JSGreen wrote:I dont disagree with what you posted, but I do have a minor quibble: Lee Koch wrote: Now, how could you justify government confiscation of corporate property without risking years of expensive litigation and, eventually, a turnover on constitutional grounds by the Supreme Court? That isnt a slam dunk any longer. Last year the Supreme Court upheld a Connecticut case, in which the local government (dont think it was state) condemed and took by immanent domain property from landowners who had houses, to give to a developers to make a high-priced condo unit, so as to increase the tax base of the area.Which is why so many states had constitutional ammendents on the ballots this year, to prevent that from happening in their state. But if the supreme court said it was OK for lower level governmental agencies to do somethin like this, they just might find it was OK for the Federal Government to do it, also. I think the Key Phrase was something like "For the Public Benefit".
Lee Koch wrote: Now, how could you justify government confiscation of corporate property without risking years of expensive litigation and, eventually, a turnover on constitutional grounds by the Supreme Court?
The city of Arlington, TX. did the same thing to home owners so they could build a new stadium for the Dallas Cowboys.
futuremodal wrote: Datafever wrote: futuremodal wrote: Current Class I branchlines and shortlines could be franchised to a single rail carrier as the likely alternative to your doomsday spector. It may not be true OA, but at least the franchise can be yanked from poor service providers and re-bid out to others. That's a much better situation for those captive customers than what they have to deal with now. So, if I understand what you are saying here, you are advocating not only regulating the infrastructure, but also regulating the transport system. I am pretty sure that one of your arguments for dividing the infrastructure from the transport system was so that only the infrastructure would need to be regulated. But if a "poor service provider" (however that is going to be defined) can have its franchise "yanked", that sure smacks of regulation to me. "Yanked" means that when the franchise renewal period comes up, a better service provider can be had if the current provider is unsatisfactory. Otherwise, if the service is satisfactory, the franchise contract is probably renewed. Business park owners, et al, do it this way all the time. It is not a new form of regulation.
Datafever wrote: futuremodal wrote: Current Class I branchlines and shortlines could be franchised to a single rail carrier as the likely alternative to your doomsday spector. It may not be true OA, but at least the franchise can be yanked from poor service providers and re-bid out to others. That's a much better situation for those captive customers than what they have to deal with now. So, if I understand what you are saying here, you are advocating not only regulating the infrastructure, but also regulating the transport system. I am pretty sure that one of your arguments for dividing the infrastructure from the transport system was so that only the infrastructure would need to be regulated. But if a "poor service provider" (however that is going to be defined) can have its franchise "yanked", that sure smacks of regulation to me.
futuremodal wrote: Current Class I branchlines and shortlines could be franchised to a single rail carrier as the likely alternative to your doomsday spector. It may not be true OA, but at least the franchise can be yanked from poor service providers and re-bid out to others. That's a much better situation for those captive customers than what they have to deal with now.
Current Class I branchlines and shortlines could be franchised to a single rail carrier as the likely alternative to your doomsday spector. It may not be true OA, but at least the franchise can be yanked from poor service providers and re-bid out to others. That's a much better situation for those captive customers than what they have to deal with now.
"Yanked" means that when the franchise renewal period comes up, a better service provider can be had if the current provider is unsatisfactory. Otherwise, if the service is satisfactory, the franchise contract is probably renewed. Business park owners, et al, do it this way all the time. It is not a new form of regulation.
futuremodal wrote: TomDiehl wrote: futuremodal wrote: Yes it would, for the same reasons Standard Oil and Ma Bell were broken up by governmen action. Since none of you dared answer the question as to your collective preference of keeping Standard Oil and Ma Bell intact vs the government forced break up of these companies, I have no alternative but to assume that you all would have favored keeping those entities as monopolies. And that certainly explains your dogged attatchment to the anachronistic integrated monopolistic rail system. Since nobody else has answered this, breaking up Ma Bell was a great example of government butting into business to make things worse for the consumers. When this happened, my phone bill went up, service went down, I was now responsible for maintaining the wiring and equipment in my house, I now had to pay for local and long distance calls separately, usually with two different companies. My preference would be for the government to have left the Bell System alone. I got better service at a better price from the "anachronistic integrated monopolistic" phone system. A great example of it not being broken in the first place, but they "fixed" it anyway. Tom, you were born to be a serf. There's not too many folks in this world who prefer an economic feudalism (aka an economy dominated by monopolies) to a competitive market array, let alone have the guts to admit it. At least you are consistent. Anyone else have a hankerin' for Tom's *feudal nirvana*?
TomDiehl wrote: futuremodal wrote: Yes it would, for the same reasons Standard Oil and Ma Bell were broken up by governmen action. Since none of you dared answer the question as to your collective preference of keeping Standard Oil and Ma Bell intact vs the government forced break up of these companies, I have no alternative but to assume that you all would have favored keeping those entities as monopolies. And that certainly explains your dogged attatchment to the anachronistic integrated monopolistic rail system. Since nobody else has answered this, breaking up Ma Bell was a great example of government butting into business to make things worse for the consumers. When this happened, my phone bill went up, service went down, I was now responsible for maintaining the wiring and equipment in my house, I now had to pay for local and long distance calls separately, usually with two different companies. My preference would be for the government to have left the Bell System alone. I got better service at a better price from the "anachronistic integrated monopolistic" phone system. A great example of it not being broken in the first place, but they "fixed" it anyway.
futuremodal wrote: Yes it would, for the same reasons Standard Oil and Ma Bell were broken up by governmen action. Since none of you dared answer the question as to your collective preference of keeping Standard Oil and Ma Bell intact vs the government forced break up of these companies, I have no alternative but to assume that you all would have favored keeping those entities as monopolies. And that certainly explains your dogged attatchment to the anachronistic integrated monopolistic rail system.
Yes it would, for the same reasons Standard Oil and Ma Bell were broken up by governmen action.
Since none of you dared answer the question as to your collective preference of keeping Standard Oil and Ma Bell intact vs the government forced break up of these companies, I have no alternative but to assume that you all would have favored keeping those entities as monopolies. And that certainly explains your dogged attatchment to the anachronistic integrated monopolistic rail system.
Since nobody else has answered this, breaking up Ma Bell was a great example of government butting into business to make things worse for the consumers. When this happened, my phone bill went up, service went down, I was now responsible for maintaining the wiring and equipment in my house, I now had to pay for local and long distance calls separately, usually with two different companies.
My preference would be for the government to have left the Bell System alone. I got better service at a better price from the "anachronistic integrated monopolistic" phone system. A great example of it not being broken in the first place, but they "fixed" it anyway.
Tom, you were born to be a serf.
There's not too many folks in this world who prefer an economic feudalism (aka an economy dominated by monopolies) to a competitive market array, let alone have the guts to admit it. At least you are consistent.
Anyone else have a hankerin' for Tom's *feudal nirvana*?
And you were born to be stuck at the starting gate, never moving beyond theory into the world of implementation or reality.
In the example of Ma Bell, the monopoly provided the best service at the best price. The example I gave stands up, the government butts in and tried to change things for the sake of "competition" and we all ended up paying the price for it in higher phone bills to support more redundant management in the smaller companies.
As I've said, I prefer real world examples instead of a "theoretical nirvana" that someone "believes" that a major change, supported only by theory, should be imposed on a system that already works well and has no real world facts to back it up. Our forum members overseas have already blown your arguments about how well it "works" in at least two of the countries over there. Government bailouts of the infrastructure are hardly success stories.
I also noticed that you haven't been able to take this anywhere beyond your theory, as the points I stated earlier.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
futuremodal wrote:Current Class I branchlines and shortlines could be franchised to a single rail carrier as the likely alternative to your doomsday spector. It may not be true OA, but at least the franchise can be yanked from poor service providers and re-bid out to others. That's a much better situation for those captive customers than what they have to deal with now.
futuremodal wrote: greyhounds wrote: futuremodal wrote: Then I see that greyhounds is back to his redundant obsession with stagnant aggregation, as if every rail terminal in the US only has enough business for one rail crew per day. Memo to Ken: There is more than enough business at most rail terminals across the USA to support more than one rail service provider. So now's the time to pull your head out of whatever it is you have it stuck in. I don't know what you're defining as a terminal. What are you defining as a terminal? If you define it large enough then you're obviously right. The problem is not with the total amount of business, but with business that can be aggregated into a train moving to a specific destination. There's a lot of business moving from Louisville, but only a fraction of it can get aggregated into any one train. The cigarettes for New York aren't going to ride with the cigarettes for Dallas. It's this destination specific aggregation of individual, indentifiable units (freightcars) that you don't seem to understand. Maybe because it isn't present in the distribution of electricity. Again, it's not the total amount of business in the terminal (whatever you're calling a 'terminal'), but the amount that can be aggregated into any one train. If you split that aggrergation up between more rail carriers you'll make that aggregation more difficult and drive up the cost of rail transportation. That's why Open Access is a realy bad concept. Can you reference any research showing OA will be benificial? Now you're just stuck on misplaced contextualization. You keep coming back with the "one train load being split between two or more carriers" scenario, while completely ignoring the current multiple trainset scenarios. I have provided several OA interpretations that would mitigate the single train per day scenario (franchising, business shift back to rail), and such trainset limitations are the exception rather than the rule as they pertain to total rail tonnage. It's almost as if you guys need to keep shoving that out of context example into our faces with such ad nauseum repetition in order to frame it as the reality, courtesy of Goebbels.
greyhounds wrote: futuremodal wrote: Then I see that greyhounds is back to his redundant obsession with stagnant aggregation, as if every rail terminal in the US only has enough business for one rail crew per day. Memo to Ken: There is more than enough business at most rail terminals across the USA to support more than one rail service provider. So now's the time to pull your head out of whatever it is you have it stuck in. I don't know what you're defining as a terminal. What are you defining as a terminal? If you define it large enough then you're obviously right. The problem is not with the total amount of business, but with business that can be aggregated into a train moving to a specific destination. There's a lot of business moving from Louisville, but only a fraction of it can get aggregated into any one train. The cigarettes for New York aren't going to ride with the cigarettes for Dallas. It's this destination specific aggregation of individual, indentifiable units (freightcars) that you don't seem to understand. Maybe because it isn't present in the distribution of electricity. Again, it's not the total amount of business in the terminal (whatever you're calling a 'terminal'), but the amount that can be aggregated into any one train. If you split that aggrergation up between more rail carriers you'll make that aggregation more difficult and drive up the cost of rail transportation. That's why Open Access is a realy bad concept. Can you reference any research showing OA will be benificial?
futuremodal wrote: Then I see that greyhounds is back to his redundant obsession with stagnant aggregation, as if every rail terminal in the US only has enough business for one rail crew per day. Memo to Ken: There is more than enough business at most rail terminals across the USA to support more than one rail service provider. So now's the time to pull your head out of whatever it is you have it stuck in.
Then I see that greyhounds is back to his redundant obsession with stagnant aggregation, as if every rail terminal in the US only has enough business for one rail crew per day. Memo to Ken: There is more than enough business at most rail terminals across the USA to support more than one rail service provider. So now's the time to pull your head out of whatever it is you have it stuck in.
I don't know what you're defining as a terminal. What are you defining as a terminal? If you define it large enough then you're obviously right.
The problem is not with the total amount of business, but with business that can be aggregated into a train moving to a specific destination. There's a lot of business moving from Louisville, but only a fraction of it can get aggregated into any one train. The cigarettes for New York aren't going to ride with the cigarettes for Dallas.
It's this destination specific aggregation of individual, indentifiable units (freightcars) that you don't seem to understand. Maybe because it isn't present in the distribution of electricity.
Again, it's not the total amount of business in the terminal (whatever you're calling a 'terminal'), but the amount that can be aggregated into any one train. If you split that aggrergation up between more rail carriers you'll make that aggregation more difficult and drive up the cost of rail transportation.
That's why Open Access is a realy bad concept.
Can you reference any research showing OA will be benificial?
Now you're just stuck on misplaced contextualization. You keep coming back with the "one train load being split between two or more carriers" scenario, while completely ignoring the current multiple trainset scenarios. I have provided several OA interpretations that would mitigate the single train per day scenario (franchising, business shift back to rail), and such trainset limitations are the exception rather than the rule as they pertain to total rail tonnage.
It's almost as if you guys need to keep shoving that out of context example into our faces with such ad nauseum repetition in order to frame it as the reality, courtesy of Goebbels.
Talk about "shoving that out of context example into our faces with such ad nauseum repetition in order to frame it as the reality," at least we're giving real world examples of the problems that would be faced by such a concept rather than being stuck in the theoretical. 1. You have yet to show a guarantee, that stockholders would approve, that business will increase to actually pay for more carriers on the same line. 2. You have yet to show why multiple managements (more operating companies) would REDUCE costs by introducing more overhead to the operation. 3. You have yet to explain why a right-of-way owning company would suddenly offer more capacity in high traffic corridors than exists now. 4. You have yet to give ANY reason that the current railroad companies would be interested in breaking up operation and property into two separate entities. 5. The example that a few supposedly "captive" shippers may possibly benefit from lower rates isn't enough for the government to confiscate that large of an amount of private property for such a limited benefit.
futuremodal wrote: Lee Koch wrote:Marc Immeker wrote: "The German federal government (this one and the former) is hell bent for leather to get Deutsche Bahn to the stock exhange. Or rather, Hartmut Mehdorn, the CEO of DB, is. Wether it is good for the company or not. Wether it is good for railroading or not. And with some very questionable business practices too (think bookkeeping)." Yes, and the Federal Government keeps picking up the tab (using taxpayer Euros) for deficits encrued through poor business decisions made by Mehdorn. The DB has a current operating deficit of 19 billion Euros, most of which was spent on the High-Speed corridors Frankfurt-Cologne and Nuremburg-Munich as well as the erection of a new central train station in Berlin. Now none of those investments are any good for freight customers, nor are they accessible for private railroads, but we have to pay for them. The money they hope to make through their IPO, Mehdorn wants to invest in the buy-up of several eastern European state railways. Their goal: trade with China via rail! Even if Germany does end up with OA, freight traffic will be transported over at least 3 seperate railroads: Chinese, Russian and DB-Railion. What difference would there be to NA railroading, other than customs formalities? OA could only work in NA if the railroads were coerced into handing their ROWs over to a neutral entity (the FRA? the AAR? franchisers?) to be maintained and managed. Certainly consolidation of MOW equipment and manpower as well as dispatching/rail traffic control COULD make the system more efficient and perhaps less expensive for the shippers. But the whole logistics side of things would become very complicated. As Greyhounds wrote: "Again, it's not the total amount of business in the terminal (whatever you're calling a 'terminal'), but the amount that can be aggregated into any one train. If you split that aggrergation up between more rail carriers you'll make that aggregation more difficult and drive up the cost of rail transportation." Why is this a problem? With total OA, each customer/shipper could theoretically pick the railroad offering the lowest daily shipping rate, and each customer along the line could pick a different RR than the next guy. Let's assume 10 customers along a local industrial line, and each has chosen a different railroad to ship with. The local disptcher now has to figure out how to get 10 different locomotives with loads and empties onto and off of the line. Now, where do the RRs collect or set out the cars for pickup? The local yard can't possibly have a track for each railroad. Solution: as in ports of harbor, you will have to operate a switching and terminal RR which will in turn have to interchange with 10 different RRs somewhere. Or, you have to have transloading facilities every so many hundred miles, where the shipment is transferred to truck and delivered to the customer. None of this really sounds like a good alternative to what we currently have in NA. Lee, you're following the same flawed logic as Ken. Why do you focus on the spector of multiple rail carriers having to compete for 10 branchline customers (with the subsequent need to barter for access to that single track), rather than focussing on the more reasonable scenarios of splitting the multiple trainsets among multiple carriers that currently are hogged by one railroad? The single branchline connundrum is a highly exceptional scenario, with multiple carriers each day picking up and setting out a few carloads each highly unlikely in an OA system. Current Class I branchlines and shortlines could be franchised to a single rail carrier as the likely alternative to your doomsday spector. It may not be true OA, but at least the franchise can be yanked from poor service providers and re-bid out to others. That's a much better situation for those captive customers than what they have to deal with now. Captive customers located on mainlines will of course have more OA options.
Lee Koch wrote:Marc Immeker wrote: "The German federal government (this one and the former) is hell bent for leather to get Deutsche Bahn to the stock exhange. Or rather, Hartmut Mehdorn, the CEO of DB, is. Wether it is good for the company or not. Wether it is good for railroading or not. And with some very questionable business practices too (think bookkeeping)." Yes, and the Federal Government keeps picking up the tab (using taxpayer Euros) for deficits encrued through poor business decisions made by Mehdorn. The DB has a current operating deficit of 19 billion Euros, most of which was spent on the High-Speed corridors Frankfurt-Cologne and Nuremburg-Munich as well as the erection of a new central train station in Berlin. Now none of those investments are any good for freight customers, nor are they accessible for private railroads, but we have to pay for them. The money they hope to make through their IPO, Mehdorn wants to invest in the buy-up of several eastern European state railways. Their goal: trade with China via rail! Even if Germany does end up with OA, freight traffic will be transported over at least 3 seperate railroads: Chinese, Russian and DB-Railion. What difference would there be to NA railroading, other than customs formalities? OA could only work in NA if the railroads were coerced into handing their ROWs over to a neutral entity (the FRA? the AAR? franchisers?) to be maintained and managed. Certainly consolidation of MOW equipment and manpower as well as dispatching/rail traffic control COULD make the system more efficient and perhaps less expensive for the shippers. But the whole logistics side of things would become very complicated. As Greyhounds wrote: "Again, it's not the total amount of business in the terminal (whatever you're calling a 'terminal'), but the amount that can be aggregated into any one train. If you split that aggrergation up between more rail carriers you'll make that aggregation more difficult and drive up the cost of rail transportation." Why is this a problem? With total OA, each customer/shipper could theoretically pick the railroad offering the lowest daily shipping rate, and each customer along the line could pick a different RR than the next guy. Let's assume 10 customers along a local industrial line, and each has chosen a different railroad to ship with. The local disptcher now has to figure out how to get 10 different locomotives with loads and empties onto and off of the line. Now, where do the RRs collect or set out the cars for pickup? The local yard can't possibly have a track for each railroad. Solution: as in ports of harbor, you will have to operate a switching and terminal RR which will in turn have to interchange with 10 different RRs somewhere. Or, you have to have transloading facilities every so many hundred miles, where the shipment is transferred to truck and delivered to the customer. None of this really sounds like a good alternative to what we currently have in NA.
Lee, you're following the same flawed logic as Ken. Why do you focus on the spector of multiple rail carriers having to compete for 10 branchline customers (with the subsequent need to barter for access to that single track), rather than focussing on the more reasonable scenarios of splitting the multiple trainsets among multiple carriers that currently are hogged by one railroad? The single branchline connundrum is a highly exceptional scenario, with multiple carriers each day picking up and setting out a few carloads each highly unlikely in an OA system.
Captive customers located on mainlines will of course have more OA options.
Sure FM, lets just confiscate everyone's property. Wouldn't things be ever so much easier to operate then. Don't forget the failed efforts at nationalizing the railroads in the past and all the long term damage regulation wrought. Oh, and what's a little violation of Constitutional Rights to liberty and property...
FOFLMAO...
The words change, but your song remains the same...
LC
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:I am willing to give FM credit for being a great theorist. That being said, remember that the Laffer Curve was great in theory, not so valid in the real world. FM sticks to his theory to the bitter end without realizing that if open access was as economically great in practice as he claims it is, it wouldn't have to be imposed by regulatory fiat or court order.
Meanwhile, our company just made a cool million selling access rights over our transmission lines to a small merchant energy provider. Hey, we certainly fought this forced access to our lines just like the current crop of rail execs do now when OA for transmission was proposed, yet most of the upper management now concede that OA has more than once brought in a nice cash inlay that otherwise would have been missed.
greyhounds wrote: Europe is an economic basket case with slow growth. The railroads there are not siginificant players in freight movement.
Europe is an economic basket case with slow growth. The railroads there are not siginificant players in freight movement.
Slow growth has not much to do with it. Within a days trucking from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Europe's biggest harbor (or Antwerp in Belgium or Hamburg in Germany, number 2 and 3) you will find almost 50 % of Europe's people. In the market from Rotterdam over the Alps to Italy I believe railroads hold a good share of the market.
greetings,
Marc Immeker
Murphy Siding wrote: Lee Koch wrote:I just don't believe that there is a patent answer to this question, and you can't just compare what other countries have done with the North American freight market. Here in Germany, for example, we have the following situation: the former State owned and operated railroads were transformed into a private corporation under government ownership of the stock. The rail reform divided the railroad into freight (Railion), passenger (DB-Regio, DB-Fernverkehr), and ROW (DB-Netz) entities, and it provided private railroads the chance to do business. The DB (former State Ry.) wants to make an IPO on the DAX to get investment capital. Sure, DB-Netz does a good job of maintaining the infrastructure, but only the parts that make good business sense and turn a profit. Every other railroad has to pay a premium price for trackage rights, no matter what the condition of the physical plant. How can you effectively compete against the owner of the right of way, especially when THEIR dispatchers will not give priority to any of your trains, while charging you too much for trackage rights, and hence preventing you from offering services at an attractive price. This is why Germany MUST have OA under independent control, similar to the way airports and harbors are operated. But in North America, railroads have historically relied on themselves, and each has its own ROW, making OA a moot point. Higher pricing for captive shippers is a historical fact of life, but competition from the trucking industry should provide enough market pricing controls to satisfy all but those shipping bulk commodities like coal. Note to Dave(futuremodal): Open access in Germany isn't the hunk-dory answer either. It sure sounds to me, like the German Government is using federal dollars to support the system.
Lee Koch wrote:I just don't believe that there is a patent answer to this question, and you can't just compare what other countries have done with the North American freight market. Here in Germany, for example, we have the following situation: the former State owned and operated railroads were transformed into a private corporation under government ownership of the stock. The rail reform divided the railroad into freight (Railion), passenger (DB-Regio, DB-Fernverkehr), and ROW (DB-Netz) entities, and it provided private railroads the chance to do business. The DB (former State Ry.) wants to make an IPO on the DAX to get investment capital. Sure, DB-Netz does a good job of maintaining the infrastructure, but only the parts that make good business sense and turn a profit. Every other railroad has to pay a premium price for trackage rights, no matter what the condition of the physical plant. How can you effectively compete against the owner of the right of way, especially when THEIR dispatchers will not give priority to any of your trains, while charging you too much for trackage rights, and hence preventing you from offering services at an attractive price. This is why Germany MUST have OA under independent control, similar to the way airports and harbors are operated. But in North America, railroads have historically relied on themselves, and each has its own ROW, making OA a moot point. Higher pricing for captive shippers is a historical fact of life, but competition from the trucking industry should provide enough market pricing controls to satisfy all but those shipping bulk commodities like coal.
Note to Dave(futuremodal): Open access in Germany isn't the hunk-dory answer either. It sure sounds to me, like the German Government is using federal dollars to support the system.
As Lee wrote, under those conditions it is very hard to compete. Unfortunately EU directives don't require full separation of infrastructure and train operation. With these consequences.
The German federal government (this one and the former) is hell bent for leather to get Deutsche Bahn to the stock exhange. Or rather, Hartmut Mehdorn, the CEO of DB, is. Wether it is good for the company or not. Wether it is good for railroading or not. And with some very questionable business practices too (think bookkeeping).
If you want to look to Europe then Britain and Germany (and France as well) are not the countries to look to. Take Sweden, or the Netherlands. There infrastructure is completely separated from operation and access is via a predictable and fair system. And yes, in the Netherlands passenger railroading occasionally loses timetable paths to freigth railroading. Even during rush hour.....
By the way, the Netherlands are no good example when talking about the share of rail in the transport market. The Rhine makes any comparison moot as around 43% moves over the river, 43% over the road, rail has 3% and the rest is mainly pipelines and coastal shipping... Example: biggest Rhine ships can now carry around 400 TEU (railroads in theNetherlands: 99 TEU). More are on the way, by barge (around 15 at a time) from, you guessed it, China, Korea and Viet Nam.
greyhounds wrote: As to the "natural monopoly" portion being seperate from the "transporter" portion. You've got that absolutely, totally, positively, 100%, sure as shootin', completely backwards. The "transporter portion" is exactly where the "natural monopoly" is. It's sure not in ownership of the infrastructure. Perfect example is the EJ&E. Everybody and their dog runs trains over the "J". The infrastructure (track) can be readily shared with no adverse effects. (as long as the dang government doesn't force such sharing.) But not the CN, not the UP, not even the BNSF provides open access carload service to one of the "J's" local customers. That would be inefficient. If it was more efficient to do this the companies involved would work it out and devide the proceeds from the extra profits so earned This hasn't happened. There are two possible reasons why it hasn't happened. 1) All involved dont' know their *** from a hole in the ground. (i.e., Dave is smarter than everybody in management at the four railroads.) 2) It's less efficient to do it that'a way than to have one integrated railroad company serve the local customers. (like the EJ&E, which operates the local service trains and owns the track) I'm bettin' on #2
As to the "natural monopoly" portion being seperate from the "transporter" portion. You've got that absolutely, totally, positively, 100%, sure as shootin', completely backwards.
The "transporter portion" is exactly where the "natural monopoly" is. It's sure not in ownership of the infrastructure. Perfect example is the EJ&E. Everybody and their dog runs trains over the "J". The infrastructure (track) can be readily shared with no adverse effects. (as long as the dang government doesn't force such sharing.)
But not the CN, not the UP, not even the BNSF provides open access carload service to one of the "J's" local customers. That would be inefficient.
If it was more efficient to do this the companies involved would work it out and devide the proceeds from the extra profits so earned This hasn't happened. There are two possible reasons why it hasn't happened.
1) All involved dont' know their *** from a hole in the ground. (i.e., Dave is smarter than everybody in management at the four railroads.)
2) It's less efficient to do it that'a way than to have one integrated railroad company serve the local customers. (like the EJ&E, which operates the local service trains and owns the track)
I'm bettin' on #2
Nowhere have I ever read that EJ&E has ever granted rights to other railroads to serve its online customers. Run trainloads over its line, yes. Serve its customers directly, no.
As for efficiency, it would not be less efficient to switch, I think, than when you have a large train tying up your mainline switching elswhere on your own system. Just hang the cars for that customer on the through train. The effect is about the same.
Better example would be the line in Colorado between Denver and Colorado Springs. There are several railroads (these days BNSF and UP, earlier Rio Grande, Santa Fe and BN) with, I believe, full rights on that line. How do they do things there?
I guess I'll add my two cents here. When I tone up the Burlington, Northern, and Santa Flush (BNSF) dispatcher and tell him/her I'm ready to enter their railroad at tower 55, in downtown Ft. Worth, they don't give me a warm fuzzy,offer me a cool beverage, or a mighty good afternoon. I represent the competition and I'm not wanted. We know that. BNSF is looking out for it's stockholders best interest, and what better way of doing that then to show how they service their customers better then their competition (ie: hold up Union Pacific (UP)'s local). In the big scheme of things, this one local means absolutely nothing, but yet again it means everything. It's all about service, this is a service driven industry. If my local doesn't make it to it's appointed place at it's appointed time then our customers will go to someone else, and that someone is, yep, you guessed it, BNSF.
As far as us having a limited form of OA now via trackage rights, is a incorrect statement. The only reason we have trackage rights to begin with is because when all the mergers of the 60's and 70's started the Federal Goverment decided it was in the best interest of the American people and competition.Thats why the carriers negotiate terms when they merge with other carriers. They don't want the federal goverment to do it for them. They want to decide for themselves what they are going to give, and to whom.
The railroads, in my opinion, really couldn't afford a true OA. For example, if Norfolk Southern(NS) gained open access across BNSF to say Denver,CO. How often is NS going to have a train that only satify's it's customers demand for reliable service, and makes stockholders happy with the return on investment. They can't hold the train for days and weeks until the cost on return is met. It wouldn't take long before the customer base would be gone. Then you have the problems with crews to run the train, are they going to be NS crews or are you going to deal with BNSF and have their crews run "your" train. What happens when the crew gets to Denver? Does NS buy property and build a yard, or do they again use BNSF facilities?
This is why the carriers work out alliances together and get customers service. If to many people start to complain Congress might get a wild hair and really screw up everything, and my local won't even make it out of yard never mind make it onto BNSF's property!
futuremodal wrote: Remember, highways are open access, waterways are open access, European railroads are mostly open access (and moving to eventual system wide open access), Aussie railroada are open access.......EVERYONE BUT NA RAILROADS!
Remember, highways are open access, waterways are open access, European railroads are mostly open access (and moving to eventual system wide open access), Aussie railroada are open access.......EVERYONE BUT NA RAILROADS!
So, to Dave, the world consists of Europe, Austrailia and North America. I guess the significant railroad networks serviing the booming economies of India and China don't count.
futuremodal wrote: Obviously, those aforementioned open access systems are very efficient from a market standpoint, yet they share the same basic infrastructural principle as NA railroads - you can fit basically one ROW unit per corriodor. So why are these OA systems so doggone efficient? Because the "natural monopoly" portion is separate from the transporter portion.
Obviously, those aforementioned open access systems are very efficient from a market standpoint, yet they share the same basic infrastructural principle as NA railroads - you can fit basically one ROW unit per corriodor. So why are these OA systems so doggone efficient? Because the "natural monopoly" portion is separate from the transporter portion.
How efficient are they Dave? How much does it cost to move a container by rail 1,700 kilometers in Europe?
One principal reason OA is such a terrible idea is the need to aggregate shipments into trainload volumes. The quicker you can do this aggregation, the more efficient and less costly your opeation will be. Splitting the equipment to be aggregated up between multiple rail carriers will hinder the aggregation process and make rail transport less efficient.
That's why we've had railroad consolidation, why there are extensive trackage rights, and why there is no freaking Open Access here.
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote: One issue that FM has conveniently dodged for a while has been how "open access" would be attained in this country since the rights-of-way are privately owned. He has previously posited that it could be accomplished by regulatory order, even though there is no legal basis for such an order. He has also suggested the use of anti-trust law, even though it would literally take an Act of Congress to make the necessary changes, quite unlikely even taking yesterday's election results into consideration. Assuming that said changes in anti-trust law were passed and stood Constitutional muster (unlikely considering the wording of the Fifth Amendment), dozens of lawsuits would have to be filed against the various operating railroads that owned their own right-of-way and it would probably be several years before any of these suits actually came to trial, followed by appeals, etc., etc., etc. Even in a scenario that avoids the Constitutional issue, it could be decades before "open access" came to pass.
One issue that FM has conveniently dodged for a while has been how "open access" would be attained in this country since the rights-of-way are privately owned. He has previously posited that it could be accomplished by regulatory order, even though there is no legal basis for such an order. He has also suggested the use of anti-trust law, even though it would literally take an Act of Congress to make the necessary changes, quite unlikely even taking yesterday's election results into consideration.
Assuming that said changes in anti-trust law were passed and stood Constitutional muster (unlikely considering the wording of the Fifth Amendment), dozens of lawsuits would have to be filed against the various operating railroads that owned their own right-of-way and it would probably be several years before any of these suits actually came to trial, followed by appeals, etc., etc., etc. Even in a scenario that avoids the Constitutional issue, it could be decades before "open access" came to pass.
I haven't dodge anything. I have stated in the past (and you have aknowledged in subsequent sentences right after you said I dodged) that antitrust is the logical way to go, but even that may not be necessary since the Staggers Act itself contains competitive caveats that up to this point in time have not been enforced. And yes, such caveats could be enforced by order if the STB folks ever grow some testicles.
I will agree that litigation will be the rule of the day for a few decades if such orders are handed down. But we need to start sometime, and now is as good as ever.
Note to Murph - If you will try and read carefully please, you will see that I have a negative view of the British version of OA. That's what "pulling an OJ" means - I believe that breaking up British Rail into 100+ separate companies was nuts. 4 or 5 would have sufficed. And franchising, while not true real time OA, is still perferable to long term integration, and would probably work even better here in the States for those marginal rail lines.
And as Lee pointed out, for OA to work you need independence of infrastructure from transporter operations. I might add that utility regulation of the infrastructure would also suffice. But the current situation is still far better than if the German government had simply privatized into an integrated rail system like we have here in ex-British NA (you might like to note that the Mexican government still owns railroad ROW, even though it's rail transporter operations have been privatized). What you see happening in Germany, Italy, et al, is an actual shift of revenue share of traffic off highways to rail via these 3rd party freight companies, unlike NA where there has been no shift of revenue share from highways to rail.
futuremodal wrote: Murphy Siding wrote: futuremodal wrote:But you can't back that up with real world stats, can you? Has the Aussie OA system caused their costs to increase? No. Has the German, Dutch, or Italiam IA system caused their costs to increase? No. But OA in those countries has brought new business to their respective rail industries. Why do you think that is bad? Well, actually, in the case of Britain, I believe the answer is yes. The British posters on here have said that the Government has had to prop up the ROW company, so it wouldn't go belly up. Oops! I see you didn't mention the British Rail system in your example. Yes, I did. Here's the full quote: But you can't back that up with real world stats, can you? Has the Aussie OA system caused their costs to increase? No. Has the German, Dutch, or Italiam IA system caused their costs to increase? No. But OA in those countries has brought new business to their respective rail industries. Why do you think that is bad? The only way OA would increase costs if, again, one pulls an OJ. The British did just that with their version, breaking up one company into 100+ companies. No wonder NA railroad hacks point to the British experience as being the poster child for an OA Armeggedon. Now, do you want to explain why you neglected the full quote?
Murphy Siding wrote: futuremodal wrote:But you can't back that up with real world stats, can you? Has the Aussie OA system caused their costs to increase? No. Has the German, Dutch, or Italiam IA system caused their costs to increase? No. But OA in those countries has brought new business to their respective rail industries. Why do you think that is bad? Well, actually, in the case of Britain, I believe the answer is yes. The British posters on here have said that the Government has had to prop up the ROW company, so it wouldn't go belly up. Oops! I see you didn't mention the British Rail system in your example.
futuremodal wrote:But you can't back that up with real world stats, can you? Has the Aussie OA system caused their costs to increase? No. Has the German, Dutch, or Italiam IA system caused their costs to increase? No. But OA in those countries has brought new business to their respective rail industries. Why do you think that is bad?
Well, actually, in the case of Britain, I believe the answer is yes. The British posters on here have said that the Government has had to prop up the ROW company, so it wouldn't go belly up. Oops! I see you didn't mention the British Rail system in your example.
Yes, I did. Here's the full quote:
But you can't back that up with real world stats, can you? Has the Aussie OA system caused their costs to increase? No. Has the German, Dutch, or Italiam IA system caused their costs to increase? No. But OA in those countries has brought new business to their respective rail industries. Why do you think that is bad? The only way OA would increase costs if, again, one pulls an OJ. The British did just that with their version, breaking up one company into 100+ companies. No wonder NA railroad hacks point to the British experience as being the poster child for an OA Armeggedon.
But you can't back that up with real world stats, can you? Has the Aussie OA system caused their costs to increase? No. Has the German, Dutch, or Italiam IA system caused their costs to increase? No. But OA in those countries has brought new business to their respective rail industries. Why do you think that is bad?
The only way OA would increase costs if, again, one pulls an OJ. The British did just that with their version, breaking up one company into 100+ companies. No wonder NA railroad hacks point to the British experience as being the poster child for an OA Armeggedon.
Now, do you want to explain why you neglected the full quote?
Well now, there's where you're absolutely correct. I did buzz right past that next paragraph.(?) That was unintentional on my part. It appears I was in a hurry, and didn't pay enough attention. For that, I appologize.
However, it doesn't mean that the part about British open access being all hunky-dory is true. The British posters, on a couple of threads have said that the British Government has had to pour a lot of subsidy money into the infrastructure companies to keep them solvent. If that's your idea of success, we have some differing opinions. I can see no good reason to have a freight version of Amtrak.
Oh, and thanks for calling me a "hack". I'll hang that up with my other awards from you. ( In the words of Carl from Caddyshack:" So!- I got that going for me too!")
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