Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Hemphill's January column - Government dole

Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
futuremodal: Revenue Ton-Mile Data Sources: The Market share data are from the long-recognized and credible Eno Foundation for Transportation, Inc, as published in "Railroad Facts" 2004 Edition, published by the AAR (The Association of American Railroads for those of you in Rio Lindo). "As for the telecom thing ...": Let's see ... Verizon says they are competing with cable and other ISP's; you say that soon wireless and internet access via powerlines will be available; access via satellite is available. Yet you say Verizon, et al, are re-monopolizing! I waited 6 years for second-rate DSL service from SBC (the local Baby Bell) ... never got it ... finally went to cable earlier this year. I can hardly wait til SBC starts competing with Charter Cable. But I sure don't expect SBC shareholders to subsidize my access. (A side note on the RTM figures in the January "Trains": INTERCITY TON-MILES is the standard measure for intercity freight transportation. U.S. railroads, with only the most trivial exceptions, engage only in intercity freight transportation. They do not deliver freight to anyone's front porch. Neither do they provide service from a farmer's field to storage bins. Nothing wrong at all with measuring (estimating) the ton-miles generated by the trucks that do. One can even do the math and say railroad intercity ton-miles are xx.x% of all ton-miles, including intracity and agricultural freight, but it's a bit like comparing anvils with apples. (And certainly, if one wishes, one might compare rail market share, thus determined, over the years. The "market share" data on page 34 of Jan. "Trains" have no date, so are of little help in any analysis, but let's imagine they are for 2001(the TRANSEARCH copyright date). Presumably, with enough analysis and estimating, one could compare that year with 1980 and begin to speculate about causes of any change revealed by the "analysis." (But one can have almost no confidence in an analysis which arbitrarily includes and excludes data, as does the purported analysis on page 34: "In the United States, ton-mile losses have been masked by the increase of coal shipments from the Powder River Basin, so market share appears to remain constant." Hmmmmm. "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it." (So why not here in the Forum and in "Trains" let's stick with relevant (intercity), consistently measured (as are U.S Class One RTM's), and reliable data from credible sources (Eno foundation). Then we won't be talking Anvils and apples.)
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag