A Message to America’s Railroads…
Posted on Sep 06, 2009 - 9:03pm by Marshall J. Gruskin in Business, Computer Tips, Economy, News, Trucking
I’ve seen your billboards. I’ve heard your commercials. You know the ones. How one freight train will take 250 trucks off the road and improve highway congestion. How your trains are so fuel efficient. How service via rail is so superior. How you protect the environment. How by using trains I can reduce my carbon footprint.
Railroads, I’d like to tell you just where I’d like to put my footprint. And it has nothing to do with carbon or the environment. You people have lost your minds. And I’m going to take a few minutes just to tell you how wrong you are and how your message to the American public is a bunch of hooey. Oh your slick, I’ve got to give you that. But I, for one, can see right through all your nonsense.
Let’s start with the most important point. America doesn’t care what you have to say. Trains are no longer sexy. Kids want to be truck drivers and jet pilots, not train engineers. What fun is it to just to go forward and occasionally in reverse? When America thinks of trains, they think smoke, loud ear piercing horns and having to wait at annoying rail road crossings while your cars jingle jangle across the tracks. And while folks are sitting in their cars waiting for your train to someday pass, they’re praying its doesn’t go off the tracks and spew ammonia or some other lethal chemical all through their neighborhoods.
America hates trains. In fact, the day you chose to get rid of the friendly red caboose at the back of your lineup of toxic clickety clackety noisy rusty railcars, America’s love affair with the train died. Trains are dangerous. They’re too big and too heavy. They scare people. When is the last time someone asked for a train set for Christmas? When is the last time you took a train somewhere? Have you ever shipped anything by rail?
Jim, my jibber-jammer is down. I need that part. Ok, I hear ya Bill, I’ll get my guys to get it on the next train out. You should have it in two or three weeks. Listen, nobody even knows how to ship anything by rail. Don’t you need to be right on the tracks? What if the material is oversized? How do you get it to the railroad? Where are the railroads? How would I get something from Charlotte to LA? Do I use the Burlington Northern or the Carolina Illinois Railroad which will transfer it to the Midwestern Union Pacific or Santa Fe or California Wyoming Express to yet some other train so it gets to LA somehow someday?
Can I tell you a little secret? Make sure nobody is looking. Ready? OK. There is NO railroad in the world that can do anything without trucks. All the switches, locomotives, rail yards, freight cars, engineers, lights and horns don’t make any difference without trucks and truck drivers. Because even if JB Hunt, Schneider, UPS and Swift intermodal their trailers anywhere, they still have to be picked up and delivered by truck. Ain’t no darn railcar going to drive into Wal-Mart and back up to a dock with the freight.
When America thinks freight transportation they think truck, not rail. When America thinks rail they think hazardous chemicals, hot molten tanks cars with white clouds of smelly smoke and yellow mucus liquid oozing from the top and freight cars with graffiti sprayed all over them with hobos, beggars, criminals and illegal immigrants riding inside or on top top of them.
Railroads, nice try, but trucks are the foundation of America’s movement of goods. If you eat it, drink it, sleep on it, sit on it or ride on it, mostly likely it was delivered by truck. In fact, the backbone of any rail system is the truck, not the train. And you know it. So good luck with your “campaign” but you’re not fooling anybody.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cemeteryrodeo/2049011904/
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I can’t help but laugh at the statement that trucks are safer than trains? Are you kidding me?
Let’s see:
You have ONE qualified crew on a train vs. thousands upon thousands of truck drivers on the roads. Don’t tell me the odds are in favor of trucks not slipping up. The more people on the roads, the more chances of errors. And don’t forget to mix in the number of idiot CAR drivers in there that truckers have to negotiate, not too mention the long hours they have. Who knows if that truck that’s passing you at 80 mph on your local urban interstate isn’t tired, drunk, or distracted?
On top of that, the state of Ohio (in which I live) just recently raised the truck speed limit to that of passenger cars, AS WELL AS raising the weight load limit. So, not only are the trucks heavier, but they’re going faster on already dangerously congested and narrow freeways.
I’ll take being stopped for a train any day versus having a truck blow out a tire at 75 mph and take me out with it. Safer my ASS.
To who ever wrote the first letter at the top of the page , you are a one hundred percent dumb ass , you really do believe trucks are the back bone of america . You know what , i really do hate to shit in your banna pudding , but trains was running before trucks of any kind was built. You want to put the railroads down because you dont understand nothing about them , you only know what you know about them witch is nothing . Yes i will agree with you the railroads do carry some bad stuff on the rails , but it is safe , and it gets to where its going , you truckers get lost , you take wrong turns, and most of you are jealous of the railroad because you was not smart enough to get a job with them.
Well i guess you dont make mistakes , you must be a truck driver or just a plain ole smart ass ha!!!!!!!
Why is it, the worst spelling and grammar in a comment belongs to the train guy?
Sounds like you Dave.
I am a former norfolk southern emploee and i can tell you or any other smart ass train hater that if it was not for the railroads this country would be dead in its tracks . The railroads is the heart beat of america and without a heart beat you are dead , a message to all truckers railroads rule and trucks drull . And keep on trucking by train.
Like it or not, most goods today are imported. They arrive by ship in containers and are then transfered to rail. They don’t make it to a truck until the loads are broken up for final delivery. It is an integrated system that works very efficiently.
Perhaps I should have rephrased what my point was about the Interstate system. I was not trying to say that Interstate Commerce didn’t play a huge role in the interstates creation. I was trying to state it wasn’t meant for such heavy long distance travel like going half way or the whole way across the country by truck.
The railroads are businesses that is true but they are also a utility that America can’t live without. The rails are a utility but the companies that run the trains on them operate like a business that’s the great thing about this country, everywhere else the railroads are nationalized. Only the major railroads are publicly traded business the other 540+ railroads are privately owned and operated, most of witch don’t really see any government dollars. Their really no different than a local trucking company. What the major railroads are asking for is aide in construction to adding on and improving infrastructure, not for regular maintenance. It’s like if J.B. Hunt and Swift trucking companies would go and ask the government to build onto their infrastructure, but they do not maintain it or own it, the highway and interstate systems are utilities and publicly trade trucking companies like J.B Hunt and Swift profit off that, there are publicly traded companies too. I not saying that a bad thing but you can’t blame the railroads for asking for help in construction, their not making Exxon mobile profits. It’s not that the railroads won’t be able to afford to pay the cost to increasing their capacity in the long run, they can’t afford to make so many improvements at once that future freight figures are showing is coming soon. Yes, this economy has had an effect on those figures, but once we are out of the recession traffic on both railways and highways is going to skyrocket and the railroads want to take care of improvements sooner rather than later and won’t be able to meet the demands and all that freight will spill onto the highways making traffic difficult and maintenance a nightmare. You said it yourself the rail lines are at capacity when the economy is well. The Metropolitan highways and interstates are the ones that need money the most not routes like I-40 and I-80 were most of that traffic is coming from afar distance (now improving where those highways go past and into cities could use improving.) At least if more long-haul freight were moved by rail than less tax dollars would be spent on the long distance interstates and more could be spent on improving the urban highways.
I not trying to cherry pick I am trying to state the key issues that politicians are looking into. Things need to change on both fronts. The way that truckers are treated and how their licensing fees, taxes on equipment, etc. are spent needs to be resolved. I admit you probably have a better understanding of the inner workings of the trucking industry, and I hope you think I have a better understanding on how the rail industry operates. The whole reason I even commented on Gruskins article is because I am tired of people thinking railroads like their old, slow, and outdated when they have no idea how far they’ve come from the 60′s and 70′s. They aren’t the railroads that are still instilled in the back of most Americans heads, they are trying to advertise and show they are useful and can meet Americas on time demands into the 21st century. Modern day railroading is completely different from the “golden age” of the industry.
I think there are some critical flaws in your assessment of the situation: expecting rail freight to double requires both a vastly improved economy and moving more freight from road to rail. Neither are givens, although freight is intentionally being managed to send it to rail.
The interstate system was designed and built for Defense and INTERSTATE COMMERCE! Those were the two main factors driving the project. It was not built for passenger vehicles nearly as much as for truck freight. Changing history doesnt make it so. That said, trucking also pays a large percentage of the cost of highway construction and maintenance: fuel taxes arent the only monies going into the pot as all sorts of other fees and taxes are involved-like taxes on equipment, licensing fees,etc.And, that money is NOT going for strict highway construction and maintenance-over 30% goes off the top to ecological crap, ‘rails-to-trails’, arts projects, museums, bike paths, mass transit in cities-and RAIL!! Who do you think funds Amtrak? Now, we have the situation of govt funding inter-modal facilities and calling them ‘highway congestion mitigation’ projects. So, trucking pays part of the rail costs-and there sure arent any trucking companies getting big federal bucks to improve their rolling stock, increase their efficiency and make money at the taxpayer’s expense. Again, if rail is to be treated as a public utility, they should be tax-payer owned . . no big stock dividends going into private pockets. And, since I’ve never seen anybody ship any freight bigger than a breadbox on public transportation (city bus/light rail), if you were to take the taxes trucking pays out of the mix, none of those would exist. . .both are very heavily subsidized. Lets face facts: passenger cars arent paying their own way here. Government wants trucking to pay more and more of the cost to get less and less. I guess I dont blame rail for trying to get more tax dollars; trucking would too but they have less success with it. A very few big-dollar rail investors can pay lobbyists with deeper pockets than thousands of small trucking companies so rail gets the $$.
I understand the desire for more rail freight-but the rails are essentially at capacity when the economy is humming along well. The fast trains and dedicated inter-modal lines dont yet exist and are the reason for this whole discussion. Somebody has to pay for this pie-in-the-sky and the rails dont intend to pay for it themselves as the extremely high cost of upgrading their infrastructure would cause them to raise freight rates to the point they arent competitive with trucking. We cant get cheap Chinese labor to build out the rails anymore.
I agree the highways are a total mess. But gridlock is caused less by trucks than idiot work schedules and planning that tries to send thousands of small vehicles into the same area at the same time five days a week. Many of those people should be telecommuting wherever possible. Mass transit doesnt appear to work except where population density is so high nobody wants to live there. The only other place I see this kind of gridlock is heading into the inter-modal ports and railyards. I understand where you’re coming from, but you either dont have the facts or are choosing to cherry-pick them. You’re trying to pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining!
I have a few friends that are truckers and I agree with them; there needs to be changes in how truckers are treated on the short-haul if the economy is to grow and long-haul rail, short-haul truck is going to prosper. Truckers deserve the to be payed fairly and to make their investments worthwhile. It’s soon not going to be a matter off choice we are going to need to take care of the problems soon or face disaster and a total collapse of are transportation systems including highways both railways.
With freight traffic expected to double over the next two decades we need to find ways to haul this freight easily and quickly. Investing in long-haul rail is a better investment right now over continuing to patch up our interstate system. Railroads own, construct, maintain, and pay taxes on their own infrastructure with little help at all. Trucking companies require their own infrastructure too, they just don’t compensate nearly enough for the use they get out of it. Interstates and highways are funded by taxpayers through the government. No trucking company could function with out the government paying for the up keep of the highway system that trucks do the most of the damage too. Interstates were built more for passenger travel and defense against an invasion from a foreign power, not for so much commercial usage that it is taking today. Congestion is going to become to big of a problem that will ultimately hurt truckers in trying to make shipments on time and quickly unless some of the freight is diverted somehow. The federal and state governments can’t afford to rebuild a segment of interstate highway every decade let alone add more lanes. That’s why many states like Virgina are investing more money into rail corridors to ease congestion and maintenance.
With more freight capacity that is going to be in the near future; it is going to be cheaper and easier to use a a form of transportation that is built for quick, heavy, long-haul freight movements. Tracks can be constructed faster, cheaper, and haul greater volumes of freight than a new highway lane. BNSF Railway just completed construction of a third mainline 16 mile long track coming out of San Bernardino in less than a year and that included building bridges, culverts, and day-lighting two tunnels in treacherous mountain terrain.
Intermodal movements on rail which consist of both shipping containers and truck trailers is now the number on revenue generator for the entire industry. They are strictly point A to point B unit trains that don’t stop at rail yards to switch containers between trains (at least not in North America.) They are also lighter trains and are able to achieve highway speeds and up. This allows them to cross the country just as, if not faster than a truck, and not stopping for anything other than a crew change and refueling. These are high priority trains meaning they have the higher priority over other trains like coal, or mix freight (box cars, flatcars, etc.). Intermodal consists are JIT Freight and very important freight that has a strict schedule to keep and make sure the trailer or container gets to the customer quickly and on time; this is not the old method of loading a boxcar and having to put the train through a whole mail sorting process every time it gets to a yard eating up time. Boxcars and flatcars today are mainly used for big bulky industrial products.
Any economist will tell you that we need to invest into the nation’s Rail infrastructure and urban highways so we don’t go from a financial crisis to a transportation gridlock crisis.
You’ll have a hard time convincing a bunch of truckers to be enthusiastic about rail freight: for one thing, long-haul is probably the most enjoyable type of trucking for the driver and the reason many go into the business to begin with. Take that away and there’s not much left for the driver. Then, look at the money: you’ll pay me $1000 or more a week to run long-haul . . and $600 to bust butt fighting the rail yard all day. Which one do you think I’ll choose? Going home at night isnt all it’s cracked up to be if you’re getting a big 10 hours off. . .to drive home from the terminal, eat, shower, play with the kids, talk to the wife, sleep, get up, drive back to the terminal, etc. all for about $8.50/hr. Short-haul/intermodal is NOT usually a good or profitable deal for the trucker. For one thing, the big city areas where rail yards are located are the best possible locations to put illegal drivers-no scales, no DOT, low pay and little regulatory oversight. That means the legal driver gets to fight city traffic all day (and the day is often 14hrs) for illegal alien wages. If that situation were ever cleaned up and made legal according to existing law, the cost would go up considerably. Hauling rail freight at the ends of the freight run is a thankless, ugly job that benefits big business but does nothing for road congestion. . .in fact, it adds to it. I crack up every time I see the commercial where the crane picks up the trailer out of the traffic jam and puts it on the rails. Because the entire traffic jam consists of rail containers! THATS why the traffic jam is there to begin with! But, the general public is dumb-and nobody cares what the trucker wants. And, believe me, running rail freight isnt railroading-far from it! That train crew is making GOOD money, is unionized, and has some respect. A rail freight driver doesnt have ANY of that.
And you DONT add trucking jobs-because most rail drivers run five/six or more short-haul a day. Mind you, they’re also paid less-considerably less, usually. This entire argument is about getting government to pay for rail infrastructure for rail profit as opposed to highway maintenance. When rail becomes a public utility with an honest claim on my tax dollars, we can talk about it. Otherwise, it’s just one more tax-payer subsidy of private business – including the trucking carrier who puts the load on the rails. I’m not concerned about what any foreign nation thinks. . .they’re not us and they’re not US! Something you’ll notice about older truck drivers is we’re not too impressed by what other people think. We think for ourselves and have the capacity to do so.
Europe’s situation is quite a bit different: all truckers there are unionized and limited to 9 hours a day. I have no idea what kind of money they make but I can guarantee it’s on a par with most other wages in their socialist system. Now, if you want to guarantee me long-haul wages, decent, safe chassis and containers and no more than a nine-hour day . . and get the illegal aliens with their crackerjack-box or forged CDL off the road, I might buy into it. Otherwise, I’ll stick with long-haul . .for the critical JIT freight, breakables, perishables and anything that’s too important to sit on a siding for three weeks. It would take a whole lot more money for me to hook that broken chassis with bad brakes, bald tires and most of the lights out and haul that overweight-by-half rail pig ANYWHERE! Cheap – by whose standards?