For example, Bucyrus and I don't agree about much, except we both will defend open discussions, as long as personal insults are avoided. Allowing a discussion to be locked b/c a number of people don't like the topic (it's even worse when the topic is highway grade crossings) is allowing a tyranny over freedom of speech by popular acclaim. Our moderators seem to have a philosophy of locking political discussions on the grounds that they might become heated, ad hominem in tone, etc.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Phoebe Vet Have any of you guys whining about the evil moderators locking the thread noticed yet that the thread doesn't seem to be locked?
Have any of you guys whining about the evil moderators locking the thread noticed yet that the thread doesn't seem to be locked?
It was locked by Otte, and then unlocked without any announcement after a new thread regarding the lock was started on the General Forum. I'm not sure whining is really appropriate. More like wondering what gives?
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Steven Otte Since we have received complaints that this thread has veered off of rail topics and into contentious fields of politics (which it was very close to doing even from the start), this thread is being locked.
Since we have received complaints that this thread has veered off of rail topics and into contentious fields of politics (which it was very close to doing even from the start), this thread is being locked.
Regarding the veering off of rail topics and into the contentious field of politics:
In the case of HSR, the contentious field of politics is the contentions field of spending the peoples’ money on something that many of them don’t want. Therefore HSR = the contentions field of politics. While the “No Politics” is verbally simple, it has never been defined in the context of these forums. A vacuous debate over the character virtues and flaws of named politicians seems clearly to be “political.” But what about a discussion of the pros and cons of public funding for passenger rail? Is that banned by the “No Politics” rule? The question has been asked many times, but no answer has ever been given.
There is a tendency for moderators to lock a thread if they get complaints. The greater the number of complaints, the more a moderator might believe the thread should be locked. But a moderator has a real job to do besides just counting complaints. A moderator must determine whether the complaints are justified by a rules violation, and many complaints are not.
These forums are naturally full of HSR boosters who regard any objection to public spending on HSR as being a violation of the “No politics” forum rule. For them, pushing the report abuse button is their way of winning the debate on HSR. And as further evidence, these same boosters see no problem with crowing about a president who takes a pro-HSR stand or lambasting a governor who rejects HSR to save his state from bankruptcy. So the moderators have their work cut out for them. They must separate the real rules violations from the posters who use the abuse button as a debating tactic.
[Since we have received complaints that this thread has veered off of rail topics and into contentious fields of politics (which it was very close to doing even from the start), this thread is being locked.
Steven Otte, Model Railroader associate editor]
This sort of knee-jerk reaction was not surprising. One, there seem to be individuals who cannot tolerate any postings that relate at all to the political world, even if the two are frequently closely intertwined. Two, Mr. Otte was rather out of his depth in doing so, as he's on the Model Railroader side and may not realize that Trains has a good deal of "political" content every issue, starting with "The Potomac Pundit." Had he read this thread carefully, he would have realized there were many thoughtful posts such as Falcon 48 and Sam1's, to mention just two.
Well, since you own the website you can, of course, do what you want. But I respectfully disagree that this thread has "veered off rail topic and into the contentious field of politics." I do agree that it may have started out that way (as the title of the thread makes clear). But it quickly evolved into a discussion of a number of strategic issues involving HSR and a historic discussion of passenger service issues. I did a quick review of the recent posts, and the last post which I would consider to be primarily political was on April 4 (and even that one wasn't a rant)..
I can certainly see why you would want to shut down threads that deteriorate into opposing rants about this or that political party or particular political personages - I don't have much interest in these either. But, if you are talking about strategic issues facing HSR, you can't avoid talking about political considerations. "Politics" are the 800 pound gorilla in the HSR arena. That's because few, if any, of these projects are likely to be built without government support - the private sector won't provide the money. The decision for the government to provide this support is necessarily a political issue, not an economic one. The current "political" debates over government spending and deficits will have a direct impact on HSR, and I don't see why that can't be discussed.
One of the things I like about the Trains forums is that they go beyond the rivet-counting stuff that seems to dominate most other railfan sites, and into the various strategic issues facing railroading. Please don't dumb it down.
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
blue streak 1 expresslane400: That's because truckers make up the difference with all the taxes they pay. I know because I pay those taxes. [You certainly pay a lot of truck use taxes.......BUT......You do not pay your share to keep up the roads. As you are fairly new to this forum it has been established that trucks may pay only 10 - 30% of the wear they cause to roads. Therefore trucks are subsidized much more than Passenger RRs ever have been. Their susbidity comes from car drivers and general tax revenue. I will cite a couple examples. If you have driven in downstate NY you are aware there are roads that commercial vehicles are not allowed. Some include buses as well. These roads were built for the most part in the 1950-1960s and have yet to ever have any major repairs due to wear and tear. Many have never even been repaved. Wear and tear of a road happens exponentially in relation to the load per tire. What exponent you ask? 4th power!! Say your 18 wheeler weighing 80,000# has 4444 # per tire verses my 4000# car (most weigh less) of 1000# per tire. To apply this .. if my car is a 1000# vehicle tire has wear factor "X" then your 18 wheeler will have a "X to 4.444 th power" = approx 20,000+ times worse. Our poster RWM can give you a more accurate figure as my memory fails me and I may not have these figures correct.
expresslane400: That's because truckers make up the difference with all the taxes they pay. I know because I pay those taxes.
That's because truckers make up the difference with all the taxes they pay.
I know because I pay those taxes.
[You certainly pay a lot of truck use taxes.......BUT......You do not pay your share to keep up the roads. As you are fairly new to this forum it has been established that trucks may pay only 10 - 30% of the wear they cause to roads. Therefore trucks are subsidized much more than Passenger RRs ever have been. Their susbidity comes from car drivers and general tax revenue.
I will cite a couple examples. If you have driven in downstate NY you are aware there are roads that commercial vehicles are not allowed. Some include buses as well. These roads were built for the most part in the 1950-1960s and have yet to ever have any major repairs due to wear and tear. Many have never even been repaved.
Wear and tear of a road happens exponentially in relation to the load per tire. What exponent you ask? 4th power!!
Say your 18 wheeler weighing 80,000# has 4444 # per tire verses my 4000# car (most weigh less) of 1000# per tire. To apply this .. if my car is a 1000# vehicle tire has wear factor "X" then your 18 wheeler will have a "X to 4.444 th power" = approx 20,000+ times worse. Our poster RWM can give you a more accurate figure as my memory fails me and I may not have these figures correct.
I would like a reference to the studies that show trucks cause the amount of road damage claimed or don't pay their fair share of the cost of building and maintaining the nation's highways.
Clearly, heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear on roadways than lighter vehicles. The key question is whether the truckers pay a fair share of the cost of repairing the incremental damage that they cause. The American Trucking Assoication, as you might imagine, claims that they do.
I would like to know the methodologies that were used in the studies. Model assumptions would be critical to the outcomes. For example, if the studies assume that all 18 wheelers are carrying 80,000 pounds of goods, that would be incorrect. Many trucks carry far less weight than their rated capacity, i.e. Frito-Lay trucks loaded with potato chips, FedEx trucks loaded with packages. Many trucks haul low density, high volume, high value goods, which means that they fill up the trailer with heaps of light materials.
Studies can be deceptive. The researchers frequently use simulation models that rely on assumptions that may or may not apply in the real world. They usually make heavy use of statistical sampling, projecting the results to the population as a whole. The results of a statistical sample cannot be projected to the population as a single number. It has to be a range, determine by the sampling construct constraints. As soon as someone tells me that trucks cause X amount of damage to the highways, I know it is probably wrong. A single number would only be correct by chance.
Supporters of commuter rail claim that it is far more fuel efficient that cars. They base their studies on common operating assumptions, load factors, etc. I question some of the assumptions. For example, the average load factor on the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) is approximately 33 per cent, although it is near 80 per cent during the morning and evening rush hours. How is that factored into the studies? Also, the TRE trains layover at their end points for approximately 25 minutes, pumping heaps of pollution into the environment. How does that compare with the modeler's assumptions? It is these kinds of questions that a researcher needs to address, whether it is a commuter rail operation or the damage trucks do to the highways.
Several years ago Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) gave me route information for every one of their routes, included the TRE. When I asked the Vice President of Operations how much each route contributed to a reduction in pollution in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, he admitted that he could not tell me.
Whoops, I forgot. What does the damage trucks do or don't do have to do with commuter rail systems?
Those of us who rode trains during the early days of Amtrak really welcomed the chance to ride the Southern and ride the Rio Grande Zephyr. For a while the El Cap - Super Chief also kept high standards.
daveklepper Many railroads played the game the SP did. It is just that the SP was more hardnose and blunt about it. The New York Central for one, with particular services. On the other hand, the AT&SF really wanted to retain passenger service. They realized it was a good way of maintaining contact with a wider public. From what I understand, if they had received assurances that they could have simply retained the El-Cap-Super-Chief, the Texas Chief, and the San Diegans, and discontinued all other trains, they would have continued their own operation and stayed out of Amtrak, like the Southern, Rock, and Rio Grande.
Many railroads played the game the SP did. It is just that the SP was more hardnose and blunt about it. The New York Central for one, with particular services.
On the other hand, the AT&SF really wanted to retain passenger service. They realized it was a good way of maintaining contact with a wider public. From what I understand, if they had received assurances that they could have simply retained the El-Cap-Super-Chief, the Texas Chief, and the San Diegans, and discontinued all other trains, they would have continued their own operation and stayed out of Amtrak, like the Southern, Rock, and Rio Grande.
I've heard the same thing, and it may well have been true, since ATSF didn't have nearly as big a passenger "problem" as SP had. But they likely would have eventually joined Amtrak, as Southern did.
The Rock and the Rio Grande were special situations. To my knowledge, the reason Rock didn't join Amtrak is because it couldn't afford the "buy in" ( a railroad had to pay in cash or assets to join Amtrak and be relieved of its passenger obligations). The reason Rio Grande didn't join is because they wanted to maintain control of passenger trains using their lines. Rock was able to eventually discontinue all of its intercity trains. Rio Grande eventually agreed to handle Amtrak trains, which allowed them to discontinue their own service.
Thanks for a very informing post.
Dragoman Regarding passenger revenues vs. passenger operating costs: I got the sense that the desire to eliminate passenger service -- and maybe even entire lines -- was much more complex that straight accounting considerations. Two anecdotes to illustrate: 1) The father of a classmate of mine in the late-60's and early-70's worked in SP's accounting department. He was quite adament that the much-maligned passenger trains left running in those last days made as much money or more (on a variable, or avoidable-cost basis) than many of the freight runs. But SP was serious about discontinuances, even to the point of not accepting reservations for all-reserved trains (allegedly "because it was fully booked"), even though the train in question was actually nearly empty when people decided to just show up at the depot. (His story.) 2) At about the same time frame, I had a discussion with an officer of an old western regional air carrier, Hughes AirWest. We were talking about routes, and he was telling me about their plans to eliminate certain routes (Stockton-LAX, and San Jose-Los Cabos, IIRC), not because they weren't profitable (because they were), but because some planner figured that they could better utilize their equipment on some other combination of routes/services. As an erstwhile CPA, I think I can safely paraphrase the old saying: "there are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are accounting financial statements"
Regarding passenger revenues vs. passenger operating costs: I got the sense that the desire to eliminate passenger service -- and maybe even entire lines -- was much more complex that straight accounting considerations.
Two anecdotes to illustrate:
1) The father of a classmate of mine in the late-60's and early-70's worked in SP's accounting department. He was quite adament that the much-maligned passenger trains left running in those last days made as much money or more (on a variable, or avoidable-cost basis) than many of the freight runs. But SP was serious about discontinuances, even to the point of not accepting reservations for all-reserved trains (allegedly "because it was fully booked"), even though the train in question was actually nearly empty when people decided to just show up at the depot. (His story.)
2) At about the same time frame, I had a discussion with an officer of an old western regional air carrier, Hughes AirWest. We were talking about routes, and he was telling me about their plans to eliminate certain routes (Stockton-LAX, and San Jose-Los Cabos, IIRC), not because they weren't profitable (because they were), but because some planner figured that they could better utilize their equipment on some other combination of routes/services.
As an erstwhile CPA, I think I can safely paraphrase the old saying: "there are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are accounting financial statements"
I'm not a CPA, although I've worked with many of them. I'm also too young to have been personally involved in passenger train discontinuances (it's not that I'm that young - it's that the passenger discontinuances are so old that they were mostly before my time). But I've been very heavily involved in freight railroad abandonments and discontinuances, and they raise many of the same financial issues.
That leads me to an important observation. The determination of whether a particular service offering - like passenger service - is generating a "loss" or a "profit", while it involves a lot of accounting activity, is ultimately more of an economic exercise than an accounting exercise, and it is very heavily dependent the question that's being asked. Here's an example. Let's say a particular railroad is providing both freight and passenger service, and management wants to know the relative profiatability or unprofitability of the two services. Note what the quesiton is - the relative financial performance of the two services.
To determine the answer to this questiion, someone will do a study to identify the revenues generated by each of the services and the costs solely related to each service. But that's only part of the picture. In railroading, many of the operating costs are "joint" or "common" costs. For example. a rail line used by passenger trains on a commercial railroad will typically also have freight service. How do you allocate the rail line costs between the two services? Well, if you are trying to determine relative financial performance, you will probably allocate the costs to the two services based on some measure of service output that can be applied to both services - possibly train miles or car miles. You also will probably allocate fixed and overhead costs in a similar manner.
Now change the question. Assume that management, rather than wanting to know about relative financial performance, wants to know the financial impact of discontinuing all of its passenger service. That's a different question and it will lead to a different answer. In this case, you try to determine the revenue the railroad will actually lose, and costs it will actually save. All of the passenger revenue would, of course, be lost, so this part is simple (although it becomes a lot less simple if there is something less than a complete discontinuance of the service). But the cost side is much trickier. The proration approach described in the preceding paragraph is totally inapporporiate, since it doesn't measure the actual savings of a discontinuance. Take, for example, the costs related to the rail line that's used for both freight and passenger services. How much of that will really be saved by a passenger discontinuance? If the railroad has very little passenger service, but a lot of freight, it could be that very little rail line related expense will actually be saved - just some incremental portion of maintenance expense. On the other hand, if the railroad can remove one of its two tracks and maintain the remaining one for a lower speed, the savings could be relatively high. Whatever the results are, I can virtually guarantee that the results of a properly conducted "discontinuance" analysis will be very different than the analysis of relative financial perfromance described in the preceding paragraph.
Now, one more wrinkle. Let's say that management wants an analysis of the discontinuance of half the passenger trains it is running, rather than its entire passenger service. That, again, is a different question. The reason is that there will be many facilities (like terminals) that have to be retained and maintained for passenger service as long as any passenger trains are running in a corridor. As such, they will not be saveable in a "partial" discontinuance. This consideration will typically make the trains involved in a partial discontinuance look relatively more viable (or relatively less non-viable) than they would be in a full discontinuance scenario.
I'm not personally familiar with SP's passenger strategy (again, it was before my time). But here is what I suspect was happening. At some point in the late 1950's or early 1960's, SP took a close look at its passenger service offering (the type of analysis described two paragraphs ago) and determined the service was a big loser and should be completely eliminated. In a normal, non-regulated business, that would be the end of the matter. - the service would go away pretty quickly. But, in the regulatory world at the time, this wasn't possible - any attempt by SP to shut down its passenger service at a single stroke would have been dead on arrival. They had to do it - and justify it to the regulators - one train at a time. The logical thing in this case was to first go after the trains that couldn't even pay their directly variable costs. You couldn't go after the others first because, if you did, they could individually appear "profitable" based on their directly variable costs (the regulators wouldn't even consider the ultimate impact of a complete passenger service elimination). The analyses you mention in #1 of your note were probably performed in this context. Once the "big" losers go away, then the financial performance of the remaining trains on a "saveable" cost basis deteriorates, because there are less trains over which to spread the remaining passenger network costs. This may sound a little dishonest, but it isn't. Remember, this all started out from the railroad's detemination the service was no longer economically viable and should be completely eliminated. It's the regulatory system that required this decision to be implemented on an economically artificial, piecemeal basis.
Finally, let me comment on your Hughs AirWest example. This demonstrates a perfectly sound economic (not accounting) principle - the concept of "opportunity cost". If I can deploy my assets in a way where I make $100, but I choose to deploy them (or am forced by a regulator to deploy them) in a way which makes only $60, I am incurring an "opportunity cost" of $40. In your Hughs AirWest example, Hughs management probably determined that, even though Stockton and San Jose routes were making a "profit", they could make more money deploying the planes in other services. So why should they make less money by staying in the Stockton and San Jose markets? That's a perfectly valid business consideration, and the type of decision businesses make all the time. Indeed, even in modern railroad abandonments, the STB looks at the "opportunity costs" the railroad incurs by operating a rail line as opposed to liquidating it and redeploying the proceeds in more profitable endeavors.
CMStPnP Oh, thats right it was revenue, yeah I'm not all that surprised if passenger ops were a loss.......did you catch that they valued their 347 passenger cars in 1970 around 20-22 million. In the 1973 report they do not appear that I could find BUT I didn't look hard for them.
Oh, thats right it was revenue, yeah I'm not all that surprised if passenger ops were a loss.......did you catch that they valued their 347 passenger cars in 1970 around 20-22 million. In the 1973 report they do not appear that I could find BUT I didn't look hard for them.
Wow, I didn't realize it was that bad. The parkways on Long Island have been there forever and stay in good shape. I'm surprised our resident truck driver Ed ("at war with...") didn't explode if he saw those numbers.
Above is an excellent analysis.
CMStPnP BTW, unrelated topic but I have a question for you. Why does the Milwaukee Road show it's Passenger Operations as producing a profit of $14 million dollars in it's 1970 annual report. I did some digging and the Milwaukee Road Magazine about the same year displayed Mail and Express as representing 50% of the Revenue the Milwaukee earned on most of it's Passenger trains. Here is the website, look under Annual Reports (scratching my head here): http://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/
BTW, unrelated topic but I have a question for you. Why does the Milwaukee Road show it's Passenger Operations as producing a profit of $14 million dollars in it's 1970 annual report. I did some digging and the Milwaukee Road Magazine about the same year displayed Mail and Express as representing 50% of the Revenue the Milwaukee earned on most of it's Passenger trains.
Here is the website, look under Annual Reports (scratching my head here):
http://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/
Your statement that MILW's 1970 annual report showed a "profit" of $14 milion from passenger service didn't ring true to me. Since I have some experience in reading RR financial statements, I took a close look at the annual report shown at the link you gave. Not surprisingly, it doesn't show anything of the sort. What it shows is that MILW received operating REVENUES of about $14.5 milion from "passenger, mail and express", which appears to be the figure you were referring to. Elsewhere, the report shows that this figure included commuter passenger revenues of $4,955,884 and non-commuter passenger reveunues of $4,228,106, or total passenger revenues of $9,183,950. From this, we can infer that revenues from mail and express totalled about $5.4 million.
But this is "revenue" not "profit". In order to determine the "profit" or "loss", you need to know the EXPENSES incurred to provide the service. Unfortunately, the annual report doesn't separately break out the EXPENSES incurred in providing "passenger, mail and express" service, or "passenger" service. The passenger related expenses are lumped in with the railroad's overall operating expenses, so the report doesn't tell us if the passenger related services produced a "profit" or a "loss". However, given the generally negative tone of the report's narrative discussion of passenger service, it's pretty obvious that MILW's management in 1970 didn't consider this a bright spot in the railroad's otherwise bleak business picture (the railroad incurred an overall operating loss that year of over $10 million).
expresslane400 That's because truckers make up the difference with all the taxes they pay. I know because I pay those taxes.
Let me know if you still feel that way in ten years.
Leadership is not always popular. To bad there are not more people like these guys.
A number of railroads lost money on their passenger operations but more than made up for it with mail and express revenue, which allowed them to keep the passenger service in operatiion. When the P. O. ceased RPO operatons and moved to truck-plane movement almost exclusively, a lot of train-off occured as soon the regulatory process could permit.
schlimm Walker March 1: 43% approve ; 54% disapprove Scott March 29: 32% approve; 52% disapprove Kasich March 23: 30% approve; 46% disapprove Looks like the people in those three states have strongly turned against the policies of the governors they elected just five months ago.
Walker March 1: 43% approve ; 54% disapprove
Scott March 29: 32% approve; 52% disapprove
Kasich March 23: 30% approve; 46% disapprove
Looks like the people in those three states have strongly turned against the policies of the governors they elected just five months ago.
Those opinion polls are slanted me thinks. The results of Opinion Polls are also transitory, the politicians will be judged by what they deliver before the next election.
This is a very interesting website on Milwaukee Road material I must say. Also I learned that Amtrak bought 12 new Metroliner cars in 1971, they were built in the 1960's but never delivered to Penn Central.......I did not know about those.
Yes, but . . .
Walker got the out-going lame-duck governor to give up the Wisconsin train long before Scott in Florida gave up his train. This means that Walker can apply to get some of Scott's money so that Walker can get a train after all, having the effect of boosting Governor Walker's standing in the polls.
Half my Senate's already thinkin'
they could hide in the Land o' Lincoln'
If I only had a train!
Could'nt while a way an hour,
now a judge is mighty sour
Hopin' th'protests get some rain.
And my head I'd be scratchin'
of what the unions hatchin',
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Saw it. thank you!
Muralist0221 Gov. Walker along with Kasich, Scott and Christie had strong anti-rail platforms, but promised to create more jobs ( as did every other candidate). Going to be interesting to see how many jobs they create. Wonder if anybody is keeping tabs? Will the powerful industrialists and corporations who put them in office create jobs in their respective states or in India and China?
Gov. Walker along with Kasich, Scott and Christie had strong anti-rail platforms, but promised to create more jobs ( as did every other candidate). Going to be interesting to see how many jobs they create. Wonder if anybody is keeping tabs? Will the powerful industrialists and corporations who put them in office create jobs in their respective states or in India and China?
I would go to YouTube and listen to the interview with Singapores former leader, Lee Kuan Yew by Charlie Rose. Lot of wisdom there for you folks in the Midwest.
As far as Heineman's CNW commuter rail goes, the discontinuation of in-city stations made a lot of sense, given parallel CTA 'L' lines. But a bad rail strike in 1962(?) caused many displaced commuters to never return as did frequent fare increases. Falcon is totally correct: without the RTA, suburban service would have suffered a slow death.
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