Trains VS. Trucks

[Anonymous]

lets get this out. i am an over the road truck driver, and an avid railfan/model railroader, and all i seem to hear is the train people ripping on trucks, and how the government finances the roads, but not the rails. what about the 15 to 25,000.00 a year each truck pays in taxes, permits, etc...?? as to the safety regulations, the trucking industry does need better enforcement and better regulations. while i am on the road, i hear many truck drivers talking about running well over their hours, and running overweight etc.. some type of recorder is definately needed in all trucks if anything is ever going to change. seems most of the truck drivers are mis-informed about the railroads. they whine about government subsidies given to the railroads, and that the trains are taking away their freight. i think it is the other way around. (have you ever tried to tell anything to a trucker when he already has his mind made up? id doesn't do much good) any comments would be greatly appreciated on this topic, and i would be happy to answer any questions (if i am ever home)

[Anonymous]

It is interesting, this competition. I find that they need each other. The current cash cow for railroads (excepting coal) is intermodel which needs trucks. I think a good balance is what we need. Trucks can haul the meat, door to door but let trains handle the coal and bulk loads.

[Anonymous]

Let us not that the truckers were not the ones who derailed several cars and set them on fire in that Baltimore tunnel. They did not force NS and CSX to go into debt to split Conrail and then foul up the service that Conrail had become famous for. They did not cause the service meltdown after UP bought out SP either. They do not get rail cars lost in transit. The railroads did that on their own.

On the day when this industry can, as a whole, deliver cars where they need to be, when they need to be there, on time with the contents undamaged, will be the day they can complain about the unfair advantages that highway transportation now enjoys.

It can be done if the industry will quit downsizing,quit wasting God knows how much money on mergers and start inveting in technology already available off the shelf to improve the
service.

George in Murfreesboro

[thirdrail1]

It is not the railroads that are being raped by the trucking companies, it is the personal automobile operator. It is he and she who are subsidizing the operation of trucks on the nation's highways. Yes, trucks pay thousands of dollars a year in taxes, but, if they were to pay in proportion to the damage they do to pavement and bridges, they would be paying hundereds of thousands a year! The violation of Hours of Service laws is due to the lack of union representation in trucking. When it did exist, the union was so corrupt it cared nothing for the workers, only enriching the union officers. Look who is leading it today. Will they never learn? Railroad management has been incompetent for the last quarter century. If you cannot offer a trainload of freight, they don't want the business, not realizing that they are chasing an ever decreasing volume of bulk freight. Railroads are capable of doing a good if not a better job of handling less than carload lots than trucks. They got out of the business due to high union wages compared to teamsters at the transfer freight houses. There is some effort being put into re-entering this business by UP, while BNSF is attempting to re-enter the perishable business. Maybe a few managers have realized coal and intermodal aren't high growth industries. Better get off the soapbox now. I spent my entire career in railroad marketing, so I get incensed now and again.

[Anonymous]

about who is subsidizing the roads, that much is true, interestingly, railroads themselves are also subsidizing the highways through corporate taxes. as for railroad managment, i couldn't agree more with you there. they will spend millions to save hundreds and in the process reduce their ability to operate reliably. it's crazy. out on the UP we see it all the time, we all talk obout how they'll spend a dollar to save a dime. as for less than carload lots, doesn't anyone remember railway express? predecessor to UPS. the railroads can operate quite efficiently if they would just look to the past and realize that they can, and this was when they were regulated big time, had full crews, steam power, jointed rail, no computers, etc. the problem is no one is accountable anymore, if a train just keeps getting later, no one get their @$$ ate out over it. everything operates (on the UP at least) like an island, Kansas City doesn't care about anything except their numbers, with absolutely no concern whatsoever for possible downstream effects from their actions. all the other yards operate this way too. there is no concern about putting a 35mph train out in front of a "hot" 70mph stack train, as long as that 35mph'er got out within the alloted time. leave that problem to the dispatcher, who usually either a)doesn't care 'cause no on else does, or b)doesn't have the time (because of overwork (saving that dime again)) to even look and see what's going on. intermodal and LCL are gold mines if they could ever get some accountability back into the system. anyway same thing, better get off the soapbox, i run for the UP, and they get me incensed quite often!

[jsanchez]

A lot of interesting comments here, I think if the Railroads would stop these poorly executed mergers, they actually would be able to capture traffic again.
I see some encouraging things happening with Canadian National, U.P. and BNSF, with scheduled freights and trying to better utilize boxcars and improve freight car delivery. I think the railroads should really focus on improving carload traffic, hauling plastic pellets or lumber can and should be more profitable than intermodal, an average railcar can handle 3 to 5 truckloads, making hauling freight this way much less labour intensive than intermodal.( also using less fuel) I think intermodal is best for hauling mail, retail goods,perishibles,non domestic ocean containers, but it isn't well suited for many commodities. Another reason to build non-intermodal freight is that is out of the public's way. I think in the future you will see more and more communities(New York City is doing it already) try to limit truck traffic, this includes intermodal trucks also. New York City is doing all it can to encourage industry to ship by traditional railcar to help eliminate highway congestion. Conrail tried to serve New York by truck only and New York has suffered because of this.
You think in this day and age a Railroad would be able to better track a boxcar to insure that it is going to arrive on time, not 5 or 10 days late as often happens.
Most industries don't care what mode their freight is moved by, they want consistant reliable transportation and this is where most railroads fail.
I think all class 1 railroad managers should spend time getting training from shortline managers, so they can learn about real customer service, how to grow and market the business.
I also think the truck highway subsidy argument is not going to hold up much longer because the railroad industry is currently on capitol hill rattling its tin cup asking for infrastucture subsidies, which is not necessarily a bad thing, they might as well get their piece of the pie, the truckers, airlines,highway lobbyists and barge companies have been doing this for the last 50+ years. The railroad industry is a little late to catch on to things sometimes.I personally think all freight needing to travel 400 miles or longer in destination should move by rail, but not until they get their act together!!!

James

[Anonymous]

I would agree. One place to look is Europe which enjoys to this day a profitable and efficient rail service.

[Anonymous]

Quick note the violation of hours has nothing to do with the unions. I've driven out of union shops and they are no different from non union.It has to do with drivers being paid by the mile. I now drive for a company that pays by the hour and if I don't show it in my logs I don't get paid for it. Dispatchers that don't care if you've been up and going to get the load you'r under right now off but that you need to be 1000 miles away in 8 hours to pick up the next load.

[Anonymous]

Interesting comments. I've been OTR for the last 14 years. The problems I see are the companys
pushing underqualified drivers too hard which
contributes to high turnover. This results in more
companys putting more underqualified drivers on
the road. Vicious circle. I once worked for a company with 118% annual turnover rate. Go figure.
See my comments under mergers.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if the problems railroads and truck companies have have to do with size. I work in the airline industry and the comments I hear here applied to the rails and roads also apply to the airline industry. When you had more smaller companies there was a sence of compition which made all more efficient and made you preformed better in order to court the customer. Now it is more like 'take it or leave it' cause there is some poor slob who will put up with inferrior service to save a buck if you don't like it. One of my favorite railroads was the Northern Pacific which only got better when the Milwaukee went out west. They forced the NP to become a better railroad cause they now had competition. Like I said, smaller I think is better.

[JonathanS]

We used to get our bulk starch shipped in by pneumatic hoppers. We used one car a day. There were far too many times when we would be out of material and there would be as many as 10 cars full of our starch in the local yard 15 miles away. A call to the yardmaster asking why they weren't delivered would get a response of "I don't know." Asking if they would get delivered tomorrow would get answered "I don't know." We lost a lot of production, and income, waiting for the cars to be delivered the last 15 miles.

So now we use trucks, 4 or 5 a day. The trucking companies we are dealing will deliver to the hour we request and even unload the material for us. And the shipping is 25% less than it was by rail. Will I even try rail service again? What do you think?

[JonathanS]

I agree that most European rail service is efficient, but not that they are profitable. Most of them have been heavily subsidized by the governments, even the freight. The EU countries are privatizing the rail systems now. A lot of trackage is being abandoned, or sold to short lines. Much of the local passenger service is gone.

Eastern Europe is even worse. Whole regional systems are being abandoned in these countries.

[JonathanS]

I forgot one incident we had. We had a car of "starch" delivered to us by rail. The bill of lading had the car number scratched off and a different number hand written on it. This car was in the series that often came to us. We sampled it and it was positive for starch. We then unloaded it and released it back to the railroad.

Unknown to us the starch was modified and our identification test did not reveal that, it still identified as starch. The bill of lading we got was actually for the car whose number was typed on the form. The car that was delivereded to us was for a different customer and had gotten separated from its bill of lading. So the local clerk took it upon himself to make a bill by taking another car's bill and putting this car's number on it. The car he took the bill of lading from had also gotten separated from its bill. In this case the bill had arrived but the car had not.

To make it even better when the car was returned to the local yard its bill of lading finally showed up. So the clerk attached the bill to the car and off it went to its rightful owners. And when it got there it was empty. And the rail company could not explain why it was empty.

In the meantime we had several batches ruined (at several hundred thousand dollars lost each) and had to shut the plant down to try to find out why. We quickly found out that the starch was not correct and contacted our supplier. Their reaction was "So that is were it went." Between the supplier, us, and the other customer we figured out what had happened. We were out over a million dollars in ruined product and lost production and still had to dispose of the ruined product and the remaining starch in a hazardous landfill. The other customer had somewhat less of a loss than us, but still a significant amount. Would the rail company take any responsibility. No. It took a lawsuit to recover any damages.

Again I'll ask; do you honestly think that I am in any hurry to try rail service again?

[Anonymous]

Jon,
What was the railroad you were dealing with?

[ronsmith]

You are right to say the railroads need to get it together and deliver; but the feds and states build the roads for the trucks and do nothing for the railraods. We must reduce the number of vehicles on the roads.
I think we should do what was proposed in 1950, which is, that any product, except what would be urgent delivers, being shipped over 300 miles will go via rail. This would all but take the coast to coast trucks off the raod and would mean they would work in less than a 3000 mile radius of there home base.
Well guess what happened to this plan; the Teamsters 'Junion' as they say in the north killed this plan. Now all you OTR's are suffering the ills of overloaded highways and delays at terminals.
Well we have another HUGH problem facing us now and that is all the Mexican truckers that cannot read or understand English, are going to join you on the highways.
Lets all expand the rail system to take as much traffic off the highways and do not let any mexican truckers in the USA.
Lets all insist the the railroads get it together and also increase passenger rail service and most certainly it is not done like by the dumb, slow developed light rail systems we have being constructed.
Ron Smith, Garland, TX

[Anonymous]

man...look what i started. i have been thinking that if the railroads would work with the trucking industry it would work to their advantage. one way i was thinking of is that the railroads could run a type of transfer terminal in each major city. there, trucks would do all the local pickups and bring the product to a terminal. from there it would be loaded onto boxcars etc. and shipped to another city to be offloaded onto more local trucks and delivered to its final destinations. we do this at my trucking company all the time. we will go to a transfer terminal on the east coast, pick up a loaded trailer that has freight for many different stores on it. from there we will take it to the west coast and deliver it to another terminal, where they put it on smaller trucks to deliver it to all the differet stores.

also, i was thinking that wouldnt a complete transcontenential railroad be much faster, and make it easier to transport goods across the country? i always wondered why they would waste the time to transfer cars from an east coast railroad to a west coast railroad. i wonder why the two never merged.

one more thing. the railroads need to build a big triple track, transcon railroad from the east coast to the west coast for all these cross country shipments that dont need to make very many stops in between (never will happen)

still truckin on down the road

Alex

[Anonymous]

FINALLY...A man after my own heart!!!
I agree 150%. For more details, see my comments under mergers. I'm getting really tired running around on unsafe roads,away from home for weeks at a time,because the railroads can't get their act together!!!!!

[JonathanS]

CSX

[Anonymous]

If there was to be real competition in the movement of freight out there, the trucking industry would pay their own way with their own "road-beds" just like the R.R.'s do. Then watch what would happen! This is not a direct response to Texpik6, just a thought...thank's...Hommie

[andrewjonathon]

I must respond to the incredible ideas put forth by Ron Smith. First there is a name for the type of suggestions that you make in regards to limiting the distance trucks can travel and forcing companies to use rail service - it falls under the general term of 'central planning' which is typically associated with communism. If that is your idea of utopia its too bad that the old Soviet Union wasn't still around for you because I don't believe even Russia is that restictive today.

Secondly, your comments about Mexican truck drivers are outlandish. The only reason to limit Mexican truck drivers from US roads is 'job protection' - which is purpose of the unions existence. However, its interesting because it also sounds as if you don't like the unions even though you agree with them on this issue. As far as the language difference, first there is little reading of words involved in driving. Recognizing road symbols is the most important thing and most road signs meet international standards. The rest can be picked up very quickly. Secondly, there are many citizens of this country who do not speak English and yet drive on the roads with little problem everyday. If you have every travelled abroad you have likely experienced driving on roads where you did not know the language and would have found it is not difficult. Thousands of non-English speaking tourists already drive on the US roads on any given day without creating havoc. Finally, truck drivers are professional drivers, yes even Mexican truck drivers and don't under estimate their ability to read English road signs.

If there are any further safety concerns these can be taken care of by adopting universal standards for all trucks on the interstate regardless of where the truck comes from.

I am not sure how you force railroads to get their act together. But the real reason trucks dominate the freight transportation is not that they are subsidized or underregulated but in similar words used by a former president during an election campaign 'Its the service stupid'.

[jsanchez]

There are many interesting points in this discussion, I agree the service issue is PARAMOUNT, look at all the shortline railroads that have tremendous growth on freight lines the class 1's were killing. I know of many companies that switched to using rail more, once the class 1's were out of the picture. The main reason being they like the service they get from the local shortline far better than an indifferent arrogant class 1. Most shortlines seem to really bend over backwards to make their customers happy, they also come up with great ideas to help shippers. I'm surprised more class 1's don't try harder to be like shortlines. There is a lot of money to be made in railroading if you do it right.

[jsanchez]

There already is a lot of cooperation between truckers and railroads. Swift, Schneider, J.B Hunt all send tens of thousands of trailers everyday by rail. This traffic was hurt by the merger debacles, but now that things are getting smoother operational wise, this traffic seems to be growing again. The trucking companies, save on fuel, wear & tare on their trailers, and labor costs. The large trucking companies are well aware to the benefits of rail and have been hoping for the railroads to get their act together to give them more business. The key again is service quality.

[jamesedwbradley]

Note the recent remark in TRAINS by an NS official - (forgot the name)-who said in effect that the rails' technology has always prevented real customer service except in the 'old days', and then it was only good for a few crack passenger trains where top management bent all its efforts to see that everybody in the company ran that train on time! I think this is the crux of rail service problems - and lack of supervision; difficulty has always been thatcoupling up the long trains resulted in YOUR car being lost like a drop of water in a Great Lake; it took too much money to do the switching and local runs needed for just-in-time, so the 'loose-car' cargo went to trucks; rails do better with unit-trains. But after 22 years in freight traffic management (then to another field, since retired) I always wondered why rails didn't try TOFC each 2-4 hours to take (then) common-carrier trailers and give truck-competitive service, avoiding the rail-terminal pitfalls. Of course, that meant 'converting' the boxcar customers to using truck docks and TOFC, but most of them already had truck docks and were using them, daily! I think rails dropped the ball on getting even more TOFC, tried too hard to keep the boxcars and their big hump yards, and it's abundantly clear they tried to skimp on supervision and giving service. What's next/

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to add that a truck has to wait for a train at a grade crossing. also i never seen a truck in like a train can be 8 thousand feet. just a thought to ponder next time you see a truck go buy

[ronsmith]

Well Andrew I thought someone may miss the point, and that is the trucking industry better do something to reduce the numbers of trucks on the road before someone like gore and the past head of the epa bring this plan up as being necessary.
You also enjoy living in a part of the country that does not have many of the mexicans, so you have not idea of how they drive or their not being able to read road signs or follow laws. You also live in a dream world if you thing the mexican truckers will adopt any of our standards.

[andrewjonathon]

I may live in Washington now but I have had the opportunity to live in a number different parts of this country including those with Mexican drivers and I disagree with your analysis. I have also had the opportunity to drive in a number of various countries with different languages and know from personal experience you do not 'read' road signs as much as 'recognize' symbols. As far as truck standards are concerned, it is up to us to first set our standards and then apply them across the board to everyone. If we are not capable of enforcing them then it is our problem to correct. Also remember that in random safety checks a large percentage of American trucks fail to pass. The point is Mexicans don't have a monopoly on unsafe trucks. Indeed there is a need to increase the safety record of all trucks without singling out the Mexican trucks.

[BRAKIE]

TRAIN OF THOUGHT (SORRY T.K) YOU EVER WONDER WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE ON THE HI-WAYS WITH-OUT TRAINS? JUST A THOUGHT.

[mnwestern]

Good scary thought, Larry. As someone whose father, brother, brother-in-law and two nephews have been truckers, both short and long-haul, I realize the value of trucking. But I also realize that the taxes truckers complain about don't come close to covering the costs of the damage they do to the highways. Engineers (the Highway variety) have told me that except for frost damage in the northern climates, you would not have to rebuild roads very often if they were traveled by just cars and pickups. Also, the trucking industry was basically handed the interstate system as a gift in the 1950s. Railroads are the only transportation industry even coming close to having to pave for its own infrastructure. Not Air, barge or trucks.

The bigger issue might be, what is it worth to our society to have a cheap transportation policy essentially like our cheap food policy. If transportation companies really could charge the cost of doing business and showing a return on investment, airline tickets would be much higher, the cost of transporting goods would be much higher, and the prices we pay for them would be much higher. Like our subsidy of farmers that keeps the percentage of our income spent on food, our public dollars in transportation keeps those costs down, too. When was the last time airlines actually covered the full cost of building and operating airports — probably never. Railroads benefit, too, from the public larder, especially, shortlines and Amtrak, but to nowhere near the extent of other modes of transportation.
T

[jsanchez]

About airline subsidies. It was estimated in the 1970's. If the Airlines had to pay for the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport alone, it would take them 700 years to pay off the mortgage.

James

[Anonymous]

Yeah I hear that by next year lots of truck traffic will be taken off of I-81 in virginia to be put on trains by the Norfolk Southern to decrease truck traffic and fatal accidents on that interstate. I hope it does because I love trains, especially intermodal.