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Toughest Challenge for Railroads in Coming Years ?

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Posted by selector on Monday, December 21, 2009 7:26 PM

My judgement is that the term is not useful in this discussion.  Few of us are going to be able to get past it because of its common use in what some would call the "politics of envy."  As it is being offered/proffered to date, it is an attempt to label corporate methods of improving performance, gaining market share, or what-have-you, in politically charged ways.  In fact, it is an attempt to paint corporate culture in general, since railroads that succeed do much of what other successful businesses do.  You would be better off just defining "success", and leave it at that.  (Actually, no it wouldn't...we would quickly be back to square one when you think about it; some would not want to see corporations "succeed".)

So, please, find another term that won't stick in the throats of so many trying to swallow it and get on with the rest of the meal.

-Crandell

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Monday, December 21, 2009 7:25 PM

henry6

 

 I do have a college education and know how to read. In fact read both USRA reports when they were published.  Since you're so smart, why do you bring them up? They have nothing to do with the question posed nor about how CR management later acted!  If you want to put me  down, don't do it here.  I won't stand for it.  Don't make me look bad to make you and your political agenda look good.

Merry Christmas--

Now can we get back to something a little more closer to the topic at hand than this kvetching about a moralistic word?

The issue is this--does anyone know of a more effective way of keeping more people working than going PTOOF? If the lines needed cut then that was what was done. According to the definitions herein posted this was not the case---rather have more people working than none at all--

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

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Posted by henry6 on Monday, December 21, 2009 7:17 PM
MP173

Henry:

I suggest you go to a local university library and spend an afternoon looking at the following items:

1.  Moody's Transportation Manuals from the early 1970's

2.  USRA Preliminary System Plan

3.  USRA Final System Plan

It is all there for digestion.

Don is one of the most intelligent and generous members of this forum.  He probably wont stand up for himself, but I will.  No more shouting at Don. 

Ed

 I do have a college education and know how to read. In fact read both USRA reports when they were published.  Since you're so  smart, why do you bring them up? They have nothing to do with the question posed nor about how CR management later acted!  If you want to put me  down, don't do it here.  I won't stand for it.  Don't make me look bad to make you and your political agenda look good.

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Posted by henry6 on Monday, December 21, 2009 7:09 PM

Look.  Somebody dropped the word greed here as to whether it was good or bad.  I used Conrail as an example of how itsr successful waccomplishment could be considered greed for the good from those who benefited while the areas which did not receive the benefit of Conrail , if effect lost service or got a lower level of service could consider the greed as detrimental. I DID NOT JUDGE: IT TOLD IT LIKE IT WAS, GAVE AN EQUAL AND BALANCED PORTAYAL OF WHAT HAPPENED WITHOUT JUDGEMENT OR COMMENT; IT SHOWED THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE RESULTS OF CONRAIL'S ACTIONS.  SEVERAL READ THEIR OWN OPINIONS INTO IT AND BLASTED ME FOR IT OR JUST WANT TO PICK AN ARGUEMENT FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUEMENT. UNFORTUNATELY TOO MANY OF THE READERS CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FACT AND OPINION BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN OPINIONS GETTING IN THE WAY.  If I am wrong here, then tell me so and I'll quit and end my subscriptions.

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Posted by schlimm on Monday, December 21, 2009 6:57 PM

Merry Christmas (I hope that doesn't get censored).

In the spirit of the season, and since I started it, let me suggest it's time to end the discussion re: greed.

BTW, here are some definitions I found of the term, which seems to have been lost in the smoke. Take your pick:

Greed (avarice)  is an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.

Greed is an excessive or rapacious desire, esp. for wealth or possessions.

Greed is a very strong wish to continuously get more of something, especially food or money.

Greed is the very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of money, wealth and power.  It is generally considered a vice, and is one of the seven deadly sins.

 

C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Monday, December 21, 2009 6:10 PM

Paul_D_North_Jr
Judging from this inadequate performance, it appears that this portion of the agency - the 'Office of Railroad Development' - needs a serious shake-up, in my humble opinion.  There are too many legitimate needs for railroads to not be able to take advantage of this opportunity.  I just can't believe that all the track and bridges on all lines are capable of carrying 286,000 lb. cars or ever 315K cars, that all grade crossings are fully equipped with the appropriate protective devices, such as flashers and gates, that the CREATE plan in Chicago is now fully funded, that all the commuter agencies and Amtrak have all the equipment they need, - and of course electrification, PTC and signals generally, etc., etc. . . . Confused

What I'd like to know here is was there some kind of actual timeframe to measure or gauge progress of the program? How would one go about doing the actual surveys for example of the areas needing improvement if there really was no investment in the basic deployment of the people necessary to do the job in the first place? What or rather how would these surveys---I sort of suspect some kind of inventory of trouble spots would be needed--be channeled to which departments etc-? I guess what I'm really wondering about is what kind of a timeframe is used from $$$ being acquired to the actual project being completed?

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Monday, December 21, 2009 4:30 PM

Murphy Siding
    I'm really lost now, about what is the point you're trying to make?  If Conrail had closed line A,  shippers and receivers on line A would think they'd been done in by Conrail's *Greed*? 

      If Conrail had closed line B instead, shippers and receivers on line B would think they'd been done in by Conrail's *Greed*?

My problem is that I'm thinking that the term "greed" is a loaded word here--it can become very politicized. I seen a paper a few years ago that talked about just this very issue in the sense of public/private enterprises and the term 'greed'. That paper put it that there needed to be a realization that it is in fact a HUMAN condition and not just a left/right---public/private whatever vs whatever rhetorical tool.

When it seen in that light then I'd have to say that certain areas benefited from certain actions but that others 'lost out'---no fault there if the survival of the whole was at issue. You get to keep employees working in the one/other schema or you end up up with NO one working in the keep everything going schema---

HHMMMPH---with that for a choice is it any wonder the company was having issues.

Then again--it was all due to the 'crabby triangle'Whistling

Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry

I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...

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Posted by MP173 on Monday, December 21, 2009 4:26 PM

Henry:

I suggest you go to a local university library and spend an afternoon looking at the following items:

1.  Moody's Transportation Manuals from the early 1970's

2.  USRA Preliminary System Plan

3.  USRA Final System Plan

It is all there for digestion.

Don is one of the most intelligent and generous members of this forum.  He probably wont stand up for himself, but I will.  No more shouting at Don. 

Ed

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Monday, December 21, 2009 4:21 PM

henry6: 

      I'm really lost now, about what is the point you're trying to make?  If Conrail had closed line A,  shippers and receivers on line A would think they'd been done in by Conrail's *Greed*? 

      If Conrail had closed line B instead, shippers and receivers on line B would think they'd been done in by Conrail's *Greed*?

     ' Seems to me, that Conrail was going to have to pare down the number of lines serving areas with too many non-profitable lines. Had they tried to save all the lines, the whole thing would have probably gone down the tubes.   It's hard for me to imagine that this was done without looking at all the angles, all the lines,  all the issues,  and doing what was best in the long run for Conrail and for the country.   It must have worked.  Where's the greed?

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Posted by henry6 on Monday, December 21, 2009 4:15 PM

Who said anything about a "right"!  STOP POLITICIZING EVERYTHING EVERYBODY SAYS AND CONTORTING THE MEANING AND SPIRIT OF THESE FORUMS.  YOU AND A FEW OTHERS KEEP DOING THAT AND RUINING IT FOR ALL OF US.  YES I KNOW I'M SHOUTING!

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Posted by oltmannd on Monday, December 21, 2009 4:10 PM
henry6

oltmannd
henry6

oltmannd
henry6
Without defining the application for the word "greed" we are left up in the air. 
Greed involves a zero sum or negative sum game. The winner gets more than the fruits of his labor at the expense of somebody else. A "golden parachute" could be described as greedy (exec gets at the expense of stockholder, perhaps). The decisions to pare Conrail down to an efficient and profitable railway most certainly were not based in greed.

You double speak and contradict yourself.  By your own definititons and limits above,...That conclusion from your definition.

Lets try an analogy.... ... What I said greed was, was when the winner got MORE than the fruits of his labor AT THE EXPENSE of someone else.

I used the dictionary meaning of the word "greed".  ....

Well, which is it?

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Posted by oltmannd on Monday, December 21, 2009 3:59 PM
henry6
A manufacturer with a rail siding lost his connection, as did mines, et. al.  In effect if you must ship or recieve from a fixed point, (and given that you use rail so it must be cost effective) and your rail line is gone, you don't have the choice of another railroad and the added cost of trucking and or transloading changes your pricing and marketing and maybe even put you out of business. 
So, rail service is a right? Once it place, it can never go away, no matter what? What if the cost of providing the rail service was more than the cost of trucking? In the case of Conrail, the choices were "some or none". "All" was never possible, in fact the 1979 version of Conrail was not viable.
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Posted by henry6 on Monday, December 21, 2009 3:50 PM

oltmannd
henry6

oltmannd
henry6
Without defining the application for the word "greed" we are left up in the air. 
Greed involves a zero sum or negative sum game. The winner gets more than the fruits of his labor at the expense of somebody else. A "golden parachute" could be described as greedy (exec gets at the expense of stockholder, perhaps). The decisions to pare Conrail down to an efficient and profitable railway most certainly were not based in greed.

You double speak and contradict yourself.  By your own definititons and limits above, CR's action certainly was an act of greed. In your words: "the winner gets more than the fruits ofhis labor at the expense of somebody else."  CR certainly deprived many communities of rail service in general, mainline service in particular, by building upon the PRR and NYC bases while depriving many LV and EL communites and lines the same quality of service they had been used to having. That conclusion from your definition.

Lets try an analogy. You own two grocery stores in two adjacent towns. You are losing money. One store is in a stable neighborhood, the other store is in an area with declining population and income. Ten years ago, both made money, but now the first store is losing a little money and the second store is bleeding red ink. Your market research shows that if you close the second store, half the customers will travel to the remaining store and you will have a sustainable business, so you close the second store. That's greedy? What I said greed was, was when the winner got MORE than the fruits of his labor AT THE EXPENSE of someone else.

I used the dictionary meaning of the word "greed".  The grocery store analogy is not equal as those using the closing store had access to the rremaining store and others.  A manufacturer with a rail siding lost his connection, as did mines, et. al.  In effect if you must ship or recieve from a fixed point, (and given that you use rail so it must be cost effective) and your rail line is gone, you don't have the choice of another railroad and the added cost of trucking and or transloading changes your pricing and marketing and maybe even put you out of business.  With the loss of grocery store, you still eat.  In other words, I am using the definition of "greed" with no moral or social intonation.  Some believe Conrail's greed by my dictionary definition was good in that a profitable railroad emerged and communites served were allowed to continue and prosper. But for those who's rail lines, connections, and value of services were lost or downgraded forcing closing of businesses and deterioration of communities, then there could be some discussion about the "negativity" of Conrail's greed.

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Posted by petitnj on Monday, December 21, 2009 3:27 PM

 As for the amount of freight handled by other railroad systems. Here is an interesting comparison. BNSF carries as many ton-miles of freight in one month as all of the railroads in Europe carry in one YEAR!

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Posted by Railway Man on Monday, December 21, 2009 3:17 PM

Maybe. 

On the other hand, look at this:  the worst economic period since the Great Depression, traffic down 17-25%, and railroad profits are doing just fine, capex is doing just fine, and so forth. 

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Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Monday, December 21, 2009 2:28 PM

To add to RWM's list - and I agree that the land-use planning aspect is often overlooked in these discussions - I'll suggest the price of oil/ fuel.

Not just in what the railroads pay for what they put in the tanks of their diesels - but the effect on the broader economy.

Last night I finally noticed that in the current = January 2010 issue of Trains, there's a chart - in the usual 'Map of the Month' format - of Revenue Ton-Miles for each Class I over the last 30 years (sorry - I don't have it with me at the moment, so I can't provide a specific page reference).  That chart deserves a separate thread of its own, anyway - I'm kind of surprised that one hasn't been started yet.  But I digress with that . . .

The point here is that the chart also plots the average annual price of oil, per barrel if I recall rightly.  The interesting correlation that I observed is that as the price of oil rose, the volume of rail Revenue Ton-Miles slowed or even went down a little bit - perhaps because the impact of higher oil prices also led to a decline in broader general manufacturing and economic activity; and the converse also appeared to be true - that lower oil prices led to more RTM. 

So, perhaps higher oil prices aren't a panacea that will drive a larger share of the freight 'pie' to the railroads - instead, it is a threat that will shrink the entire pie.

Any thoughts on that ?

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Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Monday, December 21, 2009 1:54 PM

gabe
  But, with that having been said, is there a country or a political system that successfully avoids the, for lack of a better term, "problem" that you are very interestingly explaining to us? 

Is there any other country that has the same large scale and proportion of its 'general' freight-hauling capacity on rails (not limited to a single commodity, as with mining railroads in Australia, for example), and which is owned and operated by independent and competing private corporations ?  Other than Canada, I can't think of any. 

I take it that the 'problem' that Gabe alluded to is defining the respective roles of the government/ FRA and those railroads.  Here, the discussion of that happens to be in the context of providing loans to finance improvements, but it could be just as applicable to other aspects of the industry - such as safety, or passengers, etc. - as well.

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Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Monday, December 21, 2009 1:45 PM

For what it's worth, I happen to agree with oltmannd/ Don that the USRA and ConRail 'system' people had to make some difficult 'triage'-type decisions to amputate some parts of the railroad 'corpus' = body just to save the rest.  I'm sure that we all wished - then and now - that it could have been different, but those were the tough cards those guys were dealt, and they had to play them.  I think they did as well as could have been expected.  I don't see where any individual or company got 'rich' in any sense of the word as a result - mere survival was their goal, and they barely achieved it.

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Posted by Railway Man on Monday, December 21, 2009 1:40 PM

No, there isn't, in my opinion.  Governing is messy in a democracy.  If clean-cut decisions are the priority, command-and-control structures are an option. 

We have the worst possible system except all others.

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Posted by gabe on Monday, December 21, 2009 1:37 PM

RWM,

I know I am asking you to open Pandora's box via this question.  For that reason and others, I would not blame you at all for simply not answering.  But, for what it is worth, I am not being socratic or attempting to set up a deeper conversation to use this as spring board to pontificate about my political beliefs--I am not sure I even have an opinion on the topic.

But, with that having been said, is there a country or a political system that successfully avoids the, for lack of a better term, "problem" that you are very interestingly explaining to us? 

Gabe

 

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Posted by Railway Man on Monday, December 21, 2009 1:09 PM

Paul:  The "public" may not know diddly about RRIF loans, but it has very specific ideas about how, when, and why money should be given to private entities, and in my experience from testifying at dozens of public meetings the public has very specific ideas about what the government should be setting as economic and social priorities.  I see no evidence that the design or execution of the RRIF program is incongruent from the general public's expectations of what government should do and how it should do it.

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Posted by oltmannd on Monday, December 21, 2009 1:07 PM
henry6

oltmannd
henry6
Without defining the application for the word "greed" we are left up in the air. 
Greed involves a zero sum or negative sum game. The winner gets more than the fruits of his labor at the expense of somebody else. A "golden parachute" could be described as greedy (exec gets at the expense of stockholder, perhaps). The decisions to pare Conrail down to an efficient and profitable railway most certainly were not based in greed.

You double speak and contradict yourself.  By your own definititons and limits above, CR's action certainly was an act of greed. In your words: "the winner gets more than the fruits ofhis labor at the expense of somebody else."  CR certainly deprived many communities of rail service in general, mainline service in particular, by building upon the PRR and NYC bases while depriving many LV and EL communites and lines the same quality of service they had been used to having. That conclusion from your definition.

Lets try an analogy. You own two grocery stores in two adjacent towns. You are losing money. One store is in a stable neighborhood, the other store is in an area with declining population and income. Ten years ago, both made money, but now the first store is losing a little money and the second store is bleeding red ink. Your market research shows that if you close the second store, half the customers will travel to the remaining store and you will have a sustainable business, so you close the second store. That's greedy? What I said greed was, was when the winner got MORE than the fruits of his labor AT THE EXPENSE of someone else.

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Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Monday, December 21, 2009 1:00 PM

Railway Man
  You could shake it until all the stuffing came out and it would change nothing because the problem is not isolated to this office, but endemic to the entire way people in this country think about the role of the government.  You would be asking people to do something that you would then have to punish them for doing.  Basically the public does not want to make loans to the railroad industry on any sort of terms that actually are feasible.  It only wants to feel good that it has done something. 

White man still speaking with forked tongue, eh ?  Which leads to agencies that are paralyzed by the resulting schizophrenia, it would appear.

Railway Man
  [snip] Suffice it to say that in the FRA's judgement it has lots of risk if it makes a bad loan, and small risk if it doesn't make any loans.  And I think the FRA has assessed its risk with precision. 

For those who are familair with it, Tom Clancy illustrated that dynamic quite well in a long paragraph in his 'Jack Ryan' series fiction book Executive Orders (2000), in the part about how the new United Islamic Republic's religious bureaucrats bucked all non-routine questions up to the Ayatollah himself for decision.  And he wondered why he was so overburdened with seemingly trivia, to keep things from grinding to a halt. 

Note that I think the term ''public'' as you used it above and elsewhere is a 'constructive' fiction = such public is 'deemed' to exist, where none really does.  The actual public is ignorant of such things - as are most of its elected 'representatives' - except for the comparative handful in each group who have chosen or been forced to be familiar with such matters.  Heck - even among the participants in this Forum who are knowledgable or interested in such aspects of the business, who besides you even knew about the RRIF before my post about it ?  And what about the executives in the industry

But I don't fault you for using that term - someone introduced and supported the RRIF legislation, and that was the elected representatives of the 'public', after all.  After that, though, the RRIF program appears to have become an orphan of sorts.  Interesting - and disappointing - how that happens.  You would think that after the Congress went to the trouble of introducing and passing the 'enabling legislation', and then authorizing, and actually appropriating the necessary funds, that would be all that would be needed to express and implement 'the will of the 'people' - what more or else are they waiting for ?

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Posted by Railway Man on Monday, December 21, 2009 12:19 PM

Murphy Siding

Railway Man
I don't consider these potential changes in traffic to be even in the top 10 challenges, even if they do come to pass. 

      Traffic change is nothing new to railroading and it's dealt with it for more than 150 years, including the complete collapse of major industries, the global economy, and entire regions.  Railroading survived and came out stronger.  Dealing with traffic change is what we do.



    What do you see to be in the top 10 challenges?  I guess we've already seen #1 listed.  What about the other 9?

I don't know if I can come up with ten, but here are some in no particular order:

  1. Local public opposition to everything that might have the potential to negatively affect their quality of life, property values, tax burden, or way of life.  This is broad-band throughout the political, lifestyle, social, age, and ideological spectrum.  It's usually blamed on "environmentalists and yuppies" but they are actually not the worst-offenders.  This opposition makes it increasingly impossible to actually operate a railroad, much less expand or improve one.
  2. Positive Train Control post-implementation management without destroying rail capacity, reliability, and speed.  I can build a system that works on Day 1, but trying to keep it working on Days 2, 3, 4, etc., is difficult because you also want to make changes to infrastructure, equipment, operations, speeds, rules, etc., in the future.  And, you are trying to make these changes in many locations but PTC is very much a system that wants to know about everything, everywhere, in real time.
  3. Use of the freight rail system for passenger.  How much future capacity for freight are we willing to disable in order to give it to passenger?  What happens if we need it back?
  4. Land use planning. Are we going to design land-use policies that favor individual, short-term, wealth creation?  Or good of the whole economy policies?  Or what?  This very much influences what the business of America is going to be in the future.  If we choose individual wealth creation, then railway traffic will definitely decline because individuals are going to favor using free highway infrastructure over not-free rail infrastructure.

RWM

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Posted by Railway Man on Monday, December 21, 2009 12:08 PM

Paul_D_North_Jr

RWM - As usual, it appears that you are so right. 

But ''heads would have to roll'' in any outfit I ever worked for - and I'll wager you and almost everyone else here, too - if after 10-plus years, and with a staff of about 52 persons - see http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/405#IFD - barely 2 per cent of the mission or assignment had been completed ! ($700 Million / $35 Billion).  And even for the last year or so, that's been in a 'pro-stimilus funding' political environment. 

Judging from this inadequate performance, it appears that this portion of the agency - the 'Office of Railroad Development' - needs a serious shake-up, in my humble opinion.  There are too many legitimate needs for railroads to not be able to take advantage of this opportunity.  I just can't believe that all the track and bridges on all lines are capable of carrying 286,000 lb. cars or ever 315K cars, that all grade crossings are fully equipped with the appropriate protective devices, such as flashers and gates, that the CREATE plan in Chicago is now fully funded, that all the commuter agencies and Amtrak have all the equipment they need, - and of course electrification, PTC and signals generally, etc., etc. . . . Confused

- Paul North.

You could shake it until all the stuffing came out and it would change nothing because the problem is not isolated to this office, but endemic to the entire way people in this country think about the role of the government.  You would be asking people to do something that you would then have to punish them for doing.  Basically the public does not want to make loans to the railroad industry on any sort of terms that actually are feasible.  It only wants to feel good that it has done something. 

I think I'd have to digress into politics to discuss why the FRA does or doesn't do what Congress or others think it ought to or ought not to do.  Suffice it to say that in the FRA's judgement it has lots of risk if it makes a bad loan, and small risk if it doesn't make any loans.  And I think the FRA has assessed its risk with precision.

The RRIF loan law is, in plain talk, not a good method if the intent is truly to improve freight rail infrastructure in the U.S.  The outcomes the RRIF program has achieved are unsurprising.  There are probably better ways to accomplish the intent.  But there is either no support in the public for a method that actually accomplishes the intent because that creates other outcomes the public doesn't like, or, the public wants to have its cake and eat it too. 

RWM

 

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Posted by henry6 on Monday, December 21, 2009 11:53 AM

You cannot seperate "big problems" here at this time.  As a concept the problem is the whole and each part is a challenge or knot that has to be worked out.  Guage, customs, union rules, power, what would my mother say, mean nothing at this point.  Putting up arguments at this point are meaningless.  It can probably be done if it needs be done, if it could be done economically and effienently and operate the same.  So what if there are a zillion guages, all the easier to decide on one!  And of course there is al list of all the things that have to be financed.  Same with my house and my car!  You two have put up roadblocks where there is no road!  If too many people think like you, why bother thinking and trying to do anything?!!

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Posted by blownout cylinder on Monday, December 21, 2009 11:31 AM

carnej1
The big problem with this idea is the gauge break through Russia, which uses a 5 foot gauge while China and most of Europe use standard gauge..

Then add that to the list of items that'll have to be financed as well---

Then comes the dual gauge scenario----with the transfer stations and all that----OYWhistling

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Posted by carnej1 on Monday, December 21, 2009 11:22 AM

blownout cylinder

henry6
But how about a major, high speed freight railroad from China to Europe for stack container trains?

I am curious about that myself----putting aside how that is to be financed (wouldn't that be a headache!!)---what routing would you take for that? Considering that there is/are certain issues that we need avoid there---

The route that seems likely to be developed could take in what was called the 'Silk Road'. Is that at all possible though?

 The big problem with this idea is the gauge break through Russia, which uses a 5 foot gauge while China and most of Europe use standard gauge..

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Posted by Paul_D_North_Jr on Monday, December 21, 2009 11:07 AM

RWM - As usual, it appears that you are so right. 

But ''heads would have to roll'' in any outfit I ever worked for - and I'll wager you and almost everyone else here, too - if after 10-plus years, and with a staff of about 52 persons - see http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/405#IFD - barely 2 per cent of the mission or assignment had been completed ! ($700 Million / $35 Billion).  And even for the last year or so, that's been in a 'pro-stimilus funding' political environment. 

Judging from this inadequate performance, it appears that this portion of the agency - the 'Office of Railroad Development' - needs a serious shake-up, in my humble opinion.  There are too many legitimate needs for railroads to not be able to take advantage of this opportunity.  I just can't believe that all the track and bridges on all lines are capable of carrying 286,000 lb. cars or ever 315K cars, that all grade crossings are fully equipped with the appropriate protective devices, such as flashers and gates, that the CREATE plan in Chicago is now fully funded, that all the commuter agencies and Amtrak have all the equipment they need, - and of course electrification, PTC and signals generally, etc., etc. . . . Confused

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Posted by Railway Man on Saturday, December 19, 2009 3:01 PM

The RRIF program has been an imcomplete success from some points of view.  The issues with it are:

  1. If you need the money, you are probably not eligible for a loan under the terms of the law
  2. If you don't need the money, you probably don't need the loan
  3. The loan paperwork hurdles are high
  4. The FRA is a preternaturally risk-adverse agency (and not without good reason) so it is more concerned about making a loan that defaults than it is ensuring the economic health of the rail industry -- in other words, if the rail industry fails to expand or succeed economically, the FRA is unlikely to take a lot of heat, but if a loan goes bad, it's very likely that heads would have to roll.
RWM
 

 

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