Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="TimChgo9"]    Let me see if I understand this right....well, the "captive shipper" part of it.  Let us just say, that there is an industry, with a spur or two to serve it off of a main rail line, the only rail line through the area.  (For fun, let's make it a Class 1)  Now, let us imagine that this company makes a product that is so large, heavy, or bulky, that it can only go by flat car.  But, some components can go by truck, but not the main product itself.  So, does this make the company a "captive shipper"... after all, trucks can handle some of freight, but not all of it... and certainly not the main product, made by this company.   [/quote] You are exactly right, Ed's counter example notwithstanding.  In Ed's synopsis, the load in question is inbound from a port.  As I explained a while back, there are no captive sea-to-dock importers.  Any product that is brought to port by ship usually has a choice of ports, and that slate of ports (at least the larger ones) also offers usually at least two Class I connections.  Now, take Ed's example and reverse the shipping direction.  Say it's a factory in Indiana with only one Class I connection that makes these components, and they need to ship one overseas.  In spite of the fact that they can play one port against the other and one shipping line against the other, they cannot hedge that initial transportation cost out of the plant.  And that's where they lose out to foreign competitors who suffer no similar captive rate offering. And of course, saying that "it's their fault for locating the plant on a single Class I rail line" is rather disingenuous, since most such factories were sited pre-Staggers under regulated mileage based rates.  Who in their right mind could have foreseen that their so-called representative government would suddenly enslave them to a government sanctioned monopoly via Staggers?
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag