Thanks Paul.
I've got some time scheduled at Northwestern. I'll go to the Transportation Library and read those.
greyhounds - And/ or, perhaps one of the George W. Hilton or Robert Shaw articles in Trains from the 1960's - 1970's on the ICC, regulation, disinvestment, etc., such as (apologies in advance for any quirks in the formatting - there's something about 'cut-and-paste' from the Magazine Index that doesn't agree with this Forum's software, so it doesn't always recognize 'hard' returns, etc.):
Hope this is helpful !
- Paul North.
A few notes on trucks to elaborate on the above: trucks were smaller than railroad cars, thus cheaper for manufactureres with less than a car load lot. And private business-private right of way railroads were more costly because private business trucks used public built and maintained rights of way. Trains vs. wagons. Even a five man train crew could haul more than a man per wagon. SO at least one animal, plus vehicle, plus man times, say 100 wagons, plus poor, mud clogged, slow roads vs. a 25 or 50 car train, four, maybe 5 men, comparabley faster roadway...which is really cheaper? Which really provided what America needed and was looking for?
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Perhaps the Fogel book that I referenced above ? Seems like that data would be central to his thesis.
Otherwise, perhaps a study or report of how and why the granger railroads developed that way ? For example, I recall that Iowa was the 'poster child' for that type of branch line configuration. Perhaps it could be found somewhere in all the studies and reports relating to rationalization/ abandonment of those lines or their purchase by the state or regional railroads, etc. ?
Or maybe the special issue of Trains about 20 - 25 years ago - April 1986 - that was devoted to Iowa railroads ? See:
http://trc.trains.com/Train%20Magazine%20Index.aspx?articleId=68135&view=ViewIssue&issueId=6143
Or perhaps one of these:
The 24 to 1 cost comparison sounds reasonable, but I don't have anything to back it up.
With respect to motor trucks, there are several aspects as to why they changed the road vs rail competition as compared to earlier tech. The first being a lightweight and relatively efficient internal combustion engines allowing for reasonable speeds on overland travel compared to animal or steam hauled road transport. The second was the availability of inexpensive liquid fuel. The third being the widespread paving of roads - how much long distance trucking would be taking place if the highways were paved with gravel?
Getting back to wagons vs steam trains: The low friction advantage of the railroads over wagon roads was much more pronounced than the railroads vs modern highways. This was particularly important with early steam engines, which were heavy and inefficient compared to modern internal combustion engines.
- Erik
Here's another interesting piece if anyone is interested.
http://mhs.mt.gov/education/cirguides/Schwantes%20Transportation.pdf
You could take a steamboat all the way west to Ft. Benton, MT. It was a long and unpleasant journy.
I'm finding these while looking for some cost comparison of moving freight with a team and wagon vs railroad. I'm actually trying to write a paper on how government economic regulation harmed the US economy and people by preventing the railroads from evolving from the loose car system to an integrated intermodal system.
I want to explain why the rail network developed developed the way it did. It had many light density lines with stations every few miles. The answer, I think, is in the relative cost of wagon transport vs rail transport. It was just so much more costly to move freight by team and wagon than by rail that it made sense to lay down a lot of light density rail lines serving small, closely spaced, stations.
I recall seeing the ratio cited as 24:1. i.e. you could move a ton of freight 24 miles by rail for the same cost as moving it one mile with a team and wagon. Now that I need to document that, I can't find it.
When the motor truck appeared the 24:1 advantage was gone and the rail freight network needed to adjust to become an integrated intermodal system with fewer origin -destinatioin pairs. The government regulators didn't understand this and blocked the change. The US economy and people have been harmed as a result. The regulators should never have had the power to do such a thing.
If anyone knows where I can find the wagon vs rail cost comparison please let me know.
Sawtooth500, you are espousing the concept and need for a rationalized and integrated transportation system.. Something I have preached about for over 40 years!
Speed is also the reason most people fly long distances these days. If you're going New York to LA it's either a 5 hour plane ride or 3 days on a train... which are you going to choose?
And NY to LA even 220 mph HSR still won't even come close to planes... but for short distances where rail can compete with aircraft speed then the prospect of HSR whether 220 mph or 110 mph is very attractive...
An interesting book review and conclusion. Speed, I think, is a major answer to the success of the railroad beause of it's abiltiy to overcome friction economically and quickly, because it was able to cut across and over country not easily attained by water traffic. Speed was the American manifistation of impatience in the 19th Century...it also fueld the economies of towns, counties, states, and the country.
See also the lone comment to this listing for the Fogel book on Amazon, at:
http://www.amazon.com/Railroads-American-Economic-Growth-Econometric/dp/0801811481
Right - I took the Original Post as looking at the economics, more than those aspects. Specifically, the high rates charged by the freight wagons, and then how the drastic decrease in those rates as enabled by the railroad technology affected the frontier economy, etc.
But too often overlooked is that those economic aspects are governed by the engineering and physics, as well as many other aspects - scheduling, logistics, financial structure, etc., etc. Ignore those and what's left is essentially "transportation geo-politics" - a nice discussion, but divorced from reality and the actual causes, results, and effects, etc.
To recap a bit: Here, the 2nd post then opined that friction reduction was the chief cause of the savings, a viewpoint that does have some merit. Bucyrus and I are now debating whether it's the self-guiding technology, the aggregation of many loads into a train-type vehicle, and/ or the drastic reduction in needed crew labor, as being the principal factor which facilitates and drives the rate decreases. Most of those are really applications and the result of applied physics and engineering, so they're still relevant to this discussion, I think.
I'm presuming here, but I think the OP was looking at factors beyond engineering and physics, as important as they were/are.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Paul_D_North_Jr Bucyrus: I think that is a fair point. As mentioned, the number-one virtue of railroads is low friction. The number-one drawback is the amount of capital it takes to achieve that low friction. For that matter, water transport probably has even lower friction, but only at the lowest speeds. We want high speed and low friction, and some routes have enough potential traffic to justify a railroad. Other routes only justify a highway. I respectfully disagree. The primary virtue of railroads is their self-guiding technology, which enables aggregating many different loads into a train, with only a single (or very few) for a crew. The resulting huge savings in labor costs outweighs the lower friction advantage. Imagine a train of horse-drawn wagons - something like the 20-mule team of borax fame - with lots of horses, mules, and wagons strung together, but with only a single driver plus helper - Paul North.
Bucyrus: I think that is a fair point. As mentioned, the number-one virtue of railroads is low friction. The number-one drawback is the amount of capital it takes to achieve that low friction. For that matter, water transport probably has even lower friction, but only at the lowest speeds. We want high speed and low friction, and some routes have enough potential traffic to justify a railroad. Other routes only justify a highway.
Paul,
I had "self-guiding" in there as the number-two virtue of railroads, but then I took it out because I did not want to get too complicated. And I was thinking, as you point out, that self-guiding is not a feature exclusively belonging to railroads. River boats can pull barge "trains." And the same possibility exists with road trains. However, in both cases, unlike with trains, the lead vehicle needs to be steered. And also, it is really hard to back up with those road trains.
But for the self-guiding principle of railroads to really pay off, you need to get the crew off of the trains and automate them. That will kill two birds with one stone by solving the fatigue problem.
Good question ! But if on anything but rock or very hard-packed road, the 'rolling friction' alone would slow them down pretty quickly. Ever try to push a wheeled anything through the sand at the beach ?
....Considering these Mechanical powered tractors pulling a "train" of heavy hauling wagons...If used to travel other than flat desert....what did they use for brakes...?
Quentin
Bucyrus I think that is a fair point. As mentioned, the number-one virtue of railroads is low friction. The number-one drawback is the amount of capital it takes to achieve that low friction. For that matter, water transport probably has even lower friction, but only at the lowest speeds. We want high speed and low friction, and some routes have enough potential traffic to justify a railroad. Other routes only justify a highway.
http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/ghosts_of_past1/mule_train_complete.jpg
And this essay (4 pages, approx. 23 KB in size): http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/stories1/20_mule_team.pdf
Both from: http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/ghosts_of_past1/page8.html
See also this photo of 2 steam tractors double-headed (!) to pull a train of wagons across the Mojave Desert: http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/winrr/wrtwt.htm
Here's an interesting and fairly short webpage on this subject, at the U.S. DOT's Federal Highway Administration's website:
by Charles David Jacobson, Morgan, Angel & Associates
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/060320a/appb.htm
Perhaps the book I referenced above is this one:
Fogel, Robert William Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1964)
EDIT: This is too much fun ! Here are a couple links to more and pertinent info on this:
At a webpage of the "Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science" (whatever that is ?):
Pro: "Robert W. Fogel: The Argument for Wagons and Canals, 1964 - By John Corbett" - http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/19
Con: "Railroad Redux" at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis' website at: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=3418
I particularly like the lead-off quote by Thomas Curtis Clarke, 1889 . . .
A lot of this ought to be of interest to Railway Man, as it appears to corroborate his assertion that the primary transportation market, function, and volumes of even the long-haul railroads in the late 1800's was mainly local/ regional - say, up to 150 miles or so - and not transcontinental traffic.
- PDN.
Dragoman But that is only after the much higher cost of building those steel wheels and steel rails -- the cost of the infrastructure. How should those costs get figured into the calculations? And isn't that the heart of so many discussions on these (and other rail-related) forums, whether about HSR, or long-distance rail, or the history of the transcontinental railroads?
But that is only after the much higher cost of building those steel wheels and steel rails -- the cost of the infrastructure. How should those costs get figured into the calculations?
And isn't that the heart of so many discussions on these (and other rail-related) forums, whether about HSR, or long-distance rail, or the history of the transcontinental railroads?
I think that is a fair point. As mentioned, the number-one virtue of railroads is low friction. The number-one drawback is the amount of capital it takes to achieve that low friction. For that matter, water transport probably has even lower friction, but only at the lowest speeds. We want high speed and low friction, and some routes have enough potential traffic to justify a railroad. Other routes only justify a highway.
I don't understand why there is this debate. Didn't we all have grade and high school history? Haven't we all been interested in railroading enough to have read some of the many books about the histories of railroads and/or the histories of our favorite or local railroads? Is so we should be able to sift out the historic need for any given piece of track plus the historic return on that investment be it private enterprised or government supported. Likewise we should have an understanding of how rail, road, water, and air transportation systems work together and against each other. Without being MBA's or CPA's, we should see there are correlations. Without doctorates in history we should be able to see that being able to transport raw materials, manufactured products, and people spurs economic development in more than just one place. Those of us here not understanding these principals should go back a read or reread the likes of Jensen's American Railroads, histories of the transcontenentals, the story of your favorite railroad, and the comings and goings and demise of your local short line. Without having read these histories we are just throwing contemporary political epithets at each other. READ HISTORY. Then talk.
greyhounds HSR is a proven money pit. Why don't you surprise me and post that you've actually taken and passed an accounting class. I don't think you have, but you want to talk about cost accounting. I could be wrong, so why don't you surprise me and tell me if you have actually taken and passed some form of accounting class. The initial cost of construction would be capitalized and then... Oh never mind. Have you any background in accounting for costs?
HSR is a proven money pit.
Why don't you surprise me and post that you've actually taken and passed an accounting class. I don't think you have, but you want to talk about cost accounting. I could be wrong, so why don't you surprise me and tell me if you have actually taken and passed some form of accounting class.
The initial cost of construction would be capitalized and then... Oh never mind. Have you any background in accounting for costs?
greyhounds --
Yes, I have taken an accounting class. Even a cost accounting class. How about an MBA with emphasis in accounting, and a CPA (passed the entire exam in my first sitting). Enough accounting for you? I know about how to account for the initial and on-going costs.
The issue I was trying to point to, is that development and infrastructure maintenance costs have to come into play, as well as the "how efficient is steel wheel on steel rail" operating anaylsis.
It seems to me that the history of the early railroad development vs. its competition at the time (wagons, steamships, riverboats, and canal boats), might give us some insight on today's issues, such as Amtrak vs MegaBus, or RRs vs. air vs. highway transport in general -- or yes, even the question of proven money pit development (oops, I mean HSR).
I find your initial post very intriguing. I too am interested in how railroads fit in to the overall economy, both historically and today. And, I would like to take the lessons of history and try to apply the learnings from those experiences to today's problems. I'm sorry if I offended you.
That is a neat look into the past, with lots of detail and nuances. Thanks for sharing it !
When I was in high school, I wrote a book report of an academic book on the history of the canal systems, and how they could have stayed competitive with the railroads. I was real curious about that assertion and how it could have been supported and gotten past peer review to be published. The key was that the author based his thesis on a reasonable speed for the mules, mule skinner, and canal boats as being 14 MPH ! Pointing out that fallacy earned me an "A" - it surely helped that my teacher was a Boy Scout troop leader/ Scoutmaster, and so very cognizant of what that would have meant in the real world. Evidently the academics didn't understand - perhaps a day with the mules at 14 MPH would have educated them . . .
ken: Back to your interesting initial post. Sounds like the makings of a good dissertation in economic history. Without the transcons, i wonder how the growth patterns in the West would have been different? It would also be interesting to see how much, if any, of the cost of building the transcons (other than the GN) was subsidized to the degree that a percentage (how much?) did not need to be paid off by gross profit on operations.
It all comes down to energy use to transport. Steel wheels on steel rails used a lot less energy for transport than horses and carts over dirt trails. Less energy = faster transit time and lower costs.
I think this is interesting.
It details how freight was moved from the steamboats on the Missouri River west to places such as Denver and Salt Lake City before the railroad was built. Please note the use of common railroad terms such as "Conductor" and "Trainman" to refer to the wagon train's crew.
I'm particularly insterested in how railroads fit in to the overall economy, specifically how they enhance it. The rates the wagon freighters charged were sky high. To the order of $25.00/cwt. That would be $0.25/pound on coffee, or any other commodity. In 1860 dollars. And that's just to haul it west from the Missouri River.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=historydiss
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