The Railroads are Dying

[Anonymous]

Here's one to ponder.......If you asked 10 people on the street how the railroads are doing, I would bet that 8 or 9 would say that they're dying, they're a non-issue in America. Who uses them? What do they haul? The remaining one or two would have no data to even offer that much of an opinion. Does that prospect concern anybody?

I work in transportation and when newly-hired people sit in with me for orientation (since I'm the RR guy), a lot of them sheepishly ask, "Um, are the railroads still a viable way to move freight?" These are educated people who are starting a career in transportation.

I think a lot of this outlook that the RR's are on the way under is based on people seeing the branch line in their hometown being torn up and being made into a bike trail. People don't realize how the RR's have sort of mimicked the interstate highway system (their supposed nemesis) and have retrenched largely to a high-volume, hub-to-hub, corridor focused system (i.e. many fewer lanes, but more capacity and more trains in those lanes.) The average person has no idea about that. They've never seen the triple track at North Platte or Logan Hill in the Powder River Basin. They don't know about the BNSF Double-Track Transcon Main. They have no idea what it means that CTC was added to a line or sidings were added or lengthened. They just know what they see, which, with regard to RR's, frankly isn't much for most folks. The trains that they do see just appear as random things. No real rhyme or reason to them. No pattern. No big picture.

Do the RR's care that this perception exists. I've directly heard Sr. Execs from BNSF, NS, CSX & CN say no. When asked if this bothers them, they said that they wouldn't support any advertising to change this perception.

Did the Union Pacific "Building America" campaign do any good with regard to this issue. Well, it was flashy. It had some nice landscape shots. It even won some awards, but really, when you boil it all down, what did it say? "We're still in business!" Not much more than that, did it?

I've had stunned looks when I tell people that in the last 10-15 years, the RR's have moved more tons of freight, more miles than at any time in history (even more than during WW II.) They don't believe it. They just say "You're kidding, right?"

The RR's are satisfied to toil in obscurity. Maybe that's why they have such a hard time getting support for things like regional transit, Amtrak, public-private funding for infrastructure (i.e. intermodal ramps, grade crossing projects, etc.)

I guess if the majority of folks thought that my business was dying, I'd be concerned. I don't think that the RR's are. I've seen no showing of concern. Maybe that's just their arrogance. Would it bother you?[?]

[Anonymous]

I agree 100 % !!!

No joke, here in Europe many people think in the same way: The railroads are at the end of the line.

Good joke!!!

[daveklepper]

I took Professor Ballshbaugh's course in "Transportation Planning" at MIT in (if memory is correct) in 1952. I asked why railroads weren't included, only highways and airports -not even marine ports, come to think of it! He knew I was an EE Major. He said: "David, railroads have no future in America, if you want to become a railway electrification engineer, go to France and become a Frenchman." I didn't follow his advice, and with my interest in music became an architectural acoustics engineer, but retained my lifelong interest in railroads and subscribed, for a while, to "La Vie du Rail" in addition to TRAINS and for a while Model Railroader. Why did Ballsbaugh say this? Who directed USA transportation planning? Remember it is "The Sloan School of Economics" and GM has contributed a substantial portion of the MIT budget. Ballsbaugh was succeded by my classmate, Marty Wohl. (Hope I got the spelling right) He cooauthored a book on transportation. A quote as close to accurate as my memory permits: "Funding public transit makes no economic sense because public transit does not pay for itself from the farebox." He was succeded by an (ex?) Israel (non-religious, I am sure, despite his name) Moshe ben Akiva, who wrote an article in a magazine he edits stating that American have no preference for trains over buses if fares, speed, access, and schedules are the comperable. Right in his own back yard the Downeast service has proved him wrong. Eisenhower said we should guard against the military-industrial complex, but he should have warned against the highway-oil-rubber-auto complex. Their goals: Maximize oil profits, even if it meant funding Islamic terrorism, and making it impossible for any American to enjoy a full life without owning an automobile and using it. Milton Friedman, another secularist, taught at MIT and his book said "The only responsibility of a corporation is to maximize corporate profits." Picture this scene in your mind: MIT Professor Milton Friedman teaching IBM Corporate executives to earn money aiding Hilter's Holocaust (puched card technology), which they did, even though since that period IBM has become a very ethical, clean, and minority conscious, and women protecting corporation, one of the very best in the USA. As for GM, why aren't all models available with ages-old technology that Honda and Toyota and now Ford to some extent are making available? It has also been said that GM did such a good job on rail dieselization mainly to prevent its electrification, but I disagree, they saw an opportunity to make money by applying automotive technology to rails, and that was their main motifve. And still maximize oil profits. Advice: Use the trains we have and public transit as much as possible. When you buy a car, insist on buying one with braking energy recovery (Hybrid), and don't buy your favorite model until it is available with that technology . In addition to Honda and Toyota, GM has and is employing that technology on buses (mostly where it sees an opportunity to tear down a trackless trolley network), and in my opinion even better and proven technology is available from Stored Energy Technology in Derby, England, Magnet Motor in Pressberg, Germany, ----and Astom, the big French conglomorate who probably based their technology on ideas I sent the French Acoustical Society some five or six years ago.

Now some politics. Of course I was appalled at Bush;s meager funding proposal for Amtrak. But Kerry isn't any better because the "Big Dig" was constructed with the vital North Station - South Station rail connector, only a highway! Dave Klepper

[jeaton]

Dave-

You have excellently put into words part of what I was thinking about raising the awareness of the public. It isn't just advertising.

One of the current items in slate.msm.com slams Dave Gunn (Amtrak) for having cried wolf many times in his career. As you probably know, he doesn't sugar coat anything he is involved in, but more importantly, it often takes something like that to say we have a serious problem here guys. He got enough of our representatives to understand to at least keep limping along, but here is a question. How many of the new riders became aware of the service because of the press? I'd bet more than a few.

[Anonymous]

Dblstack: I hesitate to dive in to this, because you've rolled so many issues into one post. I'm only good at doing one thing at a time. So rather than go point-by-point, or issue-by-issue, I'll attack just two: p.r. and the basic question, if railroads are dying.

Railroads are not dying. Period. They haven't been healthier as a technology, in comparison to other transportation technologies, in almost 100 years. There is no question that for overland transportation of people and goods, the railroad has almost unlimited potential that is still only partially tapped. The May issue, which we're finishing up this week, goes into detail how Switzerland is rebuilding its core railroad system from scratch to eliminate long-haul trucking from between its borders. They're a small, densely populated, geographically disadvantaged country, so they have no choice but to be a leader. Other countries will eventually come to the same decision, when they have to -- no one wants to spend money until it's impossible to do otherwise.

In the U.S. -- which is what I think you want to know about -- the railroad has risen from the near-dead to become the acknowledged, preferred method of mass transit in large cities. Every city with any ambition for the future is building light- or heavy-rail or commuter systems (Milwaukee unfortunately is not one of them). Thirty years ago, there were exactly five U.S. cities with significant rail commuter. Now there are, what, 50? You can't ignore this. As for Amtrak, we'll know for sure in another two or three years, but I think it has rebounded from a nadir of inconsequentiality and has nothing ahead of it but growth. Its value to run corridor trains is increasingly acknowledged. Look at California for proof. The long-haul train, if it hasn't failed by now, probably won't, and increasingly they are becoming a series of connected corridor trains. That will inevitably lead to growth.

What might be dying is the old way of doing business hauling freight. The investor-funded right-of-way can only compete in limited, high-density lanes, and U.S. rail mileage continues to shrink as low-density lanes are abandoned. Nevertheless, there are more trains, and more ton-miles, than ever, concentrated onto the high-density lanes. There are plenty of people who point to this as proof of the marketplace's success, and plenty who point to it as proof of the marketplace's failure. It depends on what you think is most important -- investor profits or transportation service.

Regardless, railroads are not returning to investors their total cost of capital from their revenues alone. To stay in the game, some observers say the business overall is slowly disinvesting in their properties, handing over the necessary cash investors demand as merger premiums or stock buybacks. That will only go so far, and ends when there is nothing left to disinvest in. Other observers say the industry is simply not investing in aspects that have no promise.

The nation has no choice but to increase its investment in rail freight. Well, it has a choice: pay through the nose in highway maintenance, increase vulnerability to oil prices, degrade the environment further, make cities miserable with choked highways, and destroy wealth. I suspect it will decide those are poor choices. The problem, as I have pointed out in the magazine (I didn't invent this, I just talk to people) is that no one knows which is the best way to increase investment: let the market do it, use a public-private partnership, or use public money. All choices bear huge risks, either of not spending the money and not getting the desired outcome, or of spending the money and getting too little in return.

As for p.r.: a freight railroad's responsibility is to its investors. It will spend money to attract investors (UP's campaign was so directed, televised primarily on financial channels). Whether that's a failure or not would depend on what you think a railroad ought to do.

[dehusman]

The only people the railroad is concerned with caring if the RR is in business are the shippers and potential investors. And they seem to be well aware of how the railroads are doing since business (and the stock) is up.

Dave H.

[mudchicken]

railroads dying ? NO!

academia in this country getting dumber? YES! (both at the public school level and at the college level....public schools here in Denver warehouse kids/ don't teach & can't figure out why their high school grads are avoided like the plague by employers...)
Willy2 - hope Omaha is different .

[daveklepper]

Mark, would you dare editorialize on the facts of just why Milwaukee is NOT spending the money? How far away in time is the overdue extension of Chicago commuter service to Milwaukee? Then possibly you could extend this analysis to why the "Big Dig" did not include the rail connection? Why has New York City shied from light rail, where it would solve some specific problems as on 42nd street and in downtown Brooklyn, even with the successful New Jersey Line an example across the Hudson River? And why were other cities successful? Chicago, now even looking at streetcars? The California cities? I've heard some very interesting stories about what derailed for a long time some rail freight projects in New York. The case of a couple of feet of connecting track in the Harlem River Yard that Conrail wouldn't install until the State or City agreed to pay for it until they derailed a freight right across the Mott Haven junction tying up a commuter rush hour and Metro North said NO MORE! This might be a particularly important story with the new govenment in California and many railfans might wonder what the future there might be and what they can do in a positive direction. Dave

[Anonymous]

OUR COUNTRY IS RUN BY SPECIAL INSTREAST NOT THE PEOPLE BAN SPECIAL INSTREAST

[edblysard]

Dave H hit on the head...
Railroads dont want to sell themselves to you, the railfans, or John Q Public.
Why would they?
Unless your the shipping agent for Dow Chemicals, or the rep from the local GM plant, you have nothing they want, unless your looking to invest a few million or so in that railroad.
Wonder why the billboard boxcar is gone?
Remember when the covered hopper had the users name and product advertised on it?
They dont need to attract you, your not going to ride their passenger train, they have none for you to ride.
They are not selling you the product in the rail car, because most of the products you can or would buy are shipped by truck.

They are flying under the public's radar on purpose, because they dont want the public involved in their business, and all the rules and regs, both operational and financial, that would then happen.
I am not saying railroads are, or will do anything illegal, but, unless your stuck at a crossing, or are a railfan, most folks ignore railroads, and that suites the railroads just fine, they can go about their business without worring about what the public thinks of them, because John Q normally dosnt.

Amtrak has to attrach the public, after all, they are the customer in the truest sense or the word.
True, you are a railroad customer also, directly or indirectly, but most folks dont realize that, or care.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[Anonymous]

Couldn't agree with any of you any less

Railroads are Dying, and if they are not, they are violation phsical law #3 of the universe which we live in, that states, that everythign will deteriorate over time, and everyhting has. They were usefull in one time period or another, But now, Laying down new track costs a million a mile, litterally. You have the kind of money? Railroads are highly expensive to opperate, And busses are a lot cheaper

For all of those who say Railroads aren't dying, you've either Failed physics or have never taken it.

Although I don't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, The world is evolving, Railraods are going like typewritters.

When i use the term Railroads, I mean Metal wheels, Steal track.. i'm Not including the ICE or high speed rail , or the Train in Japan that moves really really fast, which eventually will have an amazing impact on our Economy.

Although I will admit to you that RRs are the best way to ship Goods and merchnadise, What I can say is withing the next 50 to 100 years, the bill for the RR structure upkeep will either be almost unafordable, or send an RR right to bankrupty protection

Laying down RR tracks is like installing a row of 1000 light hulbs, One switch opperates this entire row of light bulbs, hence, All the lighbulbs have the same amount of opperation time, and when 10,000 hours closes in, they will all burn out within a few days of each other.

The same thing is going to ahppen with the RR's.. and i don't want to sound like one of those sue-sayers or Cleo whatever he name is, But RRs , when things are laid down simoltaniously, the break simoultaniously. Each mile of tracks has ahd roughley the same amount of wear & tear put on it as the mile before that, and the mile befroe that...

So within 50 tom100 years, I have a gut feeling that this sytem, which we have come to know and love, could simoultaniously implode on itself.

Constant repairs... is that a joke? thats like putting a patxch on the road.. anyone ever find the patch is worse then the pot hole? you can only put so many patches beofre the road looks like a disgrace... OR... the entire road needs to be repaved.

I have a feeling that could happen shorter then we plan.

And nothing in this world defys itself, Everyhting WILL age, you me, the lamp post, your cat, your neighbors cat, the road.. And inferstructers don't take well to aging, especcualy where the sea air is present, that tends to age things at an excellerated rate du to all the sodium-chloride which eminates from the sea, Everyhting, usually, becomes more brital like plastic, and becomes more faulty.

Yuo can't disagree with that, because that is a universe fact..

But anyways.. i'll pass the soap box on to anyone else..

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Constant repairs... is that a joke? thats like putting a patxch on the road.. anyone ever find the patch is worse then the pot hole? you can only put so many patches beofre the road looks like a disgrace... OR... the entire road needs to be repaved.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the railway industry "re-pave" the entire road, so to speak, when it becomes necessary.

Your post reminded me of the article "The plight of the shortline railroad" Trains, March 2004, pages 30-39

It seems that the Class Ones have been doing a pretty good job of "re-paving" the roads; through the decades railways (particularily the class ones) have been constantly up-grading their rails to keep up with the increasing weight of freight cars. In this case the railroads are not just patching, but in fact replacing the old rails with new ones on a fairly consistant basis, throughout the past centruy. It's not as if the railroads are still using the same rails and infastructure that they were in the 1900s, with some minor upgrades or "patches" to the rails that have worn down.

But, you point does seem valid towards the smaller class two and three railroads that don't seem to have the money to be up-grading to the more heavy duty track, necessary to move the more modern 286,000lb cars (soon to be 315,000lb?)

If you havn't read the aformentioned article already, definately do, it's a good indicator of the near future to come in railroading.

[kenneo]

For a good lesson in why modern railroads really really want to stay out of the public eye, research your railroad history starting with the construction of the UP up through the USRA in the early 1920's. They absolutely do not want to repeat any of that.

[Modelcar]

...I suppose I'm one who can't quite figure why a corporation [railroads], continues to prefer to do business in the "dark". Arrogance seems to be closely associated with railroads since their early beginnings...I'm refering to management end of it all. Just seems to be something about the structure of it all that it has been done this way since the early years [when they were practically a monopoly in transportation], and want that concept to continue and disregard the transportation industry changes that now are in place. I'm one that finds it hard to believe keeping the workings and benefits of their service in absolute secrecy is going to be an advantage for their survival. It is my hope they DO survive....Just don't understand the position they take to secure that survival.

[BaltACD]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dehusman

The only people the railroad is concerned with caring if the RR is in business are the shippers and potential investors. And they seem to be well aware of how the railroads are doing since business (and the stock) is up.

Dave H.

I agree that the only 'people' railroads are concerned about are the shipper/consignees that furni***he freight and the revenue that keeps them in business and the investors. That being said, railroads do not have broad based investment because they do not do anything to combat the public perception of railroads being a dying rust belt industry, The investment in railroads is controlled by the institutional investors that do not care about the overall health of the industry or of individual propertys they are invested in. They only care about what the bottom line reads THIS QUARTER. That forces rail managment to make short term decisions to bolster the bottom line THIS QUARTER that work to the long term detriment of the industry as a whole and to the detriment of individual companies.

[Anonymous]

I noticed that most railroads have been changing to spartan paint schemes to save costs. They just look uglier, today I had a chance to see CSX bright and dark future geeps right next to each other and you can guess what one I liked more.

[Anonymous]

One thing I've wondered is, are there any younger people who know how to, or have any interest in, driving a steam locomotive? Steam trains still seem to be popular as tourist attractions throughout the world. Heck, look how many theme parks have them running. But whenever I go to, say, Disneyland, even there the engineers on their steam engines mostly seem to be elderly. What's going to happen when they die? I've never met any teenager or college-age person who's expressed any interests in working a steam engine. Obviously if we want to have steam engines running throughout the world into this new millenium, some people are going to have to "take the throttle".

[Modelcar]

....I believe there is a young group following the interest too...Some years back when we used to get several big steam excursions come into Muncie here there was always plenty of "young" folk around the operation. Units such as 611, 765 etc....

[jeaton]

I agree that most stats on railroads, except the return of the cost of capital show some pretty dymanic growth. I also agree that the railroads have no particular obligation to anyone not a shareholder , employee or user of the service. I think the basic issue being raised is that if people getting an education to get into transportation related careers THINK that railroads are dying, what would one expect to be the perception of the general public. So should I really care? I do not fall in any of the above categories.

What I was suggesting is that IF railroads want changes in public policy to get things such as government funding to help improve the infrastructure, and other changes the may be of benefit to the users and shareholders, then they are going to have to do more than toot their horn at 3:00am at crossings in residential neighborhoods. OK, some things are done. UP's steam program and operation lifesaver come to mind. On the other hand, if they don't want help to the tune of a $ Billion for the Chicago rationalization plan or $ 7 or 8 for the for the "help the I 95" plan, let them wrap up the bucks they get and move on.

As Mark H. mentioned, commuter rail has grown and improved dramaticly, but it came because public money-tax dollars-got kicked in to do the job. That didn't come because a CEO said hey we need a little help here.

[Train Guy 3]

Take the "dying" railroad away. And we will see what else starts to die.

[Anonymous]

Railroads will never die unless someone develops an instant transporter, and I don't think we've seen anything come of th transport ideas in Star trek. Yes, the industry has become a more private, more big busness focused industry, that has become less attractive to the general public. I live in a town built by the B&O railroad, but if you ask someone around here what the most important transportation industry is, you'll hear tractor trailer from most people, and Most people haven't even been to the station. Hey, most people either don't know that Brunswick has a museum, or thinks the museum is in the station (Which its not, MARC still uses the station)

As for the youn folk and steamers, working at a railroad museum, I see many people, anywere from 3 to 20 and up, asking questions about steamers, asking why the museum has none, and asking were to see them.

[Overmod]

Very clearly, railroads aren't dying. And the need for them is only increasing.

I sympathize with Dave's comments about MIT. When I was in the Princeton transportation program (in the mid-'70s), the Big Exciting Thing was people-movers. Lots of little computer-guided modules running around on multilevel concrete linguini. One might argue that these things, since they involve tracks, qualify as 'honorary railroads' at least as much as maglev trains and similar stuff.

Passenger railroading in the United States is growing where it's needed (or where it's adequately subsidized). Part of the perception problem, I think, is that the 'nostalgia' aspect of railroading is what most Americans think of (the Hooterville Cannonball, the Long Island Wail Road, etc.), and let's face it, it isn't easy to get excited about coal trains or the practical 'efficiencies' of how modern railroads get trains over the road. There is little "Casey Jones" type charm and appeal to the life of modern train crews -- viz. the recent KCS article in Trains -- and it's not easy to justify Amtrak if you don't ride it but then find out how much it costs.

I just can't let that witless crack about 'tracks wearing out like the one-horse shay' pass without some comment. The Eighth Air Force found out as early as 1944 that it was much easier to rebuild railroad track than concrete roadways. We found out the same thing, at least in New York, Delaware, Louisiana and Arkansas (to mention four out of the four states where I'm familiar with road rebuilding). Which is more expensive: laying ribbon rail and panelized switches with welded-in-place rail, or breaking up and removing a reinforced concrete slab and pouring another one?

Now, if you have a Highway Trust Fund to pay for the latter, you may not care about the $$$ and years that it takes to keep rebuilding concrete Interstates. (I won't mention asphalt ones, as they become worthless within months of heavy truck traffic). But note that the same investment in rail track is considerably better. Even Class IIs would often benefit from concrete ties and modern lining/surfacing/ballasting equipment. Note that the issue isn't about the poky branch lines, etc. -- it's about any place where operating rail reduces either the congestion on nearby roads, or the need to expand them expensively. Yes, there should have been a rail connector in the 'Big Dig' project. I guess folks from Massachusetts can't design much better than they drive ;-O) But they'll have to live with the result. Compare this with Philadelphia's center-city rebuilding (much as I hated to lose Reading Terminal as a working facility) and the airport connections via heavy or light rail in so many places. If this is 'dying', somebody call George Romero!

In addition, the use of modern equipment and materials may contribute dramatically to a number of aspects of track design and maintenance. One example is the 'magic wear rate' (which is imho a good approach to fixing martensitic and gauge-corner cracking). Lighter and faster grinding trains, reasonable hard-coating technology for zones on the railhead, better air-brake control and modulation, portable wheel-grinding equipment, etc. may be capital-intensive to implement, but produce increasingly valuable results.

Now if only we could find more railroad executives with style and flair to get railroading to the forefront of public notice again! It was interesting to watch the turnout in a couple of the small towns along the ex-SSW when 3985 made its way through. Very few of those people were "railfans" before. Be interesting to see how many might be now -- or if there are other ways to reintroduce the perception of romance, whether historical or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

one thing that has died though is local importance I guess, maybe its just in a coma. When the B&O ran through Brunswick around 1900, you could take a train to anywhere, even to Niagra falls, get a ticket from the depot & hop on. Stores had their own spurs, and local farms loaded up at the freight station. now mainly only major corperations ship by rail, and you can only take the train to a limited number of places at certain times on certain days. And whatever happened to standard time being railroad time?

[dehusman]

In the words of Mark Twain: "The report of my death was an exaggeration ...."

Dave H.

[Overmod]

Trainhearted --

What's happened is that much better approaches were substituted for a lot of the 'local' aspects. Note how quickly interurban railways disappeared with the introduction of automobiles and trucks. Local stores and farms are far better off with rubber-tired, go-anywhere vehicles capable of far more speed, and far better scheduling, and (let's face it) more effective fuel use than the alternative for their commodities or products, on the required schedules, in the quantities used. This is one of the real points of intermodal: you can't usually beat a truck for last-mile delivery, so you should optimize things so that the same load can ride by rail when that's best, and be transferred to a truck chassis when that's best. (Pity the 'real' intermodal world doesn't generally work that way, yet!)

Note how MUCH you'd have to pay, and how LONG it would take, to get to 'anywhere' from Brunswick if trains went there today -- even very fast trains. It's much easier just to get in a car and go, especially if you've already bought the car, and insured it, and provided the roads and fuel stations, etc. to run it, for other reasons. And there are a very large number of 'other reasons'. A train, on the other hand, even starts out being a compromise, and as soon as your 'network' of trains to different places gets complex you start having delays between trains, missed connections, etc. It's bad enough transferring between buses in NYC or LA. I could go from Memphis to Florida by train if I wanted to. Unfortunately, I have to go 23 miles downtown to catch the train south, then lay over in New Orleans, and I get into Crestview distressingly early in the 'morning' and then have to go south to Destin. Same sorts of problems going the other way: the time I get on, the time I get off, and the time I have to be changing trains are all pretty inconvenient, even though I love New Orleans. Oh yes: if I take the train I don't have a car, and I'm limited in my baggage, and I won't even mention how much I'm expected to pay. Meanwhile, my 12-cylinder car gets 26 to 28mpg on the trip, goes straight there except if I want to stop (and then stops exactly where I want, when I want), and carries as much stuff as my wife can jam in. Ignoring this sort of thing is to ignore precisely what has made life in America change so dramatically since 1900...

Now the attention goes to the 'new' transportation methods. It's hard to get enthusiastic about the romance of local trucking (;-}) but there isn't much question that there's enthusiasm about cars a lot of the time. There would be MUCH more romance and excitement if cars weren't so commonplace, and cheap in so many ways.

And, oh yes, did I mention the combination of turbine aircraft and discount pricing? I used to drive to the West Coast from Shreveport, but I did so because I was schlepping a whole bunch of stuff with me. I could have flown, at the time, for about what I was paying for gas to make the trip, and gotten there quickly and without exhaustion. I would not do well trying to sleep in a coach seat during the (slow) trip out on a train, and sleeper economics aren't very economical if you ignore the charm and nostalgia aspects...

One might say, tongue in cheek, that the introduction of standard time zones marks the beginning of the END of 'local importance.' Used to be that solar time in the important places was what counted. We are now quickly becoming a world in which quick, ubiquitous, and guaranteed data could make synchronization of such local time easy and relatively foolproof... if we'd had Internet and technical capabilities in the 1870s, we'd almost certainly have never found it particularly desirable to standardize time into zones.

Dave: GOOD CALL, and GOOD QUOTE.

[vsmith]

considering that they just spend several million $$ to trench the main rail corridor from the port of LA to East LA so they could avoid grade crossings and run a qhole lot more trains seams to say that they are far from dying. Now they are crying that the Alameda Corridor East extension is in jeopardy thanks to the budget fiasco, they are screaming that the train/auto crosings will be gridlocked due to the number of trains they want to run itf they dont get the funding.

[Anonymous]

Note to Kevin:

You state that railroads cost $1million/mile to build. Perhaps, but do you know that the cost to convert a two lane rural road (with ditches) to a four lane urban highway (with curb and gutter and storm sewers) is $3milion/mile. Who's paying for this? You and me, brother.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE:
Congress and the White House are debating spending between $258 billion and $378 billion in a budget-busting highway bill that might go far beyond available gas-tax revenues. Yet they seem to begrudge every dollar spent on passenger rail.

from http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=9491

----Amtrak will be lucky to get half of what they are asking for by the sounds of it.


A lack of money doesn't seem to be the problem, it seems to be more about the people that are spending it.

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jwieczorek

Note to Kevin:

You state that railroads cost $1million/mile to build. Perhaps, but do you know that the cost to convert a two lane rural road (with ditches) to a four lane urban highway (with curb and gutter and storm sewers) is $3milion/mile. Who's paying for this? You and me, brother.

And you think the truckers are going to pay their share???????[}:)]

As has been beaten to death on other threads, ask the truckers to start shouldering their share of the tax burden and a lot of new sidings and spurs start popping up. In the mean time, the long distance efficiencies of heavy loads on rails keeps the rail lines running.........[;)]

[espeefoamer]

The reason railroads don't paint thier names or advertizing slogans on box or hopper cars anymore is not because they have nothing to sell.It is because of grafitti.Why should BNSF paint a slogan on a boxcar when it will only be covered over a week later by a bunch of gangbangers?[:(!]