Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
* I'm not really sure what forum this should go in. Mods if you want to move it go ahead (also, it would be nice if there were a general transportation forum, because there ARE other forms of transportation besides the good ol' automobile ).
I heard the CEO of the BNSF railway speak today. he said that it might be a good idea for the government to fund certain aspects of freight rail, i.e. the parts from which the public benefits. for example, here in the Chicago area there's a big controversy about CN and EJ&E wanting to reroute train traffic from the city so it goes around the city. the big uproar concerns the HIGH number of at grade crossings that would essentially stop traffic in the towns where freight trains would pass through. the guy from BNSF said that the government should possibly cover the conversion of the grade crossings to overpasses - in other words, the public would get the benefit of less traffic congestion.
on the other hand, it seems like the governmental agencies in the area seem to think that the railroads should cover such costs if they plan to reroute traffic (i have not heard any official words from agencies like the RTA, but the discussions i have heard lean this way), but BNSF guy basically said having an attitude like that will just cause the railroads to stay in the background, not building any new rail lines and, thus, continuing to uphold the current state of congestion.
this is not saying that the government should fund any sort of day to day operations for the railroad (i.e. anything that might increase the railroad's profits), and this also has nothing to do with funding passenger rail/transit (although i am a firm believer in this, not only because i use it on a daily basis, but also because the majority of roads in this country are NOT paying for themselves - obviously - look at their condition), so let's not talk about passenger rail in this thread.
The railroads and any mass tranit need to pay for themselves by the user paying. Otherwise it is a waste of money because it shows they are noit being used enough or valued. Its liike the bus systems now in operation i that they have so few using them ;they are a waste of money in most areas.It will make moeny if its economically feasible;period.
The railroads and any mass tranit need to pay for themselves by the user paying. Otherwise it is a waste of money because it shows they are noit being used enough or valued. Its liike the bus systems now in operation i that they have so few using them ;they are a waste of money in most areas.It will make moeny if its economically feasible;period.
However, the reality of it that it is too costly for only the users to pay. Railroads & mass transit get both state & federal subsidies as it is. The idea is that what they do is so important to the general public that they will be financed by both users & government.
The railroads and any mass tranit need to pay for themselves by the user paying. Otherwise it is a waste of money because it shows they are noit being used enough or valued. Its liike the bus systems now in operation i that they have so few using them ;they are a waste of money in most areas.It will make moeny if its economically feasible;period.
i want to talk strictly freight.
so you're staying that the freight railroad companies should be the only ones that pay for anything having to do with the rails, INCLUDING things like elevating tracks which would benefit the public as a whole, correct?
wonderful! that means the rest of us can stop paying gas taxes because in theory shouldn't the truck freight carriers be the ones to build and maintain the roads? and, in essence, shouldn't these trucking companies also OWN the roads?
The railroad vs. public roadways controversy has been going on for years. Specifically, the roots of the fight go back to at least 1914, when railroads peaked, Henry Ford started producing enough cars to make an impact, and bicyclists began lobbying for paved roads. Roads were a local affair, and other than post roads, the national government didn't much care if the roads got muddy or impassible.
Just as rail really got to get big because of the government (and land grants to subsidize the transcontinental railroad), the public roads got to get big because of the government drive for a paved national roadway system for defense purposes, and later an american autobahn pushed by General Eisenhower.
Freight railroads are, at this point, already subsidizing public roads by keeping the heaviest freight traffic (masses of power plant coal, limestone and other minerals) OFF the roads where they would quickly ruin them. If it came to a point where the freight railroads were about to go bankrupt, the government would have to step in and rescue them - actually, it did just that with Conrail and an earlier problem. The alternative would be everyday convoys of 50 or more huge coal trucks ruining the infrastructure leading from coal fields to power plants. The costs of supporting and maintaining that would be astronomical in comparison to rescuing rail.
Just how much or little the government does until that point is just an exercise in finger pointing. As for elevated crossings to eliminate grade crossings, I'm all for them. I lived about five miles from an Amtrak train plowing into a fully loaded gasoline tanker in stalled rush hour traffic. People are STUPID when they get around rail crossings. They don't consider that a loaded train can have the mass of a sea-going freighter or small skyscraper, and the momentum is almost impossible to control.
We owe the big railroads a lot for their integral part in American industrial might and global success. We greedily keep our gas taxes and tolls to the General fund while we wholly rely on the largess of BNSF et al to aid and abet our success. They might even consider hyper-tech mag-lev etc as an alternative to air travel for those of us who would love to travel that way. But not if we just subsidize highways and the airlines.
Thanks, big and small rail, for putting up with society's vast ignorance of your contributions
We owe the big railroads a lot for their integral part in American industrial might and global success. We greedily keep our gas taxes and tolls to the General fund while we wholly rely on the largess of BNSF et al to aid and abet our success. They might even consider hyper-tech mag-lev etc as an alternative to air travel for those of us who would love to travel that way. But not if we just subsidize highways and the airlines.
Thanks, big and small rail, for putting up with society's vast ignorance of your contributions
Terrific post!
And, how tragic and short-sighted of our government to allow routes and tracks all across the country to be abandoned. Wonder which lobbying group pushed hardest to allow this to happen - the trucking industry and auto industry are the first groups that comes to mind.
The way things are going we could desperately need more mass transit systems in the near future.
i want to talk strictly freight.
so you're staying that the freight railroad companies should be the only ones that pay for anything having to do with the rails, INCLUDING things like elevating tracks which would benefit the public as a whole, correct?
wonderful! that means the rest of us can stop paying gas taxes because in theory shouldn't the truck freight carriers be the ones to build and maintain the roads? and, in essence, shouldn't these trucking companies also OWN the roads?
I'm not sure if I'm reading your 2nd paragraph correctly. I have been in transportation for 37 years, LTL, TL, Flatbed, Container, Reefer you name it, import/export and local.
Do you have any idea at all what the transportation companies pay in road taxes and licenses a year? They already paid to build the roads, trust me on this.
Your little license plate fee and gasoline tax is a "poof" in the bucket of revenues collected for road usage.
Trust me the RR companies are making a bundle, and basically holding the truck carriers hostage on their rates. I see it every single day, and have seen it since deregulation in the 70's....yeah that's how long I've been in the business.
Terrific post!
And, how tragic and short-sighted of our government to allow routes and tracks all across the country to be abandoned. Wonder which lobbying group pushed hardest to allow this to happen - the trucking industry and auto industry are the first groups that comes to mind.
The way things are going we could desperately need more mass transit systems in the near future.
sigh.....
The trucking companies pushed the hardest for more RR lanes...What hindered the trucking companies was the unions, in particular the teamsters. Read their contract sometime. It only allows the trucking companies to put "so much" freight on a train. Yep, that's right the union NOT a lobbist did this. The unionized carriers needed some relief on the costs their companies were absorbing due to teamster wages. The only way the unionized carriers could continue to compete with non-union carriers was to get some of their freight on the rails.
It is much cheaper for a trucking company to put things on a train. Very little freight on trucks is actually trucked from say the NE to California, almost all of it ends up on a train.
sigh.....
The trucking companies pushed the hardest for more RR lanes...What hindered the trucking companies was the unions, in particular the teamsters. Read their contract sometime. It only allows the trucking companies to put "so much" freight on a train. Yep, that's right the union NOT a lobbist did this. The unionized carriers needed some relief on the costs their companies were absorbing due to teamster wages. The only way the unionized carriers could continue to compete with non-union carriers was to get some of their freight on the rails.
It is much cheaper for a trucking company to put things on a train. Very little freight on trucks is actually trucked from say the NE to California, almost all of it ends up on a train.
Mrs. P.
You are way off base with trucking and unions there isn't that many trucking unions out here your average driver and there are thousands of us are non - union. do you really think if we were organized the price of diesal would ever have gotten as high as it did?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
).
Whoo whoo!
