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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by greyhounds http://wbc.agr.mt.gov/factsfigs/other/mwbtr.html In 1980, the year before deregulation (or so Sol says) 39% of the Montana wheat crop moved out by truck. That ain't no railroad monopoly. So there is a truck alternative. No need for government involvement here! But then an ironic thing happend as rail rates were deregulated and the Millwaukee Road through Montana was ripped out of the ground like the cancer it was. The truck share of wheat shippments from Montana began to decline, down to 20% in 1989, 16% in 2001 and only 9% in 2002. >Why else whould the wheat have shifted from truck to rail?[/quote] It must be nice to think that you can solve all the world's problems by being very selective in your presentation of variables. However, the linear trend is simply a reflection of what happened, it does not explain why it happened. In your little world, it was all due to BN/BNSF being benevolent with it's rates, because apparently everything else that affects grain shipments was static. Tell us, when did grain exports really take off? Could it have something to do with free trade agreements? Ken thinks trade has always been a constant. Did increased grain shipments have anything to do with increased world demand? Again, Ken thinks world grain demand is also a constant. Why did truck shipments fall off in the early 1980's? Could it have something to do with the sudden increase in diesel fuel prices back then? Nah, fuel prices don't affect long haul/short haul truck/barge and truck/rail combinations, do they? Does the website explain if the truck shipments were long haul or short haul? truck to barge or truck to rail? In Ken's fantasy world, all such truck shipments were to the barge terminal in Lewiston, a relative long haul. There were no truck shipments to rail terminals, because apparently the combines offloaded directly into railcars![;)] (BTW, at one time UP subsidized grain trucks from Montana into Kooskia Idaho for offload into UP hoppers there via the Camas Prairie Railroad. UP gave up about the time barges came into favor and branchlines went out of favor.) What about rail service offerings over this period of time? My recollection was that elevators in Motanan had a hard time getting BN to deliver rail cars for grain shipments, thus forcing a lot of grain traffic onto the mode of last resort during the 1980's. BN did finally get their act together (as reflected in an increased market share) but then begain to raise rates for carload traffic - yes, it took BN/BNSF a decade or more to even realize they were in the monopoly position. The HUGE SALIENT POINT BEING MISSED BY GREYHOUNDS - BNSF has consitently owned on average 80-90% of market share for grain shipments out of Montana, effectively making BNSF a monopoly in Montana and the state's grain shippers captives to BNSF. Heck, even Microsoft only owned about 75% of the software market, yet were still classified as a monopoly. You don't have to own 100% of market share to be a monopoly for practical purposes. The truck/barge combo gets at most 20%, and most of that is due to the fallback action from not getting rail service when it is asked for by grain shippers (read: the mode of last resort). Occassionally, there will be a deadheading dry van, empty ISO container, or flatbed with side bolsters heading west to Lewiston that will stop and pick up grain for some marginal revenue. Sometimes there are small loads of identity protected grains that will be trucked to Lewiston in an ISO container. Most of that has occured with the closure of BNSF's Shelby intermodal terminal, leaving Billings as the only BNSF intermodal terminal. Butte has the Port of Montana intermodal terminal which UP uses, but that must head to Portland and Seattle via a circuituous routing (which counteracts the rail efficiency dominance). Only an addled miscreant would call that "competition". Like I said before, such folks would call Dobie Gillis "competition" for Lance Armstrong.
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