Track Abandonments.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wrwatkins
I had one person along our light rail line who complained about commuters being able to look in his yard. After several calls I asked him what he was doing in his yard that he did not want anybody to see? He never called me again. Irritant removed!

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[(-D]. Allan.

[Modelcar]

....Thanks for that data MC.....

[mudchicken]

Quentin:

Georgia Southwestern RR /Georgia Great Southern Railroad STB AB_389_1X
Albany to Dawson Georgia....13.62 Miles

Ex SBD/CSX Columbus Southern to Railtex (Abandons in spurts starting 1981, the part that died and came back to life abandoned in late 2002)

http://www.stb.dot.gov/decisions/readingroom.nsf/b759ded7e31f680f852570de0072bee1/23ff5744a9fa347885256d1e0071cfa7?OpenDocument

[Modelcar]

...In reference to the rails to trails issue....I have read of at least one being but back to rail service within these past several months...Can't remember where the location was or where I did read about it.....But I did.

[Anonymous]

Jeaton, we have a chain link fence at the edge of the ROW and the irritant had a six foot high wooden fence on the rear of his property. An alley is between the ROW and his fence. Due to a slight grade and the height of the rail car you could see about 1/2 of his back yard. Always have been tempted to go out there and see what he is doing, but I do not consider it a spectator sport.

Cheers,
***

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[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Work rules and wages are also another reason that shortlines can make a profit running a branchline after the Class 1 gave up. Keep in mind, though, that not every branch sold to a shortline succeeds. There have been many instances where operation as a shortline merely postponed the day of reckoning, the EL mainline across Indiana being one example.

[oltmannd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wrwatkins

The short lines make a profit where the Class 1s could not by face to face customer service. A company that ships 1-2 cars per week would never see upper management from the Class 1, but the senior management of the short line regularly calls on him. Guess why they make a profit.

On the rail bank/rails to trails progeam. To my knowledge no trails have been converted back to rails. Just try this and you will bring the rath of the hikers, joggers, bikers, greens and who knows who else. You can quickly become the B--- step child at the family reunion.

Even taking a line out of service for a couple of years, such as when it is being converted from freight to light rail will bring down the heat of the neighborhood. How quickly they forget the noisy freight train that came by at 2 AM and how much the complain about the quiet electric light rail train set coming by. Been there as a board member of a large rapid transit agency.

I had one person along our light rail line who complained about commuters being able to look in his yard. After several calls I asked him what he was doing in his yard that he did not want anybody to see? He never called me again. Irritant removed!

***

Good literal NIMBY story! Maybe we ought to require that everyone have something nasty in their backyard (or close) in order to be allowed to participate in an industrial society.[:D]

Shortlines also have access to capital that Class ones don't. Often there is Fed DOT and state money available to them to do rehab that the class ones don't qualify for.

[jeaton]

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Fences were illegal?

Jay

[Anonymous]

The short lines make a profit where the Class 1s could not by face to face customer service. A company that ships 1-2 cars per week would never see upper management from the Class 1, but the senior management of the short line regularly calls on him. Guess why they make a profit.

On the rail bank/rails to trails progeam. To my knowledge no trails have been converted back to rails. Just try this and you will bring the rath of the hikers, joggers, bikers, greens and who knows who else. You can quickly become the B--- step child at the family reunion.

Even taking a line out of service for a couple of years, such as when it is being converted from freight to light rail will bring down the heat of the neighborhood. How quickly they forget the noisy freight train that came by at 2 AM and how much the complain about the quiet electric light rail train set coming by. Been there as a board member of a large rapid transit agency.

I had one person along our light rail line who complained about commuters being able to look in his yard. After several calls I asked him what he was doing in his yard that he did not want anybody to see? He never called me again. Irritant removed!

***

[FJ and G]

One more point. I see someone mentioned that railroads have changed, haul more tonnage, etc.

The fact is that RRs have gotten lazy, getting fat off big coal, intermodal and other unit-type train industries and have ignored the mom and pop industries and shortlines.

It's a problem of poor management not being able to efficiently run their system. That's why a lot of times the big RRs will spin off unprofitable lines to shortline operators. Some (but not all) of these shortlines then turn around a profit which the bigger RRs couldn't do.

[FJ and G]

Allan,

I think you've brought up an excellent point about abandonments. Trains magazine has never really addressed the issue, tending to side with the big railroads as the financially necessary thing to do (but NOT good for the public's welfare).

The magazine and us need to be more proactive in getting gov't, citizens and NGOs involved in preventing the dismantaling and rape of N. America's rail network.

In the latest (or last?) Trains mag, go to the Abandonments and Aquisitions section and you'll see at the very bottom in tiny print the abandonment of 350 mile branchlines in western Canada that served grain industries.

If 350 miles of new rail had been constructed; Trains would splash it all over as front page news (e.g., like the Powder River branch).

However, a few hundred miles of rail here and there doesn't get noticed and fades quickly from memory.

With our overcrowded highways, pollution, and lack of viable alternatives to buses, cars, trucks and cars, the abandonment of hundreds of miles of track every few months is a disgrace.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH

It appears likely that FM believes that there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll.

Who cares? JFK's dead. Get over it, Nancy.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rrandb

Would not Reginal rail screem bloody murder when Railroad A applies to abandon track to Secondaryville as well as the shippers affected by this.[?]

Regional rail is also dependent on Railroad A for it's revenue traffic, so to complain about a loss of a branchline connection is not in their best interests. A case in point: Montana Rail Link, who is dependent on BNSF to supply the revenue overhead. A while back MRL had the ambition of adding to it's system aka UP's Pocatello-Butte line, BN's Spokane to Lewiston line, et al. Then BN significantly reduced the number of trains it sent over MRL. "Bad MRL, no biscuit!"

MRL has behaved a lot better since!

[jeaton]

Where a railroad still runs but the traffic is gone.

In the summer of 1958, I worked at one of the sash and door plants in Merrill, WI. There was a day engine assignment that switched the place I worked and all the other plants in town. Maybe 20 to 30 cars a day from Merrill went south on the evening freight, and there was also a significant movement of lumber and other materials into those plants. The line was MILW, then WC, now CN. It may have been 30 years or more since any rail traffic went in or out of that town.

Obviously, the industry did not go away because of the railroad leaving town. So who do we blame?

Jay

[oltmannd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rrandb

The bottom line is if there is anyway to squeeze another dime out of a line the railroad will do so by either selling it or leasing it to a shortline to operate. If there is even one customer either receiving or shipping on the line they may be able to make a go of it. The bottom line is no customers no railroad. [2c]

If you aren't earning the cost of capital, you have to "eat your foot" to stay alive. If you have assets that are worth more to somebody else than to you, you sell them to stay alive and hope for a better tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH

It appears likely that FM believes that there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll.

LOL!

The "second shooter" was in the SS car immediately behind the presidential limosine, everybody knows that.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

It appears likely that FM believes that there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll.

[rrandb]

Would not Reginal rail screem bloody murder when Railroad A applies to abandon track to Secondaryville as well as the shippers affected by this.[?]

[Anonymous]

The problem is, abandonments are not done soley for reasons of poor traffic. They are also initiated in a short sighted attempt to prevent freight from moving in and out of certain regions and/or to keep potential freight hauls out of the hands of other railroads or other modes.

Usually what happens is that Railroad A has a mildly profitable Branchline from Mainlineville to Secondaryville (where Railroad A has a secondary mainline), Railroad A sells the secondary main to Regional Rail operator as part of a great plan to sex up the corporate balance sheet, Railroad A then decides that the last few miles of Branchline track into Secondaryville should be lifted because they have another connection with Regional Rail a few hundred miles away (thus Branchline loses one of it's main connections), then customers on Branchline that once used it to make shipments down to Secondaryville are told by Railroad A that they can ship the roundabout way to Secondaryville (which now takes weeks to ship carload where it used to be a few days at most), customers are forced to use trucks to ship to Secondaryville (reducing overall traffic levels on Branchline), then Railroad A notices the reduced traffic and sees this as a bad omen, so they sell the rest of Branchline to Shortline operator with promises of car supply which they have no intention of fullfilling, then Shortline operator decides they can't make a go of it because they have too hard a time getting car supply from Railroad A and file for abandonment, thus Branchline is no more.

It's sad, but railroading is the only business out there that thinks marginalizing itself will result in more business. It is also true most of the time that branchlines that end up with reduced traffic levels do so due to internal forces, not external forces. Death by a thousand slices as the saying goes, except in these cases the slices are self inflicted.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Limitedclear

[i]

While this is true in theory, there are few, if any, examples of a RR reclaiming a ROW from a trail group.

LC

Except, of course, the Browns, Grayville, & Poseyville railway and the 22.5 miles they are reclaiming between their namesake cities in Illinois and Indiana

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