Declining coal and oil traffic is the least of the rail industry's problems!

And the industry's historical (or is it hysterical) love affair with Coal is not so much that it costs less to operate coal trains. It ain't really so anyway, except at the margins (if you still have excess capacity). And certainly the revenue per ton-mile is nothing to dream about either.

The big attraction that coal presented to railroad officers; was that it is very low hanging fruit, with very little direct competition, doesn't require much smarts; and is very easy to operate - just a very lazy shuttle back 'n' forth while the customer does all the rest of the logistics work. Even manager Bubba could do it.

Come to think of it, railroading's supposedly brightest star, double stack inter-modal, is pretty much the same way; as with very few exceptions, customers had to literally kick rail management's teeth clear out the back of their heads, to get it to happen at all. The good news here, is that it did happen, and also that merchandising is still going strong - for now.

The problem here and now, still is that, the national economy has over the last half century, grown much much faster than railroad carloadings, inter-modal or otherwise. Literally leaving rail carloadings in the very distant dust. Hence, overall rail market share now is at an all time low, while Trucking's share approaches 90% of all ton miles. In many vast stretches of the West, nearly all rail spurs now rust away, or have been disconnected; while trucks jam the highways. This is NOT a picture of a healthy rail industry.

It is no wonder then, that our highways are literally breaking apart under the strain. And that governments are now beginning to spend tax dollars on freight rail, in a quite vain hope of reversing that trend. It is a vain hope - because even all the private capital, attracted by an 11% regulated R.O.T., has already failed to bring that to pass. Adding the mere pittance of tax dollars that might be scrimped out wouldn't produce even a splash in that bucket.

This pernicious and persistent loss of market share has been going on for well over a half century now. While true that the Staggers Act helped ease the industries financial pains, it hardly did anything to ease the rail industry's half century long market slide.

It is obvious to me that much more than money will be needed; but that instead, a very major paradigm shift will be required of the industry; else the continuing market slide will sooner or later render the rail industry an irrelevant oddity (already is in many minds).


Can anyone say "Open Access" or "Universal Access". It works very well for the trucking industry; "If you can't beat 'em - Join 'em.

I did say "major paradigm shift"!

OPB