CSSHEGEWISCH BaltACD The Wit brothers and sisters all seem to gravitate to government service. Dim, Nit, Half and on and on. Does that include teachers, police and firefighters?
BaltACD The Wit brothers and sisters all seem to gravitate to government service. Dim, Nit, Half and on and on.
The Wit brothers and sisters all seem to gravitate to government service. Dim, Nit, Half and on and on.
Johnny
CSSHEGEWISCHDoes that include teachers, police and firefighters?
Mostly the politicians....
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Well the railroads that have PSR better be ready for a crap ton of new loads. They're looking at an estimated 200 million intermodal loads a year increase just from JB over what they are doing now. Yes JB Hunt is that large. Some of that is short haul less than 500 miles. I wonder how many of those the railroads are going to really get.
anyone read today's story about JB Hunt switching to railroads??
greyhoundsWhen I wrote "dimwit government regulations" I was being direct, succinct, and, above all, accurate. I'm not writing an academic paper on this forum. But that wording has allowed someone to change the subject from the regulations to my choice of a word. That's unfortunate.
But that wording has allowed someone to change the subject from the regulations to my choice of a word. That's unfortunate.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
When I wrote "dimwit government regulations" I was being direct, succinct, and, above all, accurate. I'm not writing an academic paper on this forum.
The several regulatory decisions which did restrict rail-truck integration were not made with sound reasoning. (Is that wording OK?) Other regulatory decisions were "counterproductive" and they established legal precedents for prices which had to be followed. This discouraged needed innovation and prevented US logistic channels from configuring to the lowest cost systems. For example, the regulators blocked the railroads from offering unit train services and prices until it became clear that coal pipelines would be built. This blockage added unnecessary and wasteful costs that had to be borne by ordinary Americans such as miners and farmers.
I don't see how anyone could read the decision in the "Ingot Molds Case" without laughing and/or gagging. Similar to other such unreasonable (Is that word OK?) regulatory decisions, it set a precedent that had to be followed.
rrnut282And it is hard to be passionate about a subject without using colorful metaphors to emphasize a point.
But it is quite easy to be passionate about a subject without using colorful insults to denigrate one's perceived opponents or targets to emphasize a point.
That said, I did understand 'dimwits' as being metaphorical in context, the problem being that, in my experience, when you find that sort of language being used to describe people in complex situations, you often find doctrinaire or reductionist thinking in close combination. Since I'm familiar with his style and cognizant of his scholarship in this regard, I understand both what he intends to mean and why he feels about historical regulation the way he does. And in a great many contexts I agree that the term might be merited, although I agree the argument would stand better without it, and would certainly be conducted with less possibility of acrimony or diversion.
I advise, for what little the advice is worth, against making the mistake that using doctrinaire or insulting terms necessarily means the absence of a proper counter-argument (or the ability to construct and conduct scholarly debate on a controversy intelligibly and correctly) -- unless it's used purely dismissively. I do not think this has been done here; 'dimwit' is much more a conclusion, on the preponderance of a great deal of evidence, rather than a presupposition to demolish the idea of regulation as a principle, or even as a properly-directed government practice.
If you need to see more evidence, or counter-evidence, or sources/references/citations, I'm quite certain he can provide them, probably better than most other forum participants or indeed current transportation policy-makers.
Trust me my driver's here would love to see their loved ones at home for longer periods of time than they do. However thanks to PSR being implementated at CSX NS and the UP just today I had to call 3 driver's that I had previously planned off till tomorrow back in needing them to cover for the railroads to keep customers plants running again. We're already dragging butts prepping for the holiday season and now this crap again. EHH should have been drawn and quartered. My work kid's are burned out trying to cover UP and CSX and their stupidity. Yet let's close another yard in Kansas City and see just how much more we can screw up delivery times. We just got notification that 2 more days minimum on our resins out of Texas we need.
Ugh I need a fifth of Jose Quevro and a heck of a lot of margarita mix and my shaker please. Anyone have a CEO in the railroad industry with a brain and a set of balls to stand up to the vulture capital idiots.
rrnut282 And it is hard to be passionate about a subject without using colorful metaphors to emphasize a point. Focusing on the words used instead of the subject usually means you don't have a good counter argument or are unwilling to consider the other side of the discussion.
And it is hard to be passionate about a subject without using colorful metaphors to emphasize a point.
Focusing on the words used instead of the subject usually means you don't have a good counter argument or are unwilling to consider the other side of the discussion.
That's not how it works except on the street.
greyhounds charlie hebdo greyhounds CSSHEGEWISCH Business regulation does not occur in a vacuum. It's often the result of some rather egregious practices or a perceived unfair treatment by the businesses in question. Maybe sometimes, but this regulation was not that way. Economic regulation, which is what we're dicussing, is all too often used to promote or protect special interests that have undue influence with politicians and government officials. I'll give two non railroad examples. 1) I leased a new vehicle last year. It came with satellite radio. After the months' long free trial I purchased a subscription. My choice. I no longer listen to anything else while driving. Why would I? I've got a wide choice of all kinds of music, baseball games, news, whatever. It makes my life better. But: Satellite radio is prohibited from providing local content. They are not allowed to provide local traffic information, for example. The technology exists to allow the satellite radio services to do this. The local radio/TV stations can threaten government types with negative coverage. And they do. So there's a regulation that prohibits satellite radio from providing local content such as traffic information and news. Who benefits? Certainly not the people who freely choose to listen to satellite radio. 2) Do you ever wonder why the NFL plays games on Monday and Thursday nights instead of on Friday and Saturday nights? The damn government won't let them. Why? The government "Protected" college and high school football from competition. So they're literally deciding which football game we can watch. (Note: The NFL can play on Saturdays, but only after the high school and college seasons are over. i.e., late December.) There are all sorts of government regulations that make good sense and are necessary. Such as driving on the right side of the road, requiring children to be educated, etc. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about dimwit government regulations that blocked rail-truck integration for absolutely no valid reason. And I'll challenge anyone to try to provide such a valid reason. I'm confident no one can. Why would anyone want to waste their time? Serious discussions don't start with a post that labels a position they don't like as "dimwitted." It's not that I don't like the decisions. My "Likes" have little to do with this. (i.e., I "Like" my steak and lamb chops medium rare. But that's of no never mind to anyone else.) It's about the effects on the average American. And the government regulatory decisions were clearly negative for the typical Jane and Joe. The "Dimwit Decisions" from Federal regulators prevented logistics channels from configuring to their lowest costs though integrating the then new motor freight technology with existing railroad technology. The US public had to pay for this. You can try to dismiss me because I used the word "Dimwit". But you cannot dismiss the absolute fact that the regulators had power they never should have had and wrongly used that power to do great harm to the American People.
charlie hebdo greyhounds CSSHEGEWISCH Business regulation does not occur in a vacuum. It's often the result of some rather egregious practices or a perceived unfair treatment by the businesses in question. Maybe sometimes, but this regulation was not that way. Economic regulation, which is what we're dicussing, is all too often used to promote or protect special interests that have undue influence with politicians and government officials. I'll give two non railroad examples. 1) I leased a new vehicle last year. It came with satellite radio. After the months' long free trial I purchased a subscription. My choice. I no longer listen to anything else while driving. Why would I? I've got a wide choice of all kinds of music, baseball games, news, whatever. It makes my life better. But: Satellite radio is prohibited from providing local content. They are not allowed to provide local traffic information, for example. The technology exists to allow the satellite radio services to do this. The local radio/TV stations can threaten government types with negative coverage. And they do. So there's a regulation that prohibits satellite radio from providing local content such as traffic information and news. Who benefits? Certainly not the people who freely choose to listen to satellite radio. 2) Do you ever wonder why the NFL plays games on Monday and Thursday nights instead of on Friday and Saturday nights? The damn government won't let them. Why? The government "Protected" college and high school football from competition. So they're literally deciding which football game we can watch. (Note: The NFL can play on Saturdays, but only after the high school and college seasons are over. i.e., late December.) There are all sorts of government regulations that make good sense and are necessary. Such as driving on the right side of the road, requiring children to be educated, etc. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about dimwit government regulations that blocked rail-truck integration for absolutely no valid reason. And I'll challenge anyone to try to provide such a valid reason. I'm confident no one can. Why would anyone want to waste their time? Serious discussions don't start with a post that labels a position they don't like as "dimwitted."
greyhounds CSSHEGEWISCH Business regulation does not occur in a vacuum. It's often the result of some rather egregious practices or a perceived unfair treatment by the businesses in question. Maybe sometimes, but this regulation was not that way. Economic regulation, which is what we're dicussing, is all too often used to promote or protect special interests that have undue influence with politicians and government officials. I'll give two non railroad examples. 1) I leased a new vehicle last year. It came with satellite radio. After the months' long free trial I purchased a subscription. My choice. I no longer listen to anything else while driving. Why would I? I've got a wide choice of all kinds of music, baseball games, news, whatever. It makes my life better. But: Satellite radio is prohibited from providing local content. They are not allowed to provide local traffic information, for example. The technology exists to allow the satellite radio services to do this. The local radio/TV stations can threaten government types with negative coverage. And they do. So there's a regulation that prohibits satellite radio from providing local content such as traffic information and news. Who benefits? Certainly not the people who freely choose to listen to satellite radio. 2) Do you ever wonder why the NFL plays games on Monday and Thursday nights instead of on Friday and Saturday nights? The damn government won't let them. Why? The government "Protected" college and high school football from competition. So they're literally deciding which football game we can watch. (Note: The NFL can play on Saturdays, but only after the high school and college seasons are over. i.e., late December.) There are all sorts of government regulations that make good sense and are necessary. Such as driving on the right side of the road, requiring children to be educated, etc. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about dimwit government regulations that blocked rail-truck integration for absolutely no valid reason. And I'll challenge anyone to try to provide such a valid reason. I'm confident no one can.
CSSHEGEWISCH Business regulation does not occur in a vacuum. It's often the result of some rather egregious practices or a perceived unfair treatment by the businesses in question.
Business regulation does not occur in a vacuum. It's often the result of some rather egregious practices or a perceived unfair treatment by the businesses in question.
Maybe sometimes, but this regulation was not that way.
Economic regulation, which is what we're dicussing, is all too often used to promote or protect special interests that have undue influence with politicians and government officials. I'll give two non railroad examples.
1) I leased a new vehicle last year. It came with satellite radio. After the months' long free trial I purchased a subscription. My choice. I no longer listen to anything else while driving. Why would I? I've got a wide choice of all kinds of music, baseball games, news, whatever. It makes my life better. But:
Satellite radio is prohibited from providing local content. They are not allowed to provide local traffic information, for example. The technology exists to allow the satellite radio services to do this. The local radio/TV stations can threaten government types with negative coverage. And they do. So there's a regulation that prohibits satellite radio from providing local content such as traffic information and news. Who benefits? Certainly not the people who freely choose to listen to satellite radio.
2) Do you ever wonder why the NFL plays games on Monday and Thursday nights instead of on Friday and Saturday nights? The damn government won't let them. Why? The government "Protected" college and high school football from competition. So they're literally deciding which football game we can watch. (Note: The NFL can play on Saturdays, but only after the high school and college seasons are over. i.e., late December.)
There are all sorts of government regulations that make good sense and are necessary. Such as driving on the right side of the road, requiring children to be educated, etc.
But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about dimwit government regulations that blocked rail-truck integration for absolutely no valid reason.
And I'll challenge anyone to try to provide such a valid reason. I'm confident no one can.
Why would anyone want to waste their time? Serious discussions don't start with a post that labels a position they don't like as "dimwitted."
It's not that I don't like the decisions. My "Likes" have little to do with this. (i.e., I "Like" my steak and lamb chops medium rare. But that's of no never mind to anyone else.)
It's about the effects on the average American. And the government regulatory decisions were clearly negative for the typical Jane and Joe. The "Dimwit Decisions" from Federal regulators prevented logistics channels from configuring to their lowest costs though integrating the then new motor freight technology with existing railroad technology. The US public had to pay for this.
You can try to dismiss me because I used the word "Dimwit". But you cannot dismiss the absolute fact that the regulators had power they never should have had and wrongly used that power to do great harm to the American People.
You managed to totally miss the point. Actually I largely agree with the thrust of your contention. But you diminish the power of it by resorting to using pejoratives like "dimwitted" in it. No decent writer, much less a scholar, would get anywhere or be taken seriously engaging that practice.
BaltACD JPS1 BaltACD JPS1 Trains should stick to its knitting. It is a magazine about railroads. Just staying abreast of all the goings on in the railroad business – past and present – is a big challenge. In staying abreast of the railroad business one also needs to stay abreast of what is taking place in the modes that railroads compete against for business. You can't do one without doing the other. True for people still seriously engaged in the business. Most of the people that like Trains don't fit that category! If a reader wants a superficial comparision of rail vs. trucking, this may be the place to get it. But if h/she wants to do a deep dive into the data, this is not the place to get an indepth understanding of the trucking industry. Without the business of hauling freight and doing so with modicum of profit - railroads don't long exist for the bright paint schemes and their 'funny' equipment. If you want to continue being a 'railfan' you also need to be knowledgeable about the business enviornment that railroads participate in and those who compete with railroads for business and how the competition endeavors to take the business from railroads and vice versa.
JPS1 BaltACD JPS1 Trains should stick to its knitting. It is a magazine about railroads. Just staying abreast of all the goings on in the railroad business – past and present – is a big challenge. In staying abreast of the railroad business one also needs to stay abreast of what is taking place in the modes that railroads compete against for business. You can't do one without doing the other. True for people still seriously engaged in the business. Most of the people that like Trains don't fit that category! If a reader wants a superficial comparision of rail vs. trucking, this may be the place to get it. But if h/she wants to do a deep dive into the data, this is not the place to get an indepth understanding of the trucking industry.
BaltACD JPS1 Trains should stick to its knitting. It is a magazine about railroads. Just staying abreast of all the goings on in the railroad business – past and present – is a big challenge. In staying abreast of the railroad business one also needs to stay abreast of what is taking place in the modes that railroads compete against for business. You can't do one without doing the other.
In staying abreast of the railroad business one also needs to stay abreast of what is taking place in the modes that railroads compete against for business. You can't do one without doing the other.
True for people still seriously engaged in the business. Most of the people that like Trains don't fit that category!
If a reader wants a superficial comparision of rail vs. trucking, this may be the place to get it. But if h/she wants to do a deep dive into the data, this is not the place to get an indepth understanding of the trucking industry.
Without the business of hauling freight and doing so with modicum of profit - railroads don't long exist for the bright paint schemes and their 'funny' equipment.
If you want to continue being a 'railfan' you also need to be knowledgeable about the business enviornment that railroads participate in and those who compete with railroads for business and how the competition endeavors to take the business from railroads and vice versa.
Personally I’m fascinated by the business aspect of railroading and the enormous logistical challenges associated with making a railroad run—in addition to the shiny paint and funny equipment. However, railfanning is a hobby, and by definition a hobby is exactly what you want it to be. If someone wants to limit their interest to shiny paint and funny equipment, that’s entirely up to them.
You want to talk about regulatory agencies forgetting about the KISS idea then look no further than the HOS regulations that have been slammed upon the OTR industry in the last 2 decades. For 65 years the original HOS regulations worked perfectly well keeping the roads safe. Then in the late 90's groups like CRASH PATT and others started to scream that they were unsafe and forced drivers to work tired. So they where thrown out. Now they have being rewritten for the 4th time since 2003 alone. In 16 years they have been rewrote more times than I have given birth to my own kids I have 3 BTW. The FMCSA forgot that keeping the HOS simple worked great for the industry and also kept the drivers rested. Why did the old 70/8 system with no resets work so great for the drivers and would be such a great system now with ELD's if the reset option was eliminated. Drivers could NOT be forced to drive tired or over their hours like in the past. They literally could say sorry boss but NO HOURS and have the computer backup to force the carrier to redo the load. The current system allows drivers to be abused with up to 98 hours and yes it does happen in 8 days. That is 28 hours more than ever could have happened under the old system.
+1
Good to see a rational, historical comment beyond the usual paranoid rants about regulation.
greyhounds But the political hacks and lawyers of Washington, DC didn't understand economics.
I suspect is was less a matter of understanding economics than it was who took them out for the best steak... If you get my drift.
OK, this one's now in to my wheelhouse. I worked in intermodal marketing and I wrote a master's thesis focused on the subject.
The inane US Government did activiely and forcefully block the integration of rail-truck services. (This happened much less, if at all, in Canada.) Anybody who advocates a return to regulation hasn't researched or studied the subject.
To my knowledge, this blockage started with the 1931 ICC decision "In the Matter of Container Service". The fools of government ordered railroads to increase their rates on container movements. This ordered increase took container rates to a noncompetitive level and killed intermodal development.
The New York Central (remember them) began intermodal container service in the early 1920's. That was when the first trucks that could haul a decent load of freight (5 tons) became readily available. The innovation was successful and spread to other railroads. But in 1931 the government overruled free market choice. They continually restricted rail-truck integration until intermodal deregulation 50 years later.
There was no valid reason for the decision in "In the Matter of Container Service." The government fools were trying to protect a "Rate Structure" that was undergoing "Creative Destruction" from the then new technology of motor freight. This protection wasn't going to work. But the political hacks and lawyers of Washington, DC didn't understand economics. I pretty much think they still don't.
There were other foolish government restrictions on rail-truck integration. For example, if a railroad did manage to operate some severely legally restricted trucks it could deliver some freight to the receiver's location but other freight had to be left by the truck at the railroad station. Then the receiver had to come pick it up. Insane.
I could go on and on about this, but I think I've made my point.
Today, I look at J.B. Hunt. That dynamic transportation firm is a smaller scale version of what might have been. They can use rail or highway, whatever fits best. It's US logistics configuring to the most efficient structure. This benefits our economy and our people.
We can only lament the fact that the Federal Government blocked such a thing for 50 years.
MP173 "A well researched article on the relationship between trucking companies and railroads would be an informative one." Consider how UPS integrates the rail aspect into their operations. To me that alone could be an article, such as following a shipment from origin to destination, similar to what DPM did with a pickup truck decades ago. Today we are seeing more and more Amazon trailers riding the intermodal trains. What is their relationship? Will Amazon consider purchasing a railroad at some point in the future?UPS, FedEx, Amazon, and the refer truckers make for interesting mix of NS trains in the east. Ed
"A well researched article on the relationship between trucking companies and railroads would be an informative one."
Consider how UPS integrates the rail aspect into their operations. To me that alone could be an article, such as following a shipment from origin to destination, similar to what DPM did with a pickup truck decades ago.
Today we are seeing more and more Amazon trailers riding the intermodal trains. What is their relationship? Will Amazon consider purchasing a railroad at some point in the future?UPS, FedEx, Amazon, and the refer truckers make for interesting mix of NS trains in the east.
Ed
Living here in SoCentral Ks., and having parades of COFC,TOFC, going in either direction, I see them populated with 'new' customer names. Amazon is becoming more and more familiar on the BNSF. New names are appearing on containers as well.
The TOFC (solid) trains will pop-up new names, and mixes of primarily reefer trailers, and some regulated route carriers (YRC,Estes, and any number of irregular route carriers, reefer and box) Those solid consists seem to run west throuh here on end of week days; they start running east on sundays and start of week days. Makes for interesting train watching.
I would be curious to know how much the U.S.Post Office utilizes rail containers to move mail.? And this date I saw my first solid 'steel coil' train (40-50 cars) single Ge on the point and 2 in DP. It was running west. One can often see coil cars in the mixed trains, but have not see one, all coil car train before.
ChuckCobleigh BaltACD The art of making round things square and square things round, along with making unflat things flat and flat things unflat. Geez, Balt, you just described the majority of cosmetic surgery, it would seem.
BaltACD The art of making round things square and square things round, along with making unflat things flat and flat things unflat.
Geez, Balt, you just described the majority of cosmetic surgery, it would seem.
I see a lot of UPS trailers on UP west of Chicago. Also many refrigerator containers.
A well researched article on the relationship between trucking companies and railroads would be an informative one.
As the founders of my employer say. The ICC could have screwed up a 2 mile long Railroad that had no outside connections with anything and a dedicated traffic base hauling coal to a power plant. When he started this place just trying to get the ICC's permission to service a chemical plant near here was next to impossible. Then when he finally got it he could only haul the liquids not the dry stuff from that same plants even if it was going to the same place he was going to. Let alone all the BS with dealing with the glass plants and brick plants in town we had here. To call the ICC the most inept Federal regulatory agency ever created after the IRS might not be a stretch anymore. They harmed more businesses than they ever helped overall.
Good post Sam!
Listen everybody, I'm not sure about this but wasn't it a rash of ICC regulations that made the railroads get rid of their OTR and local trucking operations, airlines, and bus services? I've seen old railroad promo fims from the late 40's, early 50's, showing trucking operations and knowing that they didn't exist by the 60's I couldn't help but wonder "What happened?" It made so much sense.
Was reading this Thread and as long retired OTR person; I find it interesting that the History of the railroad business, and many of the other 'interest areas' that railroading touches are only mentioned in passing, if, not at all.
Railroads and Trucking have had somehing of a love-hate relationship from their beginnings; after all they compete mightly, for their share of available stuff to haul. Railroads enjoy the economics, specifically. of size and volume. Trucking, a mode of 'convenience' for its users.
Railroads [NYC,PRR, others] introduced the concept of trailers on flat cars, many years before that same concept was embraced by the Trucking industry. Here in the middle of the country; we probably see more solid IM consists, both East and Westbound, than any other type, although, tankers and auto racks do comprise large numbers of traffic.
Never forget, that into the 1950's and 60's; many railroads operated their own [or partly owned] OTR trucking companies. Some railrioads still had functioning ,between modes; freight house operations [transferring freight between loose-car ops, trucking, and back].
Also, in the post WWII environment, and maybe beyoned. Railroads got into the Airline passenger, and freight businesses. Southern Pacific {Ca. and to Hi.}. Santa Fe Airways {Midwest to Ca.}. Burlington Northern BN Air.
And then, there were the Bus Lines, operated by some of the railroads.
BaltACDThe art of making round things square and square things round, along with making unflat things flat and flat things unflat.
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