FUD Wrote:
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> Beartooth Bob Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > John Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > I find this an interesting thread with the
> advent
> > > of PSR. Someone posted recently that the STB
> only
> > > regulates rates. No mention of railroads
> common
> > > carrier obligation to ship anything.
> > > ...
> > > Can someone in the now shed light on the
> railroads
> > > and the regulators current situation regarding
>
> > > common carrier obligations? .
> >
> > Thank you John, this is exactly the conundrum I
> > have been thinking about for years.<
>
> There's really not much conundrum needed. Staggers
> for practical purposes deregulated railroads.
> There's still a hazy common carrier obligation in
> the background, but it's expressed mainly in STB's
> rate regulations. Railroads adjust their
> obligation by rates: if they don't want a
> particular traffic, they jack up the rates to
> where the shipper goes elsewhere. If the shipper
> can't go elsewhere, they will just have to pay a
> very high rate; in that case, if it seems abusive,
> the shipper can go to the STB for relief, which
> seems to be seldom granted (would love a reference
> to a competent study of how that works, if it
> works).
>
> "Common Carrier" seems to be trotted out
> periodically by roughly 3 groups of people:
> 1) those with no skin in the game, promoting
> interesting political views;
> 2) railroads that are trying to raise rates and
> claim that they have to carry the traffic, but
> don't have to lose (or not make enough) money
> doing it; and
> 3) shippers who want to move traffic on a
> railroad, but don't want to pay what the railroad
> is asking.
>
> And occasionally 4) mumbling arguments about how
> much money they lose running Amtrak trains.
>
> FWIW, trucking at one time was a common carrier
> operation for the large lines. It isn't there, any
> more, either. Other modes, ditto. The great
> deregulation push in the 1980s-90s pretty much
> extinguished the idea within the US.

Thanks for the answer FUD. Makes you wonder what the railroads would hate shipping more, a load of chlorine going 2,500 miles or a boxcar load of firewood going 50 miles . It would be interesting to see a rate quote for each move.