and such. Those cold dead hands are remarkably pliant for current cross funding! An Intermodal Trust Fund would legitimize some of the cross funding issues currently going on, and make it that much easier to put the funding for enhancing supply chain logistics on a more optimal keel. I don't think trucking companies would complain too much about intermodal funds going to a rail expansion project if they know they will be able to access the lines themselves under their own operating procedures. All these entities are transportation companies, and it is reasonable to presume that a true transportation company would want to access all modal forms at will wherein that access optimizes their entire supply chain. But you are correct that the independent truckers may complain since they are less likely to utilize the rails to complete their journey. 3. On that political note, what allows monopolies to thrive is government protection. Otherwise the economic theory you cited would act as a natural reponse to monopoly profits. With our government so entrenched in the lobbying way of influence (regardless of party affiliation), the predictable actions of monopolists is to use that power of influence to create a climate that is hostile or at least much more difficult to new entrants. Since it is government that is providing such protection against competitors, it takes on a socialist aspect in principle. Look at Airbus. 4. User fees - both UPS and the Montana farmer would be paying the user fee each time they utilize transportation. 5. Tax credits vs subsidy - Tax credits are moneys you get to keep, while paying taxes then getting a subsidy in return involves the expense and time consumption of having that money transferred from one hand to the other and back. Money in the hand improves cash flow, while having to wait for a tax return can delay cash flow. 6. I would argue that railroads have willingly given up the market share that trucks now own. Railroads were at one time a faster conveyance than highways, then highway design evolved while railroads got slower. Perhaps it was the ICC and the onser of rail regulation in the early 1900's that caused railroads to stop progressing on the speed front, but it happened nonetheless. Look at the history of some trucking companies, and they came about because there was a market opportunity that the railroads weren't covering. It wasn't that the trucking firms came along and booted current rail operations. Remember John Kneiling's example of the banana trade? The railroads lost the banana trade because they would not adapt to consumer demand by increasing train speed and frequency to match the ever evolving consumer demand. Do you really think truckers can come along today and take over a commodity haul from railroads, terminals and mileage being equal? What kind of truck convoys would it take to haul 10,000 tons of grain from Mocassin to Kalama? How about coal from PRB to Louisiana? How about 250 containers from LA to Chicago? You can bet that truckers would only get those hauls if the railroads gave it up of their own free will. Yet for the grain and containers the railroad is entirely dependent on trucks to get the product from the ship or farm to the rail terminal. Trucks feed the railroads. It makes no sense to consider trucks the competition when they are in fact the life support for railroads. Do you ever wonder why the people involved with the barge lines don't go around calling trucks the competiton? They know they would be hard pressed for traffic if the trucks didn't bring it to them and deliver it to the final destination for them. Each transport mode has it's own special characteristic that engenders optimization, if only they would exploit said advantage. Truckers act as the feeder system and final delivery system for all the other modes, and will only go beyond that short haul system when the other modes decline to serve. Airlines move small lots at very high speed. Barges move ultra large lots at very low speed. Railroads in theory should be moving sufficiently large lots at highest possible surface speed, but instead they have focussed on moving ultra large lots at medium low speed. Because of railroad's inability to maximize the limits of the technology and take advantage of their ability to run trains of sufficient size makeup (wherein the units of labor required to move a certain amount of cargo has swung in rail's favor), a whole large market share for trucks was the default creation. Trucks are the transport mode of last resort for anything over a short haul. Couldn't get that last container on the double stack in time? Well, we'll just ship it by truck then. No rail service between Reno and Las Vegas? Well, we'll just ship it by truck then. The railroad doesn't want to supply a box car at a team track just for three pallets of widgets? Well, we'll just ship it by truck then. BNSF no longer wants to supply car load service to branch line elevators? Well, we'll just ship it by truck then. Has anyone ever heard of a scenario where something couldn't be shipped by truck for reasons of unresponsiveness or red tape, etc. and as a fall back decided to ship by rail instead? Railroads have so emasculated themselves with this misguided obsession to maximize train length/tonnage at the expense of speed and service, that I guess the "crumbs off the table" is a bad analogy. It's more like body parts off the operating table. 7. So much car supply today is owned by shippers, that I expect such shippers would form their own transporter companies if a standard transproter declined their business offer. Your ascertion that mergers and subsequent shipper monopolies would result does not play out when you analyze how truckers have dealt with dereg. There is not one place in the U.S. that does not have access to two or more trucking firms. One reason you don't see a loss of trucking firms due to mergers is that even if a trucking merger takes place, pretty soon there's another trucking firm ready to take their place. Getting in and out of the transporter business is easy. It is entry into infrastructure ownership that is difficult. If you open it up, the transporters will come. 8. Not having recieved my Sept TRAINS I cannot comment on the article to which you refer. However, there are a multitude of examples of shared track arrangements in the U.S., and as far as we can tell those arrangements are working well in spite of ownership.
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