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RR's are full - then let truckers pull doubles!

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This is a fast-moving forum! My limited typing skills, rusty efforts at composition, and unfamiliarity with forum technique have me a bit frustrated in attempting to keep pace while making some sense. (I agree with Mr. Hemphill that decorum must be maintained.) Permit me a generalization, if you will. Perhaps overly broad, but directionally correct. Railroaders (I was one for 28 years) and railfans do not understand logistics, the economics of trucking freight, nor the nature of competition between the modes. Emotion, romanticism, and railroad industry propaganda influence their thinking to an undue degree in many cases. I cut my economic/regulatory teeth on the railroad industry truism that "the steel wheel on steel rail is umpteen times as efficient as rubber on concrete." The physics is right but virtually irrelevant in comparing logistics efficiency of the two modes: shipment size, transit time, frequency of dispatch, predictability, reliability. And the subsidy canard: "If the truckers paid their fair share railroads would move everything over a hundred miles." Sure, there is the never-ending debate over highway construction cost allocation. Truckers want to pay less and the AAA and railroads want them to pay more. But trucks pay alot in taxes, nowhere near 0% as is implicit in many heated debates, so a relevant question is, what would happen to modal share if truck taxes were, say, doubled? Almost nothing would change. Truck logistic advantages are that great. I'll probably be way behind the posts, but I offer these observations and comments on recent submissions. Highway damage is significantly a function of axle-loads, therefore double-bottoms do not in and of themselves cause additional damage. In fact, one double will do less damage than two singles because of reduced tractor axle impact. Double-bottoms and triples (pups) have been widely and safely used for decades. From the New York State Thruway to the Kansas Turnpike to many of the western states where the name "Rocky Mountain double" was coined. The "logistics" of doubles operation are complex, though, and the apparent raw line-haul economic advantage is limited in many cases. This, I believe, is why the trucking industry has largely ended its agitation for more widespread use of doubles. Why the dire pessimism about the industry and outright lack of current information? For example, the CN has performed spectacularly since being privatized in 1996, giving real world insight against arguments which favor separating ownership of right-of-way and train operation. And where are the data showing extensive deferred maintenance on any Class I? Which Class I is anywhere close to needing government "assistance?" UP has its trouble, but it's no SP! CSX isn't exactly highballing, but it's no PC! And then there is the argument for open access in a "monopolistic" industry that doesn't earn it's cost of capital and is in need of government support. (Talk about inept capitalists!) An "Exhibit UP": Consider the trona (soda ash) shippers of Wyoming. "Captive" to the UP for decades ... displaced all of the old sovay-method producers years ago ... highly competitive in world export markets. "Exhibit BNSF": Montana wheat still moves into world markets 34 years after James J. Hill's "monopolistc" dream was realized in the BN merger. There is an inherent tension in the relationship between railroads and shippers, "captive" or other. Economic rent is to be had, the calculations are complex, mistakes are made. But they need each other once that capital has been invested. Only the foolish attempt to blindly exploit the other, for too many options exist. Ah! A comment from MP173 ... so you too sat in those smoke-filled rate bureau rooms. Sometimes I shake my head ... how could an industry with complete antitrust immunity for rate-making not succeed? Then I remember ... logistics, and the ignorance therof.
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