In Texas, as of today, 1/29/2009 we're still losing people. This is a really really bad one. Traffic is down big time. No recalls, only more furloughs. It could be a while before getting called back, maybe even a year. I too have seen on the economic forecasts that recover won't begin until 2010. Now normally in recessions, the rails and freight transportation in general leads the way into the recession, that is, we go down before the rest of the economy feels it. But on the recover, we tend to lead the way also. If that is true, and 2010 will be a potential recovery, then we might see traffic start to increase for the Christmas season. And if Obama can get some serious public works building projects going, then that would generate a lot of materials movement which would help. But the everyone I talk to says they've never seen on this bad, ever. The only person I know who has seen it worse is my Grandfather who worked for Santa Fe during the 30's, he said it was worse then. On their block, there were 16 families, my grand pa was still living at home with his parents, and his dad worked for the KCS. Of the 16 families which included people who owned stores, only grand pa and his dad had jobs, everyone else was out of work for years. But grand pa and his dad bought all the materials the neighborhood needed to have a been garden to feed everyone, and do repairs to houses, and all the neighborhood men made sure the garden was up and running and repairs got done. People just help each other back then and toughed it through.
