Republicans & Conservatives Archives

Thank you for drawing attention to Freight Rail in this post. I also have to add that during the mid-twentieth century, freight railroads got screwed by government subsidized highways. It wasn’t until the 1970s when we realized that government needs to not show favoritism in these sorts of things; otherwise the market is perverted.

I also must say that the stewardship of government ownership of CONRAIL was also a key component for the current renaissance in American freight rail capacity. The fact that the government owned CONRAIL made the transition to a deregulated rail market much smoother.

I must disagree with the idea that passenger rail is detrimental to freight rail. First of all, it is true that high-speed passenger rail and freight rail cannot coexist on the same tracks, so any serious investment in high-speed rail must make use of a new Right-of-Way in our most densley populated areas (the BosWash megapolis for example). However, improving the speeds of regional passenger rail systems can be beneficial. For example, the ARRA provided money to refurbish track between Portland, ME and Brunswick, ME in order to extend the successful Amtrak Downeaster service. However, those tracks are owned and used by Pan Am Railways (formerly Guilford Rail System, formerly Boston & Maine RR + Maine Central RR). The refurbishment will allow for increased speeds and take more trucks off the Maine turnpike.

BTW, the regulations were not always detrimental, they were just antiquated. In earlier eras, railroads had a monopoly on transportation. They could hold a community hostage if they didn’t get their way. The government needed to intervene in order stop these abuses. The fact that most of the railroads built in the end of the nineteenth century were government funded provided the legal justification for the regulation.

The railroads were the most subsidized corporate entities before the highway system.

In the last few years, the railroads are shipping much more and putting truckers out of business. Although my bankrupt independent trucker brother disagrees, I think this is an improvement in efficiency.

The solution to high speed ground travel is vacuum tube trains. The tubes can be buried just below the surface in most cases, and they would be fast, very fast on long runs. Dig a ditch, lay the tube, cover it up.

Tubes could be anchored to the sea floor below the wave action and they would be capable of traveling at mach speeds. A revolutionary concept, run by electricity, that could replace air travel.

jlw,

ocean tubes…and what happens when something goes wrong at a depth of five miles in the middle of the ocean? Call BP to dig a relief well?

what about the 100,000 truck drivers (who own thier own truck)who will be put out of work ??? thats right America just step on the middle class some more. i’ve worked in the industry 10 years and im making less than i was when i started. And to think i used to be a republican and had pride in this country…. and if you think im getting on something that could basically drown me if something goes awry you’re crazy,they never got airplanes or train travel safe and cost effective so whose going to give grants for the travel industry to invest in tube travel, because they wont spend thier own money.

The entire freight rail system depends upon a healthy and sustainable economy. Republicans have proven they are not up to that task. Democrats aren’t proving any better in the long run. Voters have to hold the politicians to account, or freight cars will be empty with no destination.

A group of Republicans in the Senate are blocking a bill to cut taxes on small business and incentivize smaller regional banks to make loans to small business. Small business accounts for 2 out of every 3 new jobs created. Republicans are hurting this economy in order to turn voters against Democrats in November. This is a classic case of the GOP killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

There were two reasons for the increase in rail traffic in the early 80’s: one was the increased cost of fuel and the other was the mergers of the class A railroads. When the cost of fuel skyrocketed in the 70’s, it became a cost issue with the shippers. Higher fuel cost meant higher shipping costs and led to higher prices for the merchandise. Capitalism will always seek the lowest cost. The increase in business created a problem for the railroads. They could ship merchandise at less expense than trucking, but they could not get it there as fast. When merchandise is shipped by rail, from say one coast to another, it may travel over several different railroads, which meant slow movement and many times lost merchandise. Starting about the same time in the late 70’s and early 80’s, the major class A railroads began to merge, to the point where today we only have a few major rail carriers. This did two things: it provided a shipping lane from point A to point B without traveling on foreign roads and it allowed the rail carrier to keep track of it’s shipments. The deregulation of the Staggers Rail Act helped to implement these mergers. Another benefit of the Staggers Act was to decrease the bottleneck of trains coming into congested areas. Example, the city of Cincinnati has at this time two major carriers and each carrier has a main line; the deregulation allowed each carrier to use the other’s main line. This cut down on congestion of inbound and outbound trains. Another invention in the early 80’s, which helped keep track of merchandise, was scanner tags that were placed on each car and the use of computers. As the trains pulled down the track, at periodic intervals, the cars were scanned and the computer system could keep track of the cars. The major rail carriers also bought fuel at a set price, called buying futures. When truckers were paying 85 cents a gallon for diesel, the railroad was buying guaranteed futures at 16 cents a gallon. Starting in the late 80’s and early 90’s producers of locomotives (G.E. and Electromotive division of G.M.) started producing cost efficient locomotives. More horsepower and less fuel use. These locomotives are to the point of being completely computer controlled, with the ability to be operated remotely. With a complete on board diagnostic system that can be analyzed by mechanical people remotely, thus they have the ability to know if the engine is operating efficiently. The goal of the railroads is to operate these trains by remote, if the FRA ever allowed it. I’m not sure it would ever be safe, but in some areas this is already taking place. Yard switch jobs are already operated by remote in many places.

Now to the crews: in the 70’s, trains operated with a caboose. It took a 5-man crew to operate a train. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, the railroads negotiated with the unions to do away with the caboose. The early locomotives came out with 5 seats in the cab, because even though the caboose was done away with, the carrier was still required to pay a 5-man crew to operate the train. Slowly, over the next few years, negotiations with the unions cut the crew to two. It was done, by giving lifetime job guarantees to the crewmembers whose jobs were being abolished. I knew many employees who did not work for as much as 15 to 20 years and yet received a guaranteed paycheck from the railroad every month.

The latest move by the carriers is to combine the 2-man crew to be qualified as a conductor and an engineer. So when a crew is called out, they simply call two men off the same board and put one in the engineer’s seat and one in the conductor’s seat.

Conrail was the old Penn Central Railroad. Conrail was subsidized by the government and was NEVER cost efficient. They always operated in the red. It was typical of any other government run program. It wasn’t until CSX and NS began a bid war to buy up Conrail, that the price of their stock came above $10 a share. Needless to say, the Conrail employees, who now work for CSX or NS have much more secure jobs.

Concerning the “intermodal”: the major rail carriers not only ship truck trailers by rail, but each major city has a “Tote Ramp”, where the trailers are removed and sent by local, rail operated trucks to their destinations. This eliminates independent and company truckers. The drawback to this is weight regulations on the trailers. They don’t pass over the usual truck weigh stations that you would see on the highways. Also, there is less regulation on what is actually being shipped in the trailers. Our cities are most vulnerable from terrorist attacks by rail. Since most rail-yards are in the heart of the cities. The rail carriers do not spend much money on security. A railroad “Dick” as they were known, may have as much as a two state area to patrol and he might or might not have a partner. Most rail carriers depend on the city police, who are by the way, are hesitant about coming on railroad property. So it is a weak point.

David Remmer said:

“The entire freight rail system depends upon a healthy and sustainable economy.”

The entire country depends upon a healthy and sustainable economy. But the railroads are not held hostage to the economy. When the economy is down, the rail transport system is the first to feel the effects. They have been in this business a long time and know how to cut costs and survive. Even during the depression, the rail system worked, and a railroad job was a highly prized position. I would imagine more people traveled by rail during the depression than by any other means. They called them hoboes. My dad and grandfather traveled by this means, while looking for work.

The Republicans in the Senate are probably blocking this bill, for the same reason they blocked others; that these bills have nothing to do with helping small business, but have everything to do with creating another slush fund from which democrats can pay off the unions, states, and cities….

I guess the most important result is that deregulation opens the way for economic growth and competition.

Beretta9, probably? Is probably good enough for you?

Gergle, What happens when a high speed train derails?

What happens when a 747 falls out of the sky.

What happens is we pick up the pieces and go on.

The tubes will in all likelihood be quite a bit less than 5000 ft. and certainly not 5 miles. Anchored to the sea floor, not on it.

What happens if there is an accident, we repair the damage and go on. One thing that will be reduced is operator error, they will have very little to do. So, accidents will probably be reduced to poor safety, maintenance, or sabotage. The risk can be reduced but not totally eliminated.

Jacob, truckers need electric trucks and an electrical highway grid. You are right about who would have to build the vacuum tube transportation system. Tax payers will have to build it and let their politicians give it away to the private sector.

David R., history tell us that there has never been and will likely never be such a thing as a healthy AND sustainable capitalist economy or any other type of economic system. A roller coaster economy is necessary to encourage cash flow in the right direction. To get out of this, it would take an evolution in thought by the general public, and there are powerful forces allied to insure that doesn’t happen.

The only reason we continue to claim we have a capitalist economy is because most of the wealth is still concentrated in the hands of a few. We abandoned capitalism and replaced it with financialism in which debt is now the backbone of our economy. The economy is now on hold as people try to reduce their debt and hope their jobs don’t disappear before they can payoff at least some of what they owe. IMO, this current recession was planned by deliberate ignorance.

In the movie, CORPORATION, there is a scene of a Fox economic news show from 2006-early 2007. One analyst was arguing that the housing bubble was going to burst and cause tremendous economic damage. The other analysts and the host got a big laugh out of it. All of them claimed that his comments were ridiculous. Deliberate ignorance spread to the investors via Fox.

Thank you Beretta9, that was interesting.

Beretta9, the Republican Party used to champion the cause of small business. That is no longer true except rhetorically.

You and C&J are touting the deregulation as a benefit to large corporations, at the expense of small business. The same is true of the Chamber of Commerce. It used to be the primary advocate of small business. Now Chambers across America have been taken over by WalMart, Home Depot and corporate franchise holders.

I agree that deregulation can lead to better efficiency, but everything has a cost and over the long haul, the costs to consumers will be greater.

jlw said: “To get out of this, it would take an evolution in thought by the general public, and there are powerful forces allied to insure that doesn’t happen.”

I see signs that is well underway as we type.

Thanks for the reference to the Fox news program in 2007. I was writing here at WB of the coming economic downturn at the same time, and those on the Right filled the comments against the credibility of any such statements. I got the last laugh. But, that’s not good enough. Those on the Right with wrong ideas and concepts continue to hold an enormous amount of power on the steering wheel of this nation’s future, and that is truly worrisome. The same can be said of many on the Left.

jlw, absolutely right. Every policy has costs, usually not discussed with the public by that policy’s proponents, and too often not assessed by the opponents for public information.

Good governance demands those costs be assessed at their maximums and made available to all BEFORE such governance is put into effect. How likely is that with the political parties controlling the information flow to the American people? It happens, but, not near the degree to which it must to avert bad policies that cost far more than the gains they produce. Iraq, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Clinton-Bush Jr. ownership society, and takeover of Afghanistan, are just such examples.

jlw,

The Oceans are far different from the English channel,even anchoring a tube below wave action would not be immune from currents and other fluid effects of the oceans, not to mention the enormous task of anchoring such a large object over long distances subject to enormous differential loads. Just burying tubes in the ground is an enormous undertaking over long distances, one that is very expensive to do and maintain. Sounds simple, but it isn’t. Building an elevated rail is multiples cheaper. Think Big Ditch in Boston.

For a tube to be efficient the volume of traffic would have to near the equivalent of current air traffic. That’s a lot of people buried under the sea dying with no means of rescue. Imagine the headlines. They stopped building Titanics for a reason. Not to mention the technology doesn’t exist, and the cost to develop it and implement it would be enormous. Maybe someday, but this isn’t much more than a Jules Verne journey to the moon, today.

I don’t have a problem with dreams, just when they enter into the mix of realistic solutions, I have a tendency to put a pin into the baloon before it carries people away.

Royal Flush, I spent 36 years in the business. The railroad is something I do understand. We used to have a way of determining if the economy was going up or down. If we were hauling cardboard, the economy was improving and if we stopped hauling cardboard, the economy was going down. Cardboard was something that all manufacturers needed, to ship their goods. Although not very scientific, it was a very accurate way of knowing what was going on.

The term “featherbedding” is, I believe, a railroad term and could be applied to the thousands of uneeded government agencies.

jlw, ocean tubes…and what happens when something goes wrong at a depth of five miles in the middle of the ocean? Call BP to dig a relief well?

I thought ocean tubes were a good Idea, jwl.
Leave it to a pessimist to immediately pess on an idea.
” Can’t have change, can we? Something might go wrong! Leave everything the way it is! You’re bad!”

what about the 100,000 truck drivers (who own thier own truck)who will be put out of work ???

I’m going out on a limb, jwl. I’m going to provide jacob and his fellow owner/operators an alternative. It’s something owner/operators could do almost immediately with a small investment. I know my ramblings here on WatchBlog may be discounted by some, but every blind squirrel finds a nut, sometimes. So hear me out.

What is the “truck” these drivers have invested in? For the sake of my idea I will call them powerhouses.
A huge percentage of these powerhouses actually contain houses, ie. bed, refrigerator, tv, lights, phone, they are what many would consider luxurious. The purpose of this powerhouse/truck is to move our stuff from point A to point B. It uses a basic fuel source called deisel fuel, and the bi-products generated by this powerhouse keeps the operator in relative comfort.

I must call your attention to the bi-products. Torque, electricity, and compressed air are generated by this powerhouse. There is enough electricity to keep the operatior comfortable for long periods of time.
Compressed air is the equivilant of steam, and we know where that got us!
Torque moves our stuff from point A to point B.

There is an excess of compressed air and electricity being generated by this powerhouse, but it is not harnessed beyond the needs of the operator and the operation. Torque justifies this powerhouse’s existence. Torque is the gold, operator comfort is the benefit.

Distance, there’s the rub. Torque only makes money when it is used to move our stuff from point A to point B. Therefore…

Wait for it,jwl! Here it comes!

My corny idea is…

Park the damn thing, sell the tires and use the money to buy alternators from the local junk yard. Mount ‘em and use torque to turn ‘em to generate electricity for your neighbors, recharge the car batteries for the traveler, and fill up his tires to spec. Cook food to get repeat customers.
Owner/Operators should consider alternatives. All you need to do is park it, buy deisel fuel, and live in the cabin while generating huge amounts of electricity!

Maybe, plant a garden.

gergle, what about tectonic shifting? The mid-Atlantic ridge and Pacific Plates for example which are in near perpetual motion. How does one traverse these without compromising the integrity of the man made structures? Lacking an engineering degree, I am not equipped to imagine such a functional design. Have any information on this?

Thanks.

Like it Weary, you sold me. I might add, use the inner tubes from the tires and make a raft to fish from.

Weary Willy, his neighbors would call the law on him for noise and air polution.

David, are we designing buildings that are tetonic proof?

Google vacuum tube trains. I am because my comments are from memory and my memory is very suspect.

A vacuum train from NYC to London would cost less than 1/4 of 1 Iraq War, $175 billion.

Transit time: 1 hour at approximately 4000 mph.

Engineering: no major engineering hurdles to overcome.

What does it take to get it done? A commitment like the one that landed men on the Moon.

I might add, use the inner tubes from the tires and make a raft to fish from.

Teach a man to fish, Beretta9!

I really wanted to say something about the trains that come thru my town every night. They are required by law to blow their horn at every intersection in our city.

Since I live one block from this railroad, I suffer the brunt of this horn being blown every block, every hour, every day.

Why?

The law was passed dictating a train shall blow it’s horn when it encounters an intersection. That would be great if there were people at every intersection every time the train came thru town! But there aren’t people at every intersection at all hours in this town.

Yet, the trains continue to come thru town, they continue to blow their horn, and they continue to run over people. The railroad train runs over people even tho the city council has passed a law to not make our trains run over people.

The Democratics in this town think all they have to do is tell the trains to blow their horns at every intersection when they come thru town and all of the citizens will be safe!
They refuse to consider the people who have been run over by trains since this law passed. They hear the trains in their sleep. They hear the train horn blowing at every intersection in our town and they pull their pillow over their head and go back to sleep. Never considering their might be someone on the tracks that could need some help!

I think a train should blow it’s horn when there is an emergency. Not at every intersection. Maybe trains should adhear to a speed limit.

My point is, when a train comes thru town blowing it’s horn at every intersection, people tend to discount it, tune it out.

When a train whistle is most valuable is when people recognize it as a warning. A train whistle isn’t worth anything as an inconvience.

No argument here

WW:

Trains are required by law to blow a horn and ring a crossing bell at all crossings, including gravel roads in rural areas. If a train is involved in an accident, the first thing that takes place is an RR official downloads the onboard computer, which is like a black box on an airplane. It is admissible in court, and contains all information: throttle position, use of bell and horn, speed, if brakes were applied, etc. There are speed zones set in all areas of the rail, so if they are speeding, it is a violation and is easy to determine. It is the RR responsibility to place crossing gates and lights at each crossing, but RR’s won’t do it unless pressure is put on them. They don’t want to spend the money. In cases of accidental death, the RR’s will almost always place crossing lights and gates at the crossing. But again, the city can put pressure on the RR’s to comply. As for the horns, I can give you no advice except move or ignore because the sounding of horns and bells is the law. If an engineer fails to blow the horn, it will cost him his job.

It’s too bad that many people are stupid enough to get hit by a train despite the many safety protocols in place (lights, gates, bells, whistles, etc).

jlw,

What is that cost estimate based on? As I said, Remember the Big Dig.

It could be done. I just doubt it’s safety, structural integrity or financial viability.

David,

We don’t build buildings across fault lines. We do build roads and such across them. They can be realigned and repaired as the earth movements occur. In Houston, we have fault lines (mostly from subsidence). Earthquake zones offer a whole new set of problems. Isolation structures to absorb movements from a quake can be built, but they are not “quake proof”.

Anything is possible, but some things just aren’t likely. Tethered structures like oil platforms have multiple systems to stabilize them. preventing distortions over a long distance, and maintaining integrity of a vacuum system of that size would be a massive undertaking, supplying air to people submerged inside a vacuum tube over such a distance would also be problematic, requiring new techniques in building. The question mostly is, “why would anyone invest in such an idea?” The Panama canal was a massive undertaking across a Yellow Fever laden swamp, but the economic benefits were obvious. Supplying power to a segmented vacuum system over thousands of miles underwater, would require a huge energy output. I have my doubts there would be any energy savings. Getting a small package to the moon was much easier.

A good discussion here (read the comments):

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-04/trans-atlantic-maglev

I live about a mile from a freight rail line. I love that lonesome sound at night. I grew up about the same distance from a rail line.

Gergle, one article on vac trains had a figure of $25 million to $50 million per mile. I multiplied $50 million by 3500 miles and got $175 billion. My math could be off. But, you are right that the $175 billion could be at least double for the project that would take 2 to 3 decades to build.

The concept of maglev vac trains has been around for a hundred years or more. A Russian engineer proposed building one in 1913 and actually produced maglev prototypes.

Robert Goddard designed one that could travel from Boston to NYC in 12 minutes. It was discovered among his papers after his death in 1945.

There are quite a number of articles on the subject, Wikipedia, etc., and the Discovery Channel did a program on maglev vac trains. You can go there if you have the time.

Many engineers have voiced concerns along the same lines as you and many of their questions have been addressed with solutions.

Visionaries always have a ruff way to go. It took vision and some darned good engineering to land men on the moon, but the primary motivating factor for doing it was embarrassment.