Re: LA-LB blocking problems..-nope-no planning?
Author: BOB2
Date: 10-28-2014 - 08:11
A couple of years ago, we and most of the rest of the world, were in a pretty deep recessions/depression.
Imports fell significantly for three years from '08 to '11 and much of our export market consisted of "high value" commodities, like recycled bundled newsprint and cardboard.
Now, imports are up dramatically as the economy has recovered, and with a low and stable dollar, exports of American products, from peanut butter to auto parts, caterpillar tractors to American pharmaceuticals, airplanes to choo-choo engines are growing at their fastest pace since the 1950's.
So we've gone from very low value exports to higher value exports creating an actual "outbound" container problem, which has not been a problem anyone would have had to deal with for the last 35 years or so.
So no, apparently, given all of the nonsense you hear about how the world will end shortly from the nitwits who bloviate at us on TV, the RR industry too, sat and waited for the end times to come. And now, with things like the Bakken boom and a recovered economy, no one apparently did do much preparation for these events, in the RR industry. Thus today, with "meltdown" looming, RR's and industries dependent upon them are paying a steep price for that mistake.