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[quote user="Datafever"]   But it can not be said that railroads are not competitive.  They compete with many other forms of transportation.  In some areas, they compete very well.  In other areas, they compete poorly. [/quote] That's where I differ.  I believe that each mode has a particular niche not seen in the other modes, said modes will gravitate their energies toward maximizing that niche, and thus the only competition in this particular niche is intramodal.  I have pointed this out time and again to no avail, because some folks here are just stuck on the notion that "trucks are competition for rail" etc, without the slightest realization of the fallacy of such a blanket statement.  Intramodally, railroads do compete somewhat (mostly duopoly, the rest triopoly or better) between the major terminals - all major ports, cities such as Chicago and St. Louis - but line haul customers tend to be stuck with the connection they got.  That's why all overseas importers are free of rail captivity, while most US producers are physically captive to one Class I (even if the GAO only counts R > VC over 180% as captive).  It is in these intergeographical locales that the opportunities for "innovate or die" are lost, and where OA in some form would be far superior to harsher regulation enforcement. [quote] In addition, they also compete against each other in a very high stakes game - the buyout.  Railroads that fail to be economically productive are at risk of being bought out by another railroad.  Sure, there are some railroads that get bought out or merge even though they are doing very well for themselves.  In such cases, the parties involved see a synergy that can be produced.  But a poorly run railroad is usually not getting bought out because of possible synergistic effects.  Instead, it is probably a last resort prior to declaring bankruptcy. [/quote] This is where government oversight has failed miserably.  It would have been better to fix the problems of the loser railroad and thus keep the competitive balance, rather than "saving" the railroads by merging them into bigger and bigger monopoly sectors.  Because let's face it - a railroad being poorly run isn't necessarily a function of that railroad being a lesser property in comparison to others.  Case in point - NYC/Pennsylvania vs N&W/Chessie/et al. [quote] Have railroads been innovative?  Of course they have.  Look at the variety of cars that have been produced lately to meet shipper's needs.  Look at the machines that have been developed to automate trackwork / MoW.  Look at classification yard automation. [/quote] Question for the experts - If railroads ran with the shorter faster model, would we even need massive classification yards?  Could a modern day Class I function today by eliminating massive centralized yards in favor of decentralized mini-yards, e.g. focus on unit trains/shuttle trains for all commodities, while keeping carload volumes at a 25 car + or - train length limit?  Wouldn't such decentralization enable a more customer oriented system? I have read in past TRAINS various takes on that theme, and in some aspects the automated classification yard seems more of an albatross rather than an innovation.  Other so-called innovations, aka air brakes, seem to be well past their time in this day and age - aka holding on to out dated technologies seems to be an unintended consequence of monopolism.
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