Open Access, How Would it be Established and Administered?

[daveklepper]

Because of the very real and forseeable problems that would arrive with the open access implemented, and so far there are zero answers to the down-to-earth problems I and others have stated, I think general open access is a very, very bad idea indeed. Just as bad as driving Amtrak into banckrupcy and hoping something out of thin air will emerge that is better. Just as plain stupid, in my opinion.

HOWEVER!!!! That does not rule out open access completely. Indeed, open access in a limited way is what Conrail Shared Assetts is about. And there may be specific situations, possibly even the Houston Chemical area trackage or similar situations, where the local industries can raise the capital, buy the trackage from the current owners, and establish a switching district that can be accessed by every railroad abutting the district, either by its own trackage or trackage rights. If this system works in small area, then some of the problems I mentioned might be worked-out practically, and with that experience, it might be possible to extend the concept to larger areas, and again if practical solutions to the problems are found, eventually the railroad system could become open access. But until their practical solutions to the very practical problems I and others on this thread have seen, a general open access would be a very bad idea indeed. Penn Central merger and UP meltdown ten times worse!

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I have fallen in with the Hemphill/Kaufman/etal. clique because they look for practical answers to practical problems. "Open Access" has often been used as a cover for looking for a better rate, usually by utilities who are constrained by the fact that they can't shut down their business and move somewhere else.

As daveklepper has noted in the above post, a variation of open access already exists in terminal areas with operations such as Conrail Shared Assets, BRC, PTRA, and various other joint terminal operations. Most of them exist for practical operational reasons, not by regulatory order in order to foster competition. Because of this, I don't think that the success or failure of open access can be extrapolated from these examples.

Open Access sounds good on paper, but I think that it would create more problems than it would solve.

[Anonymous]

Isn't there something to be said for good old private property? Like in owning your own home? Has been one of the underpinnings of a general stability through time.

[Junctionfan]

Sometimes sharing space/property is better than sole ownership/consolidation.

Look at owning your own home versus a condo and compare the likeness to open access (my version). If you look at condos, mulitple people can live in the same building and share the costs. Sole ownership means you pay for and maintain everything on your own.

An alliance of rail users for 1 line is a great way of conserving money and sharing the costs. Keep in mind; I am a firm believer in only licenced rail entities should be allowed to use that kind of line (ie shortlines, industries-short distance switching (steel mills-blast furnace to slag dump), class 1s, passenger/ commuter ).

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Bad analogy by Junctionfan. In a condominium, the owner owns his individual unit, which is not shared by anyone else and for which he alone is responsible, and has a fractional share in the common areas, which are administered by the building association. The closest analogy to the common areas would be the jointly owned terminal railroad, such as BRC, with the individual units being comparable to BRC's six owner roads.

[Anonymous]

It is not logical to compare private property ownership of a home or brick and mortar business with the private property ownership of transportation infrastructure. It is precisely the proprietary owner-operator setup of the nation's rail network that is causing problems for U.S. shippers relative to their foreign counterparts. All transportation corridors in the U.S. sans the rail network are publicly owned open access corridors. Because the proprietary rail ownership causes higher rates and less incentive for innovation than would otherwise occur under an open access system, it is forcing more companies to either shift to trucks, move overseas, or shut down all together. Added to that is the reality that many proposals for new production and manufacturing facilities in the U.S. stay mothballed because these investors don't want to put up with the hassles of monopolistic pricing practices. What logical industrial investor would want to deal with the rail oligarchy today?

Rather than creating more problems than it sovles, the body of evidence regarding the state of U.S. manufacturing and production, and the needlessly higher shipping costs for U.S. firms relative to overseas firms, it is axiomatic that some kind of open access rail system in the U.S. would solve a whole slew of problems. You need to look at these things from the perspective of what's good for the nation as a whole (and by inclusion the future of the rail industry), not just what's ostensibly good for the current rail oligarchy. As has been stated before, the pool of captive rail shippers can only shrink over time because only a fool would construct a new industrial plant with access to only one Class I, and since the merger option has been pretty well maxed, what other options does the rail industry have for improving ROI's?

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'm just on a different page. I look at a supermarket. It's privately owned. The population of a good-sized city walks through its doors each week. Almost all of what it offers is available elsewhere through internet ordering. It's got to serve its customers to make itself successful. What is it about a railroad that is so much different? How long does a "customer" have to exist to be deemed "captive"?

[Anonymous]

Here's a solution. Tax all railroad proerty and fuel and labor out of existence. Then the govenrment (local, county, state ,federal, take you pick) can mop up the unused rights of way for a song. (we won't discuss inverse condemnation here). Then with all the relatively flat and fairly wide rights of way, roadways can be constructed and restricted to only trucks. Extra long combination vehicles can be accomodated on these highways thus freeing the interstates for the passenger autos. These former rail routes serve industries directly, and old railyards can be paved into transfer areas, where the long combination vehicles can be split into single vehicles for local deliveries. Jurisdiction of these new roads will be under the FHWA just like any other highway.

Now you have most of the trucks off the interstates, Ma & Pa shippers would have access to anyone with a tractor. and the rates MUST go down, as there would be hundreds of people aggressively seeking everyone's business.

[daveklepper]

Judging by what has happened to Amtrak funding, and again, I believe that long distance cruise trains like the Capitol Limited, the Sunset, and the CZ are essential for an important if small segment of the American people, can we just imagene how the infrastructure would be maintained if the Government owned the right of ways for open access?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tomtrain

Maybe I'm just on a different page. I look at a supermarket. It's privately owned. The population of a good-sized city walks through its doors each week. Almost all of what it offers is available elsewhere through internet ordering. It's got to serve its customers to make itself successful. What is it about a railroad that is so much different? How long does a "customer" have to exist to be deemed "captive"?

The market for constructing and/or closing supermarkets is elastic. New stores are popping up all the time, and at the same time other stores are closing. It is the epitome of the free market.

The market for constructing and/or closing railroads is inelastic. It is nearly impossible, both financially and jurisdictionally, to construct new railroads. It is up to the discretion of the STB if an owner can close a railroad. Because of this inelasticity, the few remaining owners of railroads can extract monopolistic pricing practices unavailable to other markets, including other transportation modes. That makes shippers who otherwise are logical rail shippers captive to that particular mode if they want to be competitive with other like businesses. When railroads raise rates by triple digits or cut back on service to logical rail shippers, it causes an unnatural shift in economic variables to less than perferable alternatives (from the standpoint of national interests). If the preferable alternatives are a shift to less economical transportation modes, shut down, and/or a move overseas, then clearly it ends up hurting the U.S. economy and contributing to the imbalance of trade.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There are better alternatives for curing the railroad ROI problem than to allow monopolistic retrenchment of the industry. Taking the sole responsibility of infrastructure costs away from the rail service providers and fostering that cost onto the public in some way (public/private consortiums, exemption of property tax liability, maintenance tax credits, access to infrastructure trust funding), and then allowing rail service providers the full risks and benefits of head to head competition nationwide would be a better way of addressing the ROI problem without sticking it to rail shippers.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jwieczorek

Here's a solution. Tax all railroad proerty and fuel and labor out of existence. Then the govenrment (local, county, state ,federal, take you pick) can mop up the unused rights of way for a song. (we won't discuss inverse condemnation here). Then with all the relatively flat and fairly wide rights of way, roadways can be constructed and restricted to only trucks. Extra long combination vehicles can be accomodated on these highways thus freeing the interstates for the passenger autos. These former rail routes serve industries directly, and old railyards can be paved into transfer areas, where the long combination vehicles can be split into single vehicles for local deliveries. Jurisdiction of these new roads will be under the FHWA just like any other highway.

Now you have most of the trucks off the interstates, Ma & Pa shippers would have access to anyone with a tractor. and the rates MUST go down, as there would be hundreds of people aggressively seeking everyone's business.

Not a bad suggestion[:-,], except that railroads are still more efficient ways of moving multiple boxes between points at speed, so it would make more sense to leave the rails in place. Until someone invents the self steering trailer wheelset, you can't have more than 5 or so trailers behind a cab unit, because of the tendency to pull the consist inward during curving. Also, rails have the greater potential for safe speeds above 100 mph, whereas those speeds on highways would not pass the safety test for tonnage.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

Judging by what has happened to Amtrak funding, and again, I believe that long distance cruise trains like the Capitol Limited, the Sunset, and the CZ are essential for an important if small segment of the American people, can we just imagene how the infrastructure would be maintained if the Government owned the right of ways for open access?

Highways are a portion of the infrastructure maintained by the government, and yet we have private passenger services on highways. Waterways are a portion of the infrastructure maintained by government, and yet we have private passenger services on waterways. No one has yet made an argument that government couldn't do at least a palatable job of maintaining rail infrastructure, if indeed that is the preferable alternative to continued private ownership of an open access rail system.

[Junctionfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH

Bad analogy by Junctionfan. In a condominium, the owner owns his individual unit, which is not shared by anyone else and for which he alone is responsible, and has a fractional share in the common areas, which are administered by the building association. The closest analogy to the common areas would be the jointly owned terminal railroad, such as BRC, with the individual units being comparable to BRC's six owner roads.

I know it sounds like a stretch but really it is like this.

1/ Individual property (condo-unit) or (open access line-railroads own locomotives/ equipment and individual's lines connecting to the line like apartment connecting to a hall way.

2/ One railroad who operates the most trains shall be controller (super or landlord) and is entitled to rent for use of maintainance and operation.

3/ Although individual railroads operate as seperate trains, all trains must abide to rules of the lease or may be evicted in concerns with failing to pay rent

My idea for the line uses the basic principles of running a condo or apartment building.

[daveklepper]

Highways and to some extent the waterways have an added layer of police and beurocracy to pay to make it work.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

It appears that the concept of open access being predicated on this thread is also meant to keep every last mile of track in place, whether it still serves a useful economic function or not. It has been argued that many railroads should never have built in the first place, the Chicago Great Western being one example. Open access would keep a lot of unnecessary track in place but it might be questionable whether any operators would want to use that track.

[daveklepper]

In the end, because of the problems noted, it would make railroads less competitive with trucking rather than more.

What shippers in an area with monopolistic pricing should do, if the problem is really serious and they do not wi***o relocate, is:

1. In a body, approach the railroad management and point out that the RR will loose all the business, if the business that is paying the freight closes, relocates, or uses trucking!

2. Investigate costs of building the connection with the nearest competitive railroad and approach that railroad to see if it makes economic sense for the shippers, again as a group, to share costs with the railroad on building the connection.

I believe this a very practical way to appraoch the problem. In step 1, don't mention the possibility of building the connection, the railroad can figure that alternative out for themselves and there is no point in creating needless hostility, and besides it would start their legal group working to figure out what they could do to get objections filed, their own and people along the possible right-of-way.

[bobwilcox]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

In the end, because of the problems noted, it would make railroads less competitive with trucking rather than more.

What shippers in an area with monopolistic pricing should do, if the problem is really serious and they do not wi***o relocate, is:

1. In a body, approach the railroad management and point out that the RR will loose all the business, if the business that is paying the freight closes, relocates, or uses trucking!

2. Investigate costs of building the connection with the nearest competitive railroad and approach that railroad to see if it makes economic sense for the shippers, again as a group, to share costs with the railroad on building the connection.

I believe this a very practical way to appraoch the problem. In step 1, don't mention the possibility of building the connection, the railroad can figure that alternative out for themselves and there is no point in creating needless hostility, and besides it would start their legal group working to figure out what they could do to get objections filed, their own and people along the possible right-of-way.

This is the primary process that is followed in the cases where shippers have increased the number of railroads they can use and/or lower the rates paid to the rr that currently serves their plant. The other much less succesful technique is to bring in the politicians such as with the UP's problems absorbing the SP and opening up many industries to the BNSF.

These approaches are very specific. None of the shippers care anything about transportation policy they just want to lower their costs.

[Junctionfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH

It appears that the concept of open access being predicated on this thread is also meant to keep every last mile of track in place, whether it still serves a useful economic function or not. It has been argued that many railroads should never have built in the first place, the Chicago Great Western being one example. Open access would keep a lot of unnecessary track in place but it might be questionable whether any operators would want to use that track.

Not myself anyways. My idea of a great use for open access would be the newly established Canada Southern as I have ranted about on previous threads. That is a particular useful line for open access. A nice Chicago to Los Angelas line used by BNSF, UP, Amtrak and any shortlines along the way could be constructed from existing lines spliced together maybe and redone. Build some tunnels and other things to reduce the grade and share the cost of it and now they have a nice mainline for at least faster on-time priority trains. They would need to build a parking lots (staging yards) in certain areas to decrease conjestion due to no space for crew changes. There are a number of ways to do this that others who have actually worked or working for a railroad could think of so the line would most definately be worth investigating.

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

1. In a body, approach the railroad management and point out that the RR will loose all the business, if the business that is paying the freight closes, relocates, or uses trucking!

If previous discussions along that line are any indication, the RR will say "Thanks - we've been trying to get rid of that branch anyhow."

QUOTE: 2. Investigate costs of building the connection with the nearest competitive railroad and approach that railroad to see if it makes economic sense for the shippers, again as a group, to share costs with the railroad on building the connection.

Unless the nearest railroad other than the line serving the industry is a hundred miles away....

I really don't care whether open access happens or not (I'm not a railroader or a shipper), but so far it seems the biggest obstacle is institutional inertia.

Will branches fall off? Certainly. But new branches might be built, too. And when was last time you saw a highway abandoned?

Will there be some problems making the transition? I'd be amazed if there weren't.

There have been references to unanswered questions. Instead of complaining that nobody has answered them, lose the conviction that the concept will fail and look for an answer to your question that will make it work. You're the one who knows why it won't work, so you obviously know what has to be fixed to make it work...

[Anonymous]

The last time I saw a highway abandoned was about two years ago. The State of Wisconsin knocked down (at the constant urging of the former MIlwukaee mayor) a part of freeway that ran into the northern part of Milwaukee's downtown. The land has been vacant for the last two years as they are trying to find development for the land.

[daveklepper]

Remember the Emarkadaro Freeway in San Francisco? The people considered it an eyesore, a majority of the nearby residents used public transit and didn't drive anyway. and since it benefited primarily out-of-towners, they knocked it down.

Now, miracles of miracles, there's a heritage light rail line on that waterfront with restored streetcars from all over the world! And it is a regular transit line with transfers and regular fare collection as part of the overal mix of cable cars, streetcars, light rail, trolley buses, buses, high-speed automated rapid transit, and commuter rail, and ferry boats, that make up SF's public transportation systems.

[Anonymous]

I forgot to tell of teh mie and a half of right of way that was purchased for a freeway, people relocated, buldings cleared, sewers installed, then the former Milwaukee mayor and his buddies stirred up teh pot enough where no concrete was ever poured. The land sat vacant in some areas for 30 years. The poor village this route went through lost all that tax base. They do indeed abandon highways.

[Anonymous]

The former Milwaukee mayor is very active in promoting more-liveable cities. Includes rolling back urban highway construction. He viewed street congestion as not necessarily a bad thing - it represents neighborhood vibrancy. Here's a website - click on new urbanism to find quite a lot of train/transit info.

http://www.dutchsustainablecommunities.com/site/epage/16215_449.htm

Wisconsin is beginning to replace the Marquette highway interchange, a spaghetti bowl in central Milwaukee. Upwards of a billion $$. Is muscling out other state projects. Wish it would be scaled back. Urban highway construction has gone way overboard. Why make the same mistake twice?

[Anonymous]

It's one thing to abandon a few miles of eyesore viaduct in some run down urban jungle. It would be quite another if key highway gateways were abandoned in the same manner as the Class I's have abandoned key rail segments prior to sale to a shortline outfit to keep that shortline from accessing another railroad. If we're talking about equivalency, the Milwaukee PCE abandonment would be akin to the tearing up of I-90 between Rapid City and Seattle. The Rock Island abandonment would be the equivalent of tearing up I-70 between Kansas City and Denver. The abandonment of the SP Modoc line would be like tearing up U.S. 395 between Alturas and Reno. Even the abandonment of a grain hauling branch is the equivalent of tearing up a State Highway.

So we ask again, when has there ever been a REAL segment of highway abandonment?

[daveklepper]

You are on the ball. But the Embarkadaro removal was not in a jungle. It is prime real estate (commercial) property and of course the value skyrocketed once the blight of the elevated highway was removed. But you are on the ball. Here is the equivalent:

Two York University professors, one a woman, successfully fought the compain for the Ontario equivalent of our interstate system to run through downtown Toronto. Construction had begun, a segment was completed and is still in use, but before demolition of homes and othe buildings they were succesful in getting the project stopped completely. They also headed the campaign to keep Toronto's streetcars, with most of the lines being classic streetcars of modern design stopping at street corners and sharing lanes with automobiles, etc. There is some "light rail" and also an excellent subway system (possibly the world's best in terms of reliability, comfort, and quiet) and "Go Transit" the diesel commuter railroad system on CN and CP tracks and a supplier of second-hand rolling stock to some USA operations. Their argument was the Toronto belongs to its people, who mostly use transit, and not to the out-of-towners that just want to drive through it!

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper

Their argument was the Toronto belongs to its people, who mostly use transit, and not to the out-of-towners that just want to drive through it!

The 401 (which I don't think actually touches Toronto proper) - 4 lanes express, 3 or 4 lanes feeder in each direction. Went through there not long ago at 80 mph + in near bumper to bumper traffic...

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The analogy cited by futuremodal is slightly off-base. The abandonments cited would be more like the ripping up of the old 2-lane undivided highway (with stoplights and going through the middle of town) because all of the through traffic went over to the parallel Interstate.

Why should a branch line be maintained when service outside of the grain rush is minimal at best? A good rate won't generate traffic from non-existent sources.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH

The analogy cited by futuremodal is slightly off-base. The abandonments cited would be more like the ripping up of the old 2-lane undivided highway (with stoplights and going through the middle of town) because all of the through traffic went over to the parallel Interstate.

Why should a branch line be maintained when service outside of the grain rush is minimal at best? A good rate won't generate traffic from non-existent sources.

An Interstate replacement of an old two lane road is usually a stone"s throw away, e.g. it is closely parallel. The "parallel" alternatives to the Milwaukee, RI, or Modoc abandonments are more often than not hundreds of miles away. Also, with Interstate replacements of two lane roads, there is no shift of revenue traffic from one carrier to another, so shippers who used to transport via the old two lane road are still able to use the same carriers via the new four lane freeway, and they can do so with better economies of scale. Plus, the old two lane road remains as an access road except where there are no online users.

Again, there really is no counter modal equivalent to a railroad abandonment.

[kevarc]

"2. Investigate costs of building the connection with the nearest competitive railroad and approach that railroad to see if it makes economic sense for the shippers, again as a group, to share costs with the railroad on building the connection."

And here is EXACTLY what tthe RR will tell you - you pay for and build it, we may help a little, and then when it is BUILT, we will quote you a rate. Been there, still going through that for our plant. Then after the contract is up, the former RR usually takes the business back.

[daveklepper]

But takes it back at a lower rate?