Western Railroad Discussion > Time to break up the mega-railroads?

The American economic liberties group has been waging a campaign to break up the huge hospital networks on anti-trust and monopoly grounds. They believe the big hospital chains have acted in ways which destroy competition, and restrict workers freedom of movement. In their view, breaking up the hospital chains into competitive and competing companies would be good for patients, workers, medical staff, and the US.  Some of the arguments they make are directly comparable to railroads.

Huge companies, serving their owners on Wall Street, ignoring and pressuring their workers into longer hours, resisting work life balance, running rough shod over unions,  paying their executives tens of millions of dollars per year. With lapdog anti-trust enforcement green lighting every merger. No serious regulation.  Where have I heard this before?

economic liberties dot org

Can't find that website. 

One thought which I have had for a while, is that if someone pinched off enough lines to form a open-access network, the big railroads in that region, of necessity would be forced  to be more competitive.

Does anyone see this the same as I do?

ts1457 Wrote:
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> Can't find that website. 
>
> One thought which I have had for a while, is that
> if someone pinched off enough lines to form a
> open-access network, the big railroads in that
> region, of necessity would be forced  to be more
> competitive.
>
> Does anyone see this the same as I do?

https://climaterailalliance.org/open-access-toll-roads-for-trains/

Working on a nationwide letter writing campaign to Congress and STB.

TAW

Is there another industry that treats customers worse than Class1RR's?  Seems that short lines are able to attain customer appreciation routinely.  Afraid that Class 1 RR's won't be broken up or held accountable until it's too late.  

Obviously time to break up the big 4, and IDK why the  idiots (imho) in govt allowed Canadian interests to buy up so much of american RR's....
other than a money grab for wall street.    The consumer will be the loser, as the divide between rich and "the rest of us"  continues to widen.   Dont know where its gonna end.....

What difference does it make that some fraction of US railways are owned by Canadian companies? They're not going to magically pick up the KCS or former IC and reassemble them up north for some nefarious yet pointless reason. And judging by the consensus here of how well UP et. al. are being run, I don't see how CN or CP is somehow worse.

yorknl Wrote:
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> What difference does it make that some fraction of
> US railways are owned by Canadian companies?
> They're not going to magically pick up the KCS or
> former IC and reassemble them up north for some
> nefarious yet pointless reason. And judging by
> the consensus here of how well UP et. al. are
> being run, I don't see how CN or CP is somehow
> worse.
They're not worse; in fact they are better managed than any of the US Big Four.  However, that's the problem.  If you break up the Big Four (or permit open access) the Candians will take advantage via their better grasp of how to operate a mega-railroad..  So they will have to be as tightly regulated as the US roads.  And while the Big Four may need that, the Canadians don't.
 

calumet Wrote:
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> yorknl Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > What difference does it make that some fraction
> of
> > US railways are owned by Canadian companies?
> > They're not going to magically pick up the KCS
> or
> > former IC and reassemble them up north for some
> > nefarious yet pointless reason. And judging by
> > the consensus here of how well UP et. al. are
> > being run, I don't see how CN or CP is somehow
> > worse.
> They're not worse; in fact they are better managed
> than any of the US Big Four.  However, that's the
> problem.  If you break up the Big Four (or permit
> open access) the Candians will take advantage via
> their better grasp of how to operate a
> mega-railroad..  So they will have to be as
> tightly regulated as the US roads.  And while the
> Big Four may need that, the Canadians don't.
>  

Open access will never happen in the US or Canada. Unlike the places that do have open access like the UK and Australia, where the railways here are owned by the government, the railways here are privately owned. You would have to either work out an agreement with all of the railroad companies or Nationalize them. And I don't see either of them happening anytime soon.

PHall Wrote:
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> Open access will never happen in the US or Canada.
> Unlike the places that do have open access like
> the UK and Australia, where the railways here are
> owned by the government, the railways here are
> privately owned. You would have to either work out
> an agreement with all of the railroad companies or
> Nationalize them. And I don't see either of them
> happening anytime soon.

That depends upon how you define nationalize. US railroads were nationalized in 1862-1865 and 1917-1920, but it wa not a 'socialist' confiscation of private property, it was effectively regulation as authorized by Article 1 Section 8 Clause 3 of the Constitution.

That can be done again. Codify separation of infrastructure from service. After Staggers, corporations such as BN, SP, Santa Fe, formed holding companies for their advantage, basically to pillage the railroad companies and leave behind their ghost. If corporations can do it for their benefit,they can do it for the good of the nation, forming a holding companhy with infrastructure and service subsidiaries.

What is Really Stupid is that the arrangement generates income on underused assets and, yup, they'll probably be dumb enough to fight it.

TAW

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> PHall Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > Open access will never happen in the US or
> Canada.
> > Unlike the places that do have open access like
> > the UK and Australia, where the railways here
> are
> > owned by the government, the railways here are
> > privately owned. You would have to either work
> out
> > an agreement with all of the railroad companies
> or
> > Nationalize them. And I don't see either of
> them
> > happening anytime soon.
>
> That depends upon how you define nationalize. US
> railroads were nationalized in 1862-1865 and
> 1917-1920, but it wa not a 'socialist'
> confiscation of private property, it was
> effectively regulation as authorized by Article 1
> Section 8 Clause 3 of the Constitution.

Both of those times the country was at war.  A big difference.  I agree with PHall, not going to happen.  As it shouldn't.

Typhoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Both of those times the country was at war.  A
> big difference.  I agree with PHall, not going to
> happen.  As it shouldn't.

If "big money" decides that open access is a more remunerative model, the change could happen quite quickly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/23 10:34 by ts1457.

It’s ALWAYS follow the money.

The masses don’t care about tomorrow and neither does the Plutocracy, as long as the Plebs are placated by bread and circus (Cheetos, Bud Light and the newest cell phones) and their “Owners” keep them that way so everything is flowing into Wall Street coffers… all is well.

With apologies to George Carlin and Bill Hicks. RIP.

Regards and solidarity

Posted from iPhone

A nationalized railroad would be just as efficient as the post office. Be careful what you wish for!

KY_Railfan Wrote:
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> A nationalized railroad would be just as efficient
> as the post office. Be careful what you wish for!

Yes. A post office that was very efficient until congressional intervention starting in the 1980’s.

Govt. won a few wars, put us on the moon, built some spectacular infrastructure, and private industry loves to ask it to do things for it on public largesse.

Hmmmm.

Regards

Posted from iPhone

Wasn't Conrail owned by the government? They seemed to do a pretty good job of it.
So of course they had to kill and dismember it...

PHall Wrote:
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> Wasn't Conrail owned by the government? They
> seemed to do a pretty good job of it.
> So of course they had to kill and dismember it...

Conrail was an absolute monopoly over the nation's #2 port, and a significant player in Boston, Philly, and Baltimore. And had a lock on Pennsylvania coal, with a piece of West Virginia coal.

These are good attributes to have.

Posted from Android

Many, at one time probably most, rail customers have always had only one choice of rail carriers.  They were, and are, located in places that only have one railroad.  Doesn't matter if there are 7 big systems or the 125 +/- class ones that existed in the 1950s.  Going back to multiple companies might result in companies actually wanting to serve customers, but cross country service won't improve much.  You'll have to interchange cars more often.

Reciprocal switching is more about getting lower rates than better service.  Because that captive customer is still captive to the railroad that serves it.  Yes, Customer A is on the AB&C which provides lousy service at high rates.  So with reciprocal switching in place, it will route it's freight viat the XY&Z RR.  Now XY&Z won't be sending a switch crew to Customer A.  Rather, AB&C will pick up the cars and take them to the nearest interchange with XY&Z for a flat fee, not participating in the line haul revenue.  I'm sure a originating/terminating carrier will just be that much more inclined to provide better service to move cars on a flat fee to/from the nearest interchanged.  (Who knows, maybe they will.  Depends on how the fee structure is figured.  It might be more lucarative to haul some things for that fee rather than get the line haul.)

Open Access, has done in foriegn countries is great for those customers that can handle a train load at a time.  (I'll say a train load in European terms, one that's about 1/2 mile long.)  Or you use intermodal for everything.  If you're a small volume car load customer, or even a larger volume out of your facility but with small volumes to each destination it might not be so well.  (And while there aren't as many as there once were, there still are a lot of them.  Maybe you've noticed some of those large manifests?)  Maybe if you're in a terminal area it might be possible to get service.  Out in the middle of nowhere, maybe not so great.  And open access won't get back any of those customers like that.

If we had European style open access, I think the map would look like a map of the current 7 class one's trunk lines with a few branches to where bulk commodities originate, coal and grain etc.  That's what John G. Kneiling advocated for many years, many years ago in Trains Magazine.  

Has far has working conditions.  It might or might not create more jobs.  It probably would lead to person crews for most operations.  With smaller trains (maybe smaller) there would be more need for engineers.  It would probably lead to what the class ones always want, truck driver wages.  Quality of life also might or might not be better - transportation is transportation.  Many long distance truck drivers are out for weeks at a time.

The problem really is, and it's not just in the railroad industry, that the focus has become solely on money.  Wall Street governs most big businesses.  It wants the largest returns as fast as can be done.  It does not matter if a company's product or service suffers, or that the company may ultimately collapse like a house of cards.  Not all investors want it all yesterday, but most of the big ones do.  Especially those who live on those investments.    

I don't think anyone wants to go back to the state of railroading in the 1970s and before.  Railroads, like any business, needs to be profitable.  The question is what level of profit is enough?  All companies, not just railroads, really need to go back to the idea of providing a service or product and make money doing so.  Instead of the current view that companies are there to make as much money as possible for shareholders while providing a service or product.  

Of course that is unlikely to ever happen.

You've presented a good argument

Posted from Android

In the Albertson's deal, follow the money.  Which is a $4 billion dividend to be paid out to the private equity owners as a cash out.

Some observers believe the distribution will created a weakened company as the survivor.  Other observers believe that requiring the private equity sellers to hold shares for two or more years may force them to focus on the business, not stripping money out of it.