Hey guys,

In one of these posts, I was reminded about trains. Why aren't they used more than semi's? I realize tracks and stuff would be a large initial investment, but the payoff would be gargantuan, with quicker travel, much better fuel economy, probably fewer wrecks, ect.

What do you guys think?

 

Because people don't want trains running though their town near their house. There's still a lot of train usage around this part of Texas, but when I lived in Connecticut I wasn't aware of any. I'd also like to see trains used more for long distance travel like they do in Europe. Amtrak just doesn't cut it. I took a train from Paris and was in London in 4 hours time (3 hours with time change).

 

Laying track and buying locomotives is expensive. You have to be a pretty big shipper before railroads are cheaper than trucks--not economical to order 20 tons of something by train even if you're by the tracks, and sure not worth it to buy land, lay track, install signals, etc., if you're not near the rails.

 

I think the idea is to ship long haul stuff to a regional center and trucks can make much shorter runs. Ever see all the trailers on trains?

 

Yep, that is exactly what they do. Around here it's piggybacks and containers, and the only local deliveries railroads make around here are carloads of rock and gravel for cement plants (two of them, both near my house, they each get 10-20 carloads at a time); Cargill loads corn syrup or something, they're right on the main line through town; and a "few" carloads of wheat (this is KS, ya know).

 

Used to take me 4 days from the northeast to SoCal in a rig, solo. Best time I ever had (with a co-driver) was 46 hours from Rochester, NY to L.A. It can take 2-3 weeks for a trailer to make that same trip on a train. With manufacturers ordering everything on a just-in-time basis, the train can't possibly replace a truck. Trains do a lot of car switching. The same train doesn't haul most loads from portal-to-portal. Additionally, engineers as well as OTR drivers have hours of service limitations. A shining example of that on a train was about 2 years ago. An Amtrak passenger train stopped in the middle of the Arizona(?) desert, loaded with people, and shut everything down including the A/C because the engineer had run out of hours. Irritated a lot of people, and made national news.

 

I agree with you on this topic... things like this cross my mind all the time. We already have the railroads, seems like we could use them more. This country needs a little more common sense. Seems to me like the more railroads we utilize, the fewer trucks we would have on the road, consequently, fewer road repairs. I doubt that the savings on the road repairs would offset the cost of the railroads, but every little bit helps.
I wonder how this would effect the economy???
(Where's georgedavila when you need to him to answer a question?)

I can't see us Americans using trains to travel, though. We are way too used to our independence. We like our SUV's waaaay too much to not travel in them.

 

I agree with the idea of trains bringing large amount of goods to a central hub and then having semis deilver from there. I think, though, you are all right about the timing issue, but I believe with some smart engineers and managers, it could be made pretty efficient.

 

Trains could certainly take some of the airline traffic. That's what I meant by my post. If I'm going to go from Connecticut to California chances are I'm going to fly. I'd rather take a train than deal with the hassle of an airport, crowded airline seats, etc. Amtrak is just too slow and unreliable though.

Pikachu, I don't think anyone was suggesting that trains would replace big rigs, but that it is possible to limit the length of the runs made by trucks. It's certainly more efficiant for a mile long train to haul a product accross country than to do it one truck at a time.

 

If you get into the wayback machine, the trucks undercut the RR because the RR had work rules (Unions....) etc that made them less competitive than trucks.

The other thing that happened is the interstate highway system. If we built a rail network like that, we'd all be on a train.

Anyway, what's done is done and these days, the railroads haul more than ever. It's just that their share of the market has gone down, as the market has grown.

There are a lot of "ifs" in all this, but if the price of fuel stays up, RR will become more attractive as they use much less fuel per ton/mile than trucks. (possibly 1/30th?)

Keep in mind UPS puts their trailers on trains and makes a 5 to 7 day east coast commitment. I know someone in the RR biz, and believe me, when the RR system was goofed up out here due to the SP/UP thing, UPS gave them laser heat to straighten it out and get their stuff moving.

I think we will see rail able to take some market share back from long haul, but only if the RR gets their head out of where it is and back at the business planning table.

 

I would love to travel by Amtrack. I think trains are so cool. Also very relaxing travel.
I make a trip a couple times of year. So I used MS Steets and Trips for driving costs.
My drive should cost me $67 each way at todays gas prices. 18 hour drive
Amtrack, cheap as I can get is $262 each way. 2 1/2 day trip

Thats why people in the US dont travel by train.

 

You're right. The trains in Europe are much faster and less expensive than Amtrak.

 

Not what I meant to imply.... I was just saying one of the reasons more stuff can't go by train is the way manufacturers order. They know they will be out of, let's say transmission widgets, on thursday at 1800 hrs. They order them from 1200 miles away on tuesday at 1200 hrs, then get a guarantee the widgets will be at their loading dock no later than 1745 hrs on thursday. This way of ordering both makes sense and doesn't. While it allows the company to micro-manage costs on a month-to-month and quarterly basis, it probably ends up costing them more in the long run.

A lot of freight already goes via the rails, but historically the railroads can't turn a profit regardless what they do. That is precisely why our tax dollars are constantly subsidizing railroads, especially Amtrak. There are exceptions to that, but not many.

Regarding the railroad unions being the reason the rail can't compete with trucks I say "hogwash". It was the same scenario even back when trucking tarriffs were regulated by the federal government. Deregulation of trucking did hurt the railroads further, I can't disagree with that.

It just seems like common sense if a business is constantly in the red, it should go under and not be bailed out with our tax dollars over and over again. But I digress......

 

The railroads do not get tax support anywhere close to what trucks do--imagine how expensive trucking would be if trucking companies had to build their own roads, bridges, and stoplights. And imagine how much electricity would cost if coal was delivered to the local powerplant in trucks--one guy per 30 tons, instead of 2 or 3 guys moving 12,000 tons. Also--from what I've seen, the big railroads do make money, and they don't get any significant tax support, not compared to what it costs to keep a railroad running. Occasional local projects, such as moving the main line outside of town or installing crossing guards, yes, but overall they pretty much pay their own way. Take a look at BNSF's report, http://www.bnsf.com/investors , and UP's, http://www.up.com/investors/annuals/ . Even with the economy kinda tanked, they didn't do too badly last year. According to US DOT, the FAA (airports) spent 13.5 billion, FHA (highways) spent 31.8 billion, and the FRA (railroads) spent 1.2 billion. BNSF made more than that all by itself. There was another 8 billion for transit projects, those are all passenger operations in larger cities, and yeah, those lose money big time. But, they could lose less than what it costs to build more highways and parking lots.

This turned into a heckuva lot more than I planned on writing...

 

Conrail was the last government assisted freight railroad. It was created from the ruins of the Reading Railroad, the Penn Central (formerly the Pennsy), and the Jersey Central with several other smaller lines. It was broken up in 1997 between Norfolk Southern and CSX Corp. The problem with Amtrak is that it is forced to use freight routes, since all of the smaller lines the passenger trains used in previous years have either been abandoned or sold off to short lines.

The lines around here have some history too. The next town over saw it's last Seaboard Air Line passenger train in 1968, then in 1975 service to the next town down the line was discontinued (then Seaboard Coast Line), and service continued to that town until January of 1985 (Seaboard System RR), the tracks were removed in 1986-87 (CSX Corp.). The biggest commodities were pulpwood, furniture, and chemicals. The name of the original Seaboard changed several times in the last years before the service was discontinued. The railroad right of way was just returned to the property owners 3 years ago though.

The town I live in is on a different RR line (Norfolk Southern, ex-Southern RR). Our biggest commodities are rock insulation, corn syrup, wood products, and roofing materials. We still have 4 or 5 trains a week in this town. The rock quarry says they have enough rock left for another 200 years, so the RR won't be leaving here anytime soon.

This next info is a little outdated, but it tells the history. I found this at: http://home.ptd.net/~laamb/trains/conrail.htm

Conrail is a publicly owned railroad company established by the federal government under the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 to take over five bankrupt northeastern railroads. Conrail began operation in 1976 using the lines of the five bankrupt railroads: Erie Lackawanna, Lehigh Valley, New Jersey Central, Reading and Penn Central.
Conrail carries freight traffic in the northeastern and midwestern states. Its tracks extend from the Atlantic Ocean to St. Louis and from the Ohio River north to Canada. Today one Conrail line runs on the Rockville bridge in Harrisburg, PA, the world's longest stone railroad bridge.
Conrail was set up to be an independent profit-making corporation though in its early years, even with the aid of federal loans, it lost more than the bankrupt lines had lost before consolidation. Stockholders in the roads taken over received Conrail stock in exchange. By 1983 the corporation had become profitable. In 1987 the government put its stock up for sale to the public.
The system today operates in 15 states over some 12,000 miles. It is one of only 5 major railways remaining in the United States (BNSF, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, Conrail, CSX).