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Nationalized trucking company?

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Posted by zugmann on Thursday, July 2, 2020 10:51 AM

daveklepper
I also believe that USA freight railroading is an excellent example of Socially Responsible Capitalism, not perfect, but generally good, with the tilt more towards the Socially Responsible before HH, and still very strong at BNSF.  And it is dominated by the big seven.  But there are successful regionals and shortlines as well.

"Before HH".  You said it. For an industry that doesn't want regulation, they're sure doing their best to invite regulation with their current path of operations.  

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Thursday, July 2, 2020 12:19 PM

Convicted One
 
Murphy Siding
But what options did they have? Ship with big company at a fixed price set by the government or ship on a smaller firm for the exact same rate.

 

Thus potentially avoiding an industry comprised of players deemed  "too big to fail"?.........Whistling

At least in the regulated model, the operation is supported by the end user. Whereas in the "too big to fail" model, we know who gets stuck holding the bag.Mischief.....fast forward to today.

I guess trying to get back on track, do you think the government will ever be able to sell it's stake in YRC, or are were stuck there? It would be interesting to see another "Conrail" type thing, but would  the gov't have to first  own it all to do such a thing?

 

I suppose that that same people that convinced the powers that be to make the loan could also be expected to work on having the loan forgiven. something, something, Conrail. Whistling

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Posted by Convicted One on Thursday, July 2, 2020 12:28 PM

Murphy Siding
the powers that be to make the loan could also be expected to work on having the loan forgiven

 

The nearly 30% stake in the business, secures the loan. I was just contemplating whether they can ever expect to get that money back, through stock sales?

Perhaps a gold old fashioned "robber barron" ploy is in order? First dash the organization to the rocks destroying stock value. Then collect the cinders, gaining full ownership...rebuild the business.....and then have an IPO?  Devil 

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Posted by BaltACD on Thursday, July 2, 2020 12:51 PM

Convicted One
 
Murphy Siding
the powers that be to make the loan could also be expected to work on having the loan forgiven 

The nearly 30% stake in the business, secures the loan. I was just contemplating whether they can ever expect to get that money back, through stock sales?

Perhaps a gold old fashioned "robber barron" ploy is in order? First dash the organization to the rocks destroying stock value. Then collect the cinders, gaining full ownership...rebuild the business.....and then have an IPO?  Devil 

Predator capitalism.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Thursday, July 2, 2020 1:41 PM

Convicted One
 
Murphy Siding
the powers that be to make the loan could also be expected to work on having the loan forgiven

 

 

The nearly 30% stake in the business, secures the loan. I was just contemplating whether they can ever expect to get that money back, through stock sales?

Secure for what? Uncle Sam isn't going to foreclose on the loan. In order to do that, the 30% stakeholder probably has to buy out the other 70%. You're thinking too small and too narrow. I say, someone makes a pitch that the company is too big/ too important to fail and the only way to keep it viable is to have the loan written off.

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Posted by BaltACD on Thursday, July 2, 2020 2:34 PM

Murphy Siding
 
Convicted One 
Murphy Siding
the powers that be to make the loan could also be expected to work on having the loan forgiven 

The nearly 30% stake in the business, secures the loan. I was just contemplating whether they can ever expect to get that money back, through stock sales? 

Secure for what? Uncle Sam isn't going to foreclose on the loan. In order to do that, the 30% stakeholder probably has to buy out the other 70%. You're thinking too small and too narrow. I say, someone makes a pitch that the company is too big/ too important to fail and the only way to keep it viable is to have the loan written off.

I believe Mantle Ridge only 'owned' 7 or 8% of CSX when they facilitated the takeover on early 2017.

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Posted by Convicted One on Thursday, July 2, 2020 3:42 PM

BaltACD
Predator capitalism.

 

Okay, so we might have to veneer it with a cause celebre. 

How about rebuilding the entire organization from the ground up, with  diversity as the main mission statement?   We can promote stock ownership as being "socially responsible".

I think a lot of people would want to buy in. We would need an inspiring 21st century name that sells itself. I'm open to ideas.

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Posted by Murphy Siding on Thursday, July 2, 2020 3:54 PM

Convicted One
 
BaltACD
Predator capitalism.

 

 

Okay, so we might have to veneer it with a cause celebre. 

How about rebuilding the entire organization from the ground up, with  diversity as the main mission statement?   We can promote stock ownership as being "socially responsible".

I think a lot of people would want to buy in. We would need an inspiring 21st century name that sells itself. I'm open to ideas.

 

Is Contruck already taken? Mischief

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, July 2, 2020 4:10 PM

Murphy Siding
Is Contruck already taken?

Aw, Murph, you missed it.

The name you want for it is obviously 'Contrail'.

(The specialized hazmat business unit is of course 'Chemtrail'. Mischief)

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Posted by greyhounds on Thursday, July 2, 2020 4:13 PM

Convicted One
But, if you look at Greyhound's intial post, he mentions  larger carriers who survived de-regulation, while many smaller LTL outfits got wiped away. So to me, anyway, it sounds like regulations that kept smaller operators in business, were preserving options in the market place. Preventing the ruthless 2% from becoming the Tyranosaurus Rex of trucking.  Maybe that's not the message he was trying to get across, but that is the way it read to me.  

Well, you read it wrong.  Here's what I said:

"Roadway and Yellow combined their companies and survived, barely.  Other LTL carriers died like flies with trucking deregulation.  They simply could not compete while saddled with their inefficient, government designed, operations."

I made no mention of small carrier survival vs large carrier survival.  LTL truckers of all sizes died like flies because they were all saddled with the same type of goverment designed and imposed inefficient structure.  Yellow and Roadway combined and barely survived.  But a lot of LTL trucking giants didn't.  Consolidated Freightways, Carolina, Preston, Spector Red Ball, System 99, and P.I.E. are just a few of the big guys that couldn't make it through deregulation.  On the other side, some smaller LTL carriers such as Old Dominion and Saia have been able to prosper and grow with deregulation.  It really had little or nothing to do with size.  It was about adaptability and efficiency.  Capitalism at its best. 

You seem to think that the forced cartelization of LTL trucking produced and protected "Options" for the customers.  But cartels aren't set up for customers' benefits.  They're set up to benefit the producers, in this case the trucking companies.  Cartels eliminate or severely limit customer options.  That's their purpose.  The government idiots created an LTL system based on cartels.  They enforced those cartels via very misguided Federal law.  Competition within the cartel was not allowed.  If a would be trucker was not in the cartel it was bared from competing, period.  That's not ensuring "Options."  It was certainly a dead weight on our economy.  And that hurt the American people.

Of course illegal competition within the cartels existed.  Kickbacks, bribes, ladies of the evening, etc. were all provided.  Hell, one shipper logistics guy in Louisville, KY had his house remodeled by cartel truckers.  He was found out and he did go to prison.  He got way too greedy.  None of this illegal competition.came though as benificial to the American people in terms of lower logistics cost.  Which it would have done absent economic regulation. 

We've now had about 4 decades of experience with deregualtion.  Across the board, with railroads, truckers, and airlines it caused charges to go down.  There has been no exploitive concentration in LTL trucking, as you are wont to believe.  Allow the markets to work and we'll get a better outcome.  Not a perfect outcome, that's impossible.  But certainly a better outcome. 

"By many measures, the U.S. freight rail system is the safest, most efficient and cost effective in the world." - Federal Railroad Administration, October, 2009. I'm just your average, everyday, uncivilized howling "anti-government" critic of mass government expenditures for "High Speed Rail" in the US. And I'm gosh darn proud of that.
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Posted by CatFoodFlambe on Thursday, July 2, 2020 6:10 PM
I was an operations manager for a major LTL company for 12 years in the 1980’s and 90’s before I saw the writing on the wall and changed careers. Very simply, YRC is a dead duck – had this not been an election year with a incumbent administration that’s also in desperate straits, YRC would most likely announced their shutdown yesterday. The likely outcome is that this move just postpones the inevitable until after the election while YRC tries in vain for a miracle. The “government equity stake” just makes sure that Uncle Sam gets a fast pass for any sale proceeds or in the creditor’s line. Unionized trucking cost structures are simply too high to be profitable – and the market available to LTL truckers is shrinking from both ends from parcel carriers (UPS, Fedex Ground), and anything that takes up more than a third of a trailerload is open to poaching by truckload carriers.
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Posted by Flintlock76 on Thursday, July 2, 2020 6:39 PM

Overmod
The name you want for it is obviously 'Contrail'.

Nah, wouldn't work.  Not only is a contrail the vapor condensed by aircraft at altitude, it's also what a bloodhound follows after a jailbreak.  Whistling

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Posted by Deggesty on Thursday, July 2, 2020 7:43 PM

Flintlock76

 

 
Overmod
The name you want for it is obviously 'Contrail'.

 

Nah, wouldn't work.  Not only is a contrail the vapor condensed by aircraft at altitude, it's also what a bloodhound follows after a jailbreak.  Whistling

 

Wayne, have you been taking lessons from Carl, or you doing this on your own? (contrail)

Johnny

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Posted by mudchicken on Thursday, July 2, 2020 7:49 PM
Q - Is this how the Army is going to deliver all the vaccine for COVID-19 at the end of the year? Buy a trucking company or two? Just askin. (And I know the story about the Army trying to deliver air-mail just short of 100 years ago)
Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by samfp1943 on Thursday, July 2, 2020 11:23 PM

mudchicken

   Q - Is this how the Army is going to deliver all the vaccine for COVID-19 at the end of the year? Buy a trucking company or two? Just askin. (And I know the story about the Army trying to deliver air-mail just short of 100 years ago)

M.C.   Pray for Snow.... Might be able to run a 'Lower48' version of the Idiatrod vaccine delivery race?Whistling

 

 


 

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Posted by Overmod on Friday, July 3, 2020 12:40 AM

samfp1943
M.C.   Pray for Snow.... Might be able to run a 'Lower48' version of the Iditarod vaccine delivery race?

It wasn't a vaccine, it was a serum.  But I've seen heaven knows how many weird Israeli-type proposals to refine sera containing some kind of acquired immune factors to use as treatments for COVID-19, so it looks as if history might emulate art for this proposal.

And where we're going, we not only don't need roads, we don't need snow.  Canadians probably already know about the summertime secret weapon for their national sport (I actually had a hand in this development) ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJm7mzCBTc

... just turn the stuff upside-down and line the runners and off you mush!!

 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Friday, July 3, 2020 8:38 AM

Deggesty
Wayne, have you been taking lessons from Carl, or you doing this on your own? (contrail)

Carl Reiner?  Wow, that's quite a compliment!  The man was a comic genius!

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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Friday, July 3, 2020 9:11 AM
 

The combination that should have never happened.. Yellow, and Roadway .. Combining into YRC created no synergy. There were too many overlapping lanes, cross docks, etc. in this combination along with an expensive operation structure as Greyhounds pointed out.  YRC is the Penn Central of trucking.. If not for goverment equity keeping them afloat, the same outcome as PC would transpire..

 
 
 
 
 
Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
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Posted by MarknLisa on Friday, July 3, 2020 10:04 AM

Murphy Siding

     I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide if the phrase is "bare with me" or "bear with me". Then I started thinking about bears,and  then I remembered that I need a vacation. Sigh

 

 

I believe "Bare with me" would mean, "Let's get nekkid"!

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Posted by jeffhergert on Friday, July 3, 2020 10:24 AM

My late uncle drove for PIE.  He retired a few years before they went under.  He could see things starting to go downhill.  He told me they (PIE) was looking forward to deregulation.  He never said that was the problem, but changes in ownership and management and some of their decisions that didn't work led to problems.  The merger with Ryder didn't help, but made things worse. 

Jeff

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Posted by SD60MAC9500 on Friday, July 3, 2020 12:15 PM
 

Give this a read

 
Rahhhhhhhhh!!!!
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Posted by Shadow the Cats owner on Friday, July 3, 2020 12:27 PM

The biggest issue with YRC can be summed up with one word.  That word is the TEAMSTERS.  To say that their labor costs are out of balance an understatement.  Their last contract with the Teamsters Union was a freaking Joke.  The average driver that is in the bottom 25% is automatically bringing home a NET wage of 1K a week.  All they have to do is be ready and able to work.  They do not have to even turn a mile for them to get that wage.  Their team truck drivers from what I have been told average close to 200K each in wages a year.  Why the pay for them is full rate for every mile that the truck rolls when the industry standard is to split the pay as normally for 50% of the time you have one driver sleeping.  That is unless you are CR England and have 3 people in the truck and have them rolling 24/7 where 2 of the drivers are TRAINEES and one of the drivers is a trainer most of which have just 6 months in the seat time total.   

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Posted by BaltACD on Friday, July 3, 2020 1:38 PM

Shadow the Cats owner
The biggest issue with YRC can be summed up with one word.  That word is the TEAMSTERS.  To say that their labor costs are out of balance an understatement.  Their last contract with the Teamsters Union was a freaking Joke.  The average driver that is in the bottom 25% is automatically bringing home a NET wage of 1K a week.  All they have to do is be ready and able to work.  They do not have to even turn a mile for them to get that wage.  Their team truck drivers from what I have been told average close to 200K each in wages a year.  Why the pay for them is full rate for every mile that the truck rolls when the industry standard is to split the pay as normally for 50% of the time you have one driver sleeping.  That is unless you are CR England and have 3 people in the truck and have them rolling 24/7 where 2 of the drivers are TRAINEES and one of the drivers is a trainer most of which have just 6 months in the seat time total.   

From your outrage at drivers being PAID, I would surmize that you view povertly line level wages as being adequate for mere drivers.

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Posted by jeffhergert on Friday, July 3, 2020 1:49 PM

Shadow the Cats owner

The biggest issue with YRC can be summed up with one word.  That word is the TEAMSTERS.  To say that their labor costs are out of balance an understatement.  Their last contract with the Teamsters Union was a freaking Joke.  The average driver that is in the bottom 25% is automatically bringing home a NET wage of 1K a week.  All they have to do is be ready and able to work.  They do not have to even turn a mile for them to get that wage.  Their team truck drivers from what I have been told average close to 200K each in wages a year.  Why the pay for them is full rate for every mile that the truck rolls when the industry standard is to split the pay as normally for 50% of the time you have one driver sleeping.  That is unless you are CR England and have 3 people in the truck and have them rolling 24/7 where 2 of the drivers are TRAINEES and one of the drivers is a trainer most of which have just 6 months in the seat time total.   

 

Aside from the fact it would be hard to say what an individual's net pay is, the rest sounds like a gauranteed extra board.  Something the railroads also have.  And if you're on the extra board, stay marked up and don't get called, you get paid the gauranteed amount.

Jeff 

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Posted by Shadow the Cats owner on Friday, July 3, 2020 4:15 PM

I work in the same industry but in a truckload non union carrier.  My drivers are paid per mile driven all miles that they turn based on Practical miles not Rand McNally HHG.  If we in the office DON'T do our jobs of finding loads for our drivers we as a carrier can not make money.  We do not have drivers that sit at home because they are extra.  We are one of the highest paying carriers in the area only Air Products and DD Express in a 40 mile radius pays more on average. DD BTW was started after CF closed by a former driver of theirs and he sold the place to the employees and they have made a fortune taking over the LTL market in this area to the point both YRC and ABF the last 2 nationwide carriers of LTL pulled out of this area.  Why they could not compete on service that these drivers offer.  YRC last year asked for concessions to try and cut costs.  The Teamsters told them to shove it sideways.  Well if YRC does collaspe and shuts down I hope they enjoy the unemployment line they will end up on.  YRC's is actually over 100% in debt to value with the Federal Loan.  They are worth less than how much in debt they owe.  They have a market cap of just over 1.2 Billion and owe now 1.5 Billion with over 800 Million due next year alone and from what I have heard from a couple EX YRC drivers that came here after retirement after the Teamsters Pension fund collasped for them.  That 800 Million can not be restructed and has to be repaid in FULL or the creditor can shut the company down.

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Posted by CatFoodFlambe on Friday, July 3, 2020 4:53 PM

It wasn't so much the wage as it was the benefits.    When I left the business in 1994, you could retire after 30 years with what would today be a $42K per year pension and free health care benefits - for life.    if you started out as a dock worker (as I did in college) at 18, you could achieve this at age 48.  In fairness, 30 years in that lifestyle and your body was READY for retirement.       

The work rules resulted in companies needing five workers to do the work of four elsehwere - if a "road man" hit the terminal while you scrambling to meet six outbound departure time, the road man hit the clock and sat down at what would now be about $26.00 an hour while we had to have a "local man" stop what he was doing, perform the drop and hook (always fun with double pups) and fuel the tractor. Quite a bit of this has been modified in past contracts,but it certainly contributed to the rapid demise of the unionized side of the business years ago before all involved realized the party was over. 

Still - I could make enough slinging freight and pumping diesel fuel on weekends  at $13.80 an hour in 1980 to pay my college tuition and living expenses.    Those were the days. 

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Posted by Backshop on Friday, July 3, 2020 5:34 PM

CFF, the trucking/warehousing industry has changed from a middle class career to a working class grind.

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Posted by zugmann on Friday, July 3, 2020 6:32 PM

BaltACD
From your outrage at drivers being PAID, I would surmize that you view povertly line level wages as being adequate for mere drivers.

How dare people expect to be paid a fair wage.  They should be poor and quiet! 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any

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Posted by zugmann on Friday, July 3, 2020 6:33 PM

Shadow the Cats owner
The biggest issue with YRC can be summed up with one word.  That word is the TEAMSTERS.  To say that their labor costs are out of balance an understatement.  Their last contract with the Teamsters Union was a freaking Joke.  The average driver that is in the bottom 25% is automatically bringing home a NET wage of 1K a week.  All they have to do is be ready and able to work.  They do not have to even turn a mile for them to get that wage.  Their team truck drivers from what I have been told average close to 200K each in wages a year.  Why the pay for them is full rate for every mile that the truck rolls when the industry standard is to split the pay as normally for 50% of the time you have one driver sleeping.  That is unless you are CR England and have 3 people in the truck and have them rolling 24/7 where 2 of the drivers are TRAINEES and one of the drivers is a trainer most of which have just 6 months in the seat time total.   

You really have issues about people making money.  Envious? 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any

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Posted by SD70Dude on Friday, July 3, 2020 6:41 PM

CatFoodFlambe

It wasn't so much the wage as it was the benefits.    When I left the business in 1994, you could retire after 30 years with what would today be a $42K per year pension and free health care benefits - for life.    if you started out as a dock worker (as I did in college) at 18, you could achieve this at age 48.  In fairness, 30 years in that lifestyle and your body was READY for retirement.       

That's essentially what Canadian railroaders have today, but you have to be at least 55 before retiring (your mileage may vary south of the border).  I can't imagine that trucking employees have a much easier job than us either.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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