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Legislation intoduced to make railroads subject to antitrust laws.
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Geez, so many off the wall retorts, so little time..... <br /> <br />Murphy - Waterways are already open access, thus you wouldn't need to build a new canal/waterway to access a new barge line. <br /> <br />Lotus - You are what you eat. Tell us how competition would kill railroading. The only thing competition kills is inefficiency. <br /> <br />CSSHEGEWISCH - For the umpteenth time, trucks are best at shorthaul, railroads best at medium to long haul of bulk commodities, intermodal combines the two aspects, thus railroad's true competition is other railroads........wait a minute, I just realized I'm kicking a dead horse! <br /> <br />jeaton - Can you name your "industry insiders"? Most independent finance analysts say the opposite, aka Smith & Barney's latest report on railroads. But I guess what you're really saying is that volume does not make up for select captive markup. I think the trucking industry would say differently, at least from a macro basis. I ask you this, what is your approach to returning railroading to a 70% market share. I say true head to head competition and customer choice, you may say either (A) it can't be done (B) yes, if railroads are allowed to extend the monopolistic reach via more mergers, or (C)[fill in the blank]. <br /> <br />Bob - You are correct, the hypothetical debate over open access has nothing to do with the antitrust legislation being considered. However, it is my contention that if this bill becomes law, the resulting legal actions may be the necessary pu***o finally bring open access to be debated on the floor of Congress. <br /> <br />ed - No, I don't have any pro forma numbers, nor have I ever claimed to have had pro forma numbers, because what we are discussing (the concept of open access) is still at the theoretical/philosophical level(s) when applied to railroads, although there are some countries which have adopted the concept. Granted, it would be hard to draw a comparison of Britain pre-open access vs former nationalized operations with what may or may not happen if a proprietary closed access system is evolved into a proprietary open access. I have searched and at this time have found no transportation studies which could provide real numbers for you. But, I percieve that you are a person of above average intelligence, so I assume you can take a self analysis of comparing U.S. railroad infrastructure in its current form with all other modal infrastructure in terms of access, and look at all other transporter operations and compare them to rail transporters, and take a look at proprietary open access with regards to electricity transmission and anaylyze how that has affect the energy markets (up or down?), and take a look at open access of telecommunications at analyse whether that sector has more or less investment today than if AT&T still was a monopoly, and compare Australia pre-open access vs post open access, etc., etc., etc., and after all that come up with your own set of theoretical constructs for applying open access to U.S. railroading. You cannot deny the successes of open access in other modes, and as of yet not one person on this forum can supply any solid argument as to why that success would not translate to U.S. railroads. Come to think of it, no one from the opposition has supplied pro forma numbers to prove open access will not work in the U.S. Could be that is because the arguments in opposition to open access are just as theoretical as the arguments for open access. As I stated before, the concept (open access on U.S. railroads) is way to new to have provided any substantial numerical analysis one way or the other. <br /> <br />Gabe - the statement of mark in utah regarding potential overdemand for access to transmission lines is if anything a rebuttal of your conclusion. Demand for a service is usually seen as a good thing, because as you know when demand exceeds supply it forces more investment into the sector to meet the demand. The problem was well enumerated as to the need for MORE transmission capacity to handle this increased demand, and the market will eventually meet this demand. What it shows is that there has been much more investment in power generation than would have otherwise happened under closed access. This is a good thing for the economy, all we have to do is to weather the transition. Whereas the railroads do not respond to market demand, choosing instead to turn away business. Trucks do take some of that rejected market, barge lines take another portion, but in all likelyhood the majority of that rejected market either ends up overseas or simply not existing at all. It's an undeniable contrast: You never see a transmission line being torn down to reduce capacity, never see a pipeline taken out to reduce capacity, only railroads engage in that kind of self destructive behaviour. Transmission lines and pipelines are open access, railroads are not. Hmmmm, do you thing there's a connection between access status and purposeful capacity reductions? Or do you want pro forma numbers before you will believe in what is actually happening out there? <br /> <br />Mark in utah - was that plant built pre-Staggers or post-Staggers? Makes a huge difference, since most rail dependent plants were built back when rates were still regulated, thus the investors believed they would retain relatively low shipping costs. <br /> <br />
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