Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="1435mm"][quote user="Datafever"]There are a couple of points that keep getting made over and over that just kind of nag at the back of my cognitive processing.  These points frequently seem to be used to bolster each other and they do provide a backdrop for each other.  These points are: 1) Trucks are not (always) a competition for trains. 2) Imported goods are never captive. Both statements are fairly accurate.  The argument seems to go something like this: Domestic manufacturers that are captive shippers are at an economic disadvantage to imported goods.  Since imported goods will get low competitive rail rates while domestic manufacturers (at least the ones for whom truck transport is not an alternative) are likely to be tied to only one Class 1 railroad and therefore pay exorbitant monopolistic rates.  This gives imported goods an economic advantage over domestic goods and contributes to the trade imbalance. And yet, what types of commodities cannot reasonably be transported by truck?  Minerals (such as coal and potash) are brought up as an example.  Grains (such as wheat and corn) are another example.  Liquids (such as ethanol). But these are not the types of commodities that are generally imported.  Most imported goods can generally be reasonably transported by truck or rail.  Domestic manufacturers of those types of goods can also use truck or rail for transport and therefore they are not captive shippers.  Therefore they are not paying outrageous monopolistic rates for transportation of their goods.  And therefore, they are on level playing ground economically. I don't know that I have done a very good job of expressing what I wanted to say, but hopefully my point has been made. [/quote] Notwithstanding the "argument", it rests on a false premise, that trucks and railroads each have an impregnable market segment only they can fill.  Coal, grain, potash, ethanol are all not only "reasonably" transported by truck but in enormous volumes and often for some surprisingly long distances.  Transportation is too complex to reduce to simple generalizations about the market-matched niches of transportation modes, and the result of that reduction has been and continues to be a lot of bad public policy.  There are plenty of examples of coal moving 500 miles by truck and 5 miles by train, for instance. [/quote] But now you're setting up an undefined straw man to try and shoot down the premise.  The combination of shipping volumes, distance, and time sensitivity generally dictate which mode is chosen for the main haul.  Are you talking about 10,000 tons of coal/grain/potash/et al, or are you talking about a few hundred tons of coal/grain/potash/et al?  Are you talking a few hundred miles or a few thousand miles?  Once you determine your product's shipping characteristic, then you decide how it moves - other than intermodal combo's, you're not going to sub an alternate mode in place of the optimal mode. In other words, you're probably not going to call the railroad to ship 100 tons of flaxseed 50 miles down to the barge port, nor are you going to call J.B. Hunt to ship 10,000 tons of potash from Saskatchewan to Portland OR, nor are you going to call Bubba's Barge line to ship 10 UPS trailers from Dubuque to Memphis...........
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