Some observations from. I see new industrial parks--rail to truck distribution centers and food processing industries--being built after 1973. Rail sidings, or switches at least, pulled up by the early 2000s. Most of those rail sidings were clustered together near rail yards or anchor businesses similar to shopping malls.
Would trucking deregulation have encouraged the building of those types of transloading facilities? What I am referring to is large freight warehouses with rail siding on one side and truck loading docks on the other.
MJ4562My questions are, first, is it accurate to say more industrial sidings were abandoned during the 1970s than any other time? Second, what economic, business, regulatory, technological changes took place that drove that trend?
As a clarification of what I posted earlier, there was a significant exodus to the Sunbelt in the late 60s and 1970s that left a great many vacant, rail-served industrial buildings in the north. Cheaper labor, more moderate winters, and the proliferation of air conditioning being factors that facilitated this. Many businesses pursuing this exodus didn't bother to incorporate rail into their new facility if they had been trending away from rail anyway.
Then the transition I mentioned earlier, followed in the 1980s...
The same thing has happened in the Clearing Industrial District between 65th Street and Clearing Yard. Some industrial leads are still active but if you look around you can see remnants of what used to be there. Many of the buildings are vacant and up for lease or sale and some have been torn down. Many of the newer businesses are smaller and not rail users.
Shadow the Cats ownerThe MCA may have been offically passed in 1980 but Ford and Carter both told the ICC hands off the OTR industry in the 70's.
Price of entry to becomming an Owner Operator for OTR with all brand new equipment is less than buying a small home. Approx 30-35k for a new trailer and $150-160k for a new Peterbuilt with basic cab/sleeper arrangement. I think I read somewhere most Owner Operator OTR's that have experience can earn easily $225k a year doing long haul work.
Not any real surprise to me that OTR truckers can out complete the railroads with those numbers. Just about anyone can enter that line of business.
In regards to business railroad line depletion. Milwaukee Roads Beer Line in Milwaukee at it's peak was generating close to 300 cars a day of freight and I think that benchmark was hit during or shortly after WWII. So from that to zero, in 50 years.
But I also watched it with my own eyes starting as a kid. Milwaukee Road had most of the Menominee River Valley East of County Stadium for it's shops, freight yards, foundries, etc. They made everything there from railroad wheel sets, to trucks, to boxcars, to passenger cars, to steam locomotives. When I was a little kid I remember driving past on the freeway on the bluff overlooking the impressive operation. You could see railroad ties stacked high, new wheelsets in gondolas waiting to ship out across the system, remnants of 2 full round houses with turntables and 1 partial and a rectangular enginehouse as well. At times they had at least 75-125 locomotives in Milwaukee sitting on various tracks. I think it was a conglomeration of no less than 5 yards just in the valley. Then out of there you had more smaller yards just 3-4 miles away up the North Milwaukee Route, down the Chicago to Milwaukee route, along the beer line, etc. Still humming but at a reduced level when I was a little kid in the 1970's.
Almost all of that is gone now. Some of the buildings here and there are still standing but repurposed but most are completely gone and torn down with the real estate sold and developed by someone else.
jeffhergert BaltACD My observations were that the Class 1 carriers started discouraging their 'small' customers begining in the mid-80's after the enactment of Staggers and putting 'bean counters' on the case to do cost/benefit analysis of virtually all customers - those that did meet the carriers cut off were pressured in a variety of ways to find other means for their transportation needs. Through 1970's and into the 1980's the Halethorpe section of Baltimore B&O/CSX had a industrial area that aggregated about 100 cars a day - inbound and outbound to service one large customer and about 15 smaller customers. Sometime during the 1980's or early 90's the large customer entered bankruptsy and went out of business, a brewery changed hands several times and then was closed. The remaining car or 4 a day customers were discouraged from having rail carload service (some may have used intermodal). When my employment returned me to that area in 2008, instead of the area being serviced by round the clock switching crews on a M-F basis that were headquartered on site, the area was served by a engine with 2 or 3 cars coming from Curtis Bay yard 'on demand' no more frequently than 2 or 3 times a week - some times several weeks between service being 'demanded'. While the class ones have done a stellar job of driving off business they don't want, one other truth gets overlooked. A lot of that industry isn't there anymore. Often facilities have been removed has industry have closed higher cost facilities and production moved to cheaper areas. Others because of outright consolidation within an industry. One company buys another and consolidates production in cheaper locations. First other states, and then out of the country. Looking at a UP zone-track-spot map for Omaha shows a spider web of industrial trackage (Some of which I question if it even exists) with many spurs marked "vacant" as to the industry located there. Looking at old photos (See the one recently in the Classic Trains forum http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/283728.aspx) compared to what's there now and it's amazing what's gone. Jeff
BaltACD My observations were that the Class 1 carriers started discouraging their 'small' customers begining in the mid-80's after the enactment of Staggers and putting 'bean counters' on the case to do cost/benefit analysis of virtually all customers - those that did meet the carriers cut off were pressured in a variety of ways to find other means for their transportation needs. Through 1970's and into the 1980's the Halethorpe section of Baltimore B&O/CSX had a industrial area that aggregated about 100 cars a day - inbound and outbound to service one large customer and about 15 smaller customers. Sometime during the 1980's or early 90's the large customer entered bankruptsy and went out of business, a brewery changed hands several times and then was closed. The remaining car or 4 a day customers were discouraged from having rail carload service (some may have used intermodal). When my employment returned me to that area in 2008, instead of the area being serviced by round the clock switching crews on a M-F basis that were headquartered on site, the area was served by a engine with 2 or 3 cars coming from Curtis Bay yard 'on demand' no more frequently than 2 or 3 times a week - some times several weeks between service being 'demanded'.
My observations were that the Class 1 carriers started discouraging their 'small' customers begining in the mid-80's after the enactment of Staggers and putting 'bean counters' on the case to do cost/benefit analysis of virtually all customers - those that did meet the carriers cut off were pressured in a variety of ways to find other means for their transportation needs. Through 1970's and into the 1980's the Halethorpe section of Baltimore B&O/CSX had a industrial area that aggregated about 100 cars a day - inbound and outbound to service one large customer and about 15 smaller customers. Sometime during the 1980's or early 90's the large customer entered bankruptsy and went out of business, a brewery changed hands several times and then was closed. The remaining car or 4 a day customers were discouraged from having rail carload service (some may have used intermodal). When my employment returned me to that area in 2008, instead of the area being serviced by round the clock switching crews on a M-F basis that were headquartered on site, the area was served by a engine with 2 or 3 cars coming from Curtis Bay yard 'on demand' no more frequently than 2 or 3 times a week - some times several weeks between service being 'demanded'.
While the class ones have done a stellar job of driving off business they don't want, one other truth gets overlooked. A lot of that industry isn't there anymore. Often facilities have been removed has industry have closed higher cost facilities and production moved to cheaper areas. Others because of outright consolidation within an industry. One company buys another and consolidates production in cheaper locations. First other states, and then out of the country.
Looking at a UP zone-track-spot map for Omaha shows a spider web of industrial trackage (Some of which I question if it even exists) with many spurs marked "vacant" as to the industry located there. Looking at old photos (See the one recently in the Classic Trains forum http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/283728.aspx) compared to what's there now and it's amazing what's gone.
Jeff
As I mentioned, the largest customer in that area went bankrupt on its own business model - that was a food distribution warehouse that handled about 50 cars a day. The 2nd biggest customer was a brewery that was good for about 10 cars a day - through various change of hands that brewery capacity was moved to Allentown, PA and the brewery property was sold to a construction supply company that does business with only trucks. The 12 or so other industries on the lead between those two industries slowly went their own way - be that to trucks or to out of business. How much railroad policy had in those industries decisions of how they transported their ware or how they departed the business - I have no idea.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
My observations were that the Class 1 carriers started discouraging their 'small' customers begining in the mid-80's after the enactment of Staggers and putting 'bean counters' on the case to do cost/benefit analysis of virtually all customers - those that did meet the carriers cut off were pressured in a variety of ways to find other means for their transportation needs.
Through 1970's and into the 1980's the Halethorpe section of Baltimore B&O/CSX had a industrial area that aggregated about 100 cars a day - inbound and outbound to service one large customer and about 15 smaller customers. Sometime during the 1980's or early 90's the large customer entered bankruptsy and went out of business, a brewery changed hands several times and then was closed. The remaining car or 4 a day customers were discouraged from having rail carload service (some may have used intermodal). When my employment returned me to that area in 2008, instead of the area being serviced by round the clock switching crews on a M-F basis that were headquartered on site, the area was served by a engine with 2 or 3 cars coming from Curtis Bay yard 'on demand' no more frequently than 2 or 3 times a week - some times several weeks between service being 'demanded'.
The MCA may have been offically passed in 1980 but Ford and Carter both told the ICC hands off the OTR industry in the 70's. Why due to the collaspe of the RR's in the NE with all the bankrupcies the OTR side of the logistics train was about the only thing still getting stuff moved. In 77 Carter forbade the ICC from stopping new carriers from getting authority to serve any customers yes they still had to follow the rate protocols until 78 in place any carrier could service any customer they wanted. Then 1980 hit and it was game on. My late FIL was a driver in this timeframe saw the writing on the wall and left his Union job for a non union carrier. His earnings doubled why his boss was one of the smart ones got into a place undercut the Union place and got a long term contract and grew his carrier. You know all those Blue silos that are used to store feed on farms. My late FIL hauled those all over the USA. American Havester was the name on them and he delivered right to the farm for them. Then would bring back parts for the next batch.
MJ4562I recall seeing comments in the forums aluding to the 1970s as a time when smaller shippers pulled up their rail sidings in large numbers. That appears to align with my observations as I recall seeing many abandoned sidings in the late 1970s - early 1980s. Mostly they were lumberyards, light industrial shops and freight forwarding warehouses where I live in central Texas. My questions are, first, is it accurate to say more industrial sidings were abandoned during the 1970s than any other time? Second, what economic, business, regulatory, technological changes took place that drove that trend? The common response is usually trucks, however, trucks had been around for 50 years at that point, so why then? Also with the fuel crisis I would think rail would be more desirable. Anyway, looking forward to any insights railroaders or shippers have as to this. Thanks.
My questions are, first, is it accurate to say more industrial sidings were abandoned during the 1970s than any other time? Second, what economic, business, regulatory, technological changes took place that drove that trend?
The common response is usually trucks, however, trucks had been around for 50 years at that point, so why then? Also with the fuel crisis I would think rail would be more desirable. Anyway, looking forward to any insights railroaders or shippers have as to this. Thanks.
MJ4562 is it accurate to say more industrial sidings were abandoned during the 1970s than any other time?
"Rail Served" was still a valuable marketing angle for industrial buildings, at least until the start of the 1990s. As more business shifted to truck, many businesses that only ocassionally used rail were daunted as the railroads started sending demand letters for "switch maintenance" fees often in the five figure range. IF the end user wished to stay online, they were expected to pay.
For those who chose to not pay, it was usually about a year later that the switch disappeared. At least that was my experience with SP.
Those who did not pay, lost their connection. I think it was at that point that many businesses started ripping up their already disconnected sidings, trying to find an alternate productive use for the land.
Shadow; the MCA was enacted in 1980 - more or less concurrent with the partial deregulation of rail by the Staggers Act.
I'd say the recession in the 1982 time frame that absolutely hammered the steel industry in the US and the resulting closure of many integrated mills was probably the largest single loss of business and industrial sidings in a relatively short period of time.
Curt
In 1976 the MCA passed the prevented the ICC from regulating the rates and routes of the Interstate OTR carriers of this nation. That meant any carrier could compete for freight with any other company as long as they had the equipment to do so. It also caused a lot of the larger Teamster carriers to go belly up as their freight base was taken by non union carriers that could haul it cheaper and the Teamsters refusing to allow for more flexible work rules. Just look at the LTL carrier market of today. Roadway and ABF are both Union and Roadway is struggling to compete against XPO FedEx Ground and other Non Union carriers.
I recall seeing comments in the forums aluding to the 1970s as a time when smaller shippers pulled up their rail sidings in large numbers. That appears to align with my observations as I recall seeing many abandoned sidings in the late 1970s - early 1980s. Mostly they were lumberyards, light industrial shops and freight forwarding warehouses where I live in central Texas.
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