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Jay, Regarding railroads' roles in utilizing trucks, is there any reason why a railroad company cannot better utilizing trucking's unique aspects to further buttress the railroad company's bottom line? To keep this short, I believe that under open access you would see a megafold increase in the utilization of bi-modal technolgies. Because of the low modal transfer costs and very quick transfers between modes, bi-modal technology can function in all but the shortest of lanes. The only holdback (aside from the inefficiencies of the closed access system) is that railroads don't maximize their on line rail speeds to compensate for the terminal dwell time. I also believe that railroads could easily take over the short haul bulk commodity movements if they really wanted to. Short haul shuttle trains simply cannot be matched by anything the truckers do, and the railroads could price the service at just under the trucking rate. With head to head competition there would be some erosion of this monopoly profit, but I doubt it would reach cutthroat levels because these short haul corridors tend to be smaller markets. More than likely you would see co-ops and grain companies run their own shuttle trains under open access. Whatever the outcome, truckers would be relegated to their natural status as feeders to the system. It is true that it is unlikely a railroad company would go after single truckload shipments, but it is true that you would proably see trucking companies and 3PI's use their consolidation abilities to somehow incorporate that single truckload into a larger consist if the rail lane is available. GE is an example of a company that has it's interests in so many divergent business opportunities. Like any good business, they will buy low and sell high if the right price comes along. Consolidation and diversification are ever evolving constants, and one of the advantages of going after any business is that you never know when one seemingly small business avenue will suddenly explode in growth. Regarding my current business obligations, it involves AMR, nothing in transportation. Daveklepper - I would argue that the massive retrenchment that was well under way before Staggers and premeditated congestion with longer consists was what resulted in trucking taking over so much business from the railroads. I'll say it again; railroads basically gave away the business. The truckers didn't come along and take it from them. Railroads used to run point to point trains at one time even in the smaller lanes, but as the bean counters got their way and it became holy writ that the "best" way to run trains is to consolidate into mile long consists, those smaller market cars suddenly started traveling hundreds of miles out of the way, being shunted and lost in the huge new yards, only to travel another hundred or so miles out of the way to yet another huge yard, and so on and so on. I bet the thought at the time was that the railroads would keep that business anyway so who cares if customers had there orders delayed? I remember one of John Kneiling's stories about the factory owner who sat by his office window day after day and watched his boxcar go by his plant four times before the railroad finally delivered it. It is examples such as this that show that truckers were (are) not the competition so much as they are the bailout option born of shipper frustration. In hindsight it is absolutely inexcusable for the railroads to have done what they did, because it resulted in a loss of the most profitable business opportunities, and I believe such would have never occurred if there had been real head to head competition between railroads for every customer.
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