Why is Rail Frieght dying in NE?

There are multiple factors, most of which have been touched upon above.

1. The general decline in manufacturing in the US. Anybody want to bet whether they are tearing up tracks, or building tracks, in China?

2. There are many causes for #1 above, but one not to be overlooked is the NIMBY's. NIMBYs are not unique to New England, they're everywhere (therein lies the problem) but New England seems to have a disproportionate number of them. Railroads are most needed by smoke-belching, hammer-banging, dust-making, sweat-dripping blue collar factories and mills, not some sterile landscaped pretty building where a handful of folks in moon suits make microscopic circuit boards, or whatever.

3. The railroads themselves are a big part of the problem. The larger railroads - partly because of warped myopic management with their head up their rears, sometimes because of union greed - have shrunk and contracted to the point they don't WANT to serve many smaller customers. Guilford's service is legendary - or perhaps notorious is a better word. CSX has the "ONE PLAN" and management blindly follows "THE PLAN" rather than being governed by the realities and needs of the traffic. It's interesting to see how some of the shortlines in New England have grown as business has settled on the lines that DO want to give decent service. Unfortunately, the small lines still must rely on the Class I's to get the cars to and from them.

SO!!! the answer is simple - get rid of the NIMBY's, have the government tighten trade restrictions with other countries, build new factories with workers who will work for lower wages, replace railroad management with people who have a clue and a system that really works, make trucks build and maintain their own highways instead of using the roads our taxes pay for.....that might not quite do it, but it would be a damn good start. And if anybody thinks there is any chance of any of those items happening, I've got some nice swamp land for sale....(ooops, that's wetlands and you can't disturb the frogs by building near it!)

High tech business, which is about all that's left, use trucks because it is simply more efficient in this day and age.

Well, trucking may or may not be intrinsically more efficient (I do not want to start a debate on that), but what's more significant, IMO, is that to derive cost efficiency from rail shipping, an industry has to take stuff in rail car size lots, which are considerably larger than 18-wheeler size. The kind of industry that popluates New England today simply doesn't receive OR ship in such a lot size.

Also, regarding the supply chain of the consumer products industry --- somebody in a previous post used Petco as an example, and as a frequent customer there I can relate to that. Many players in this industry --- be it a grocery chain, or Petco --- used to have regional warehouses that DID take railcar size lots. Many of those warehouses were located railside, and manufacturers did ship to them by rail. A good example of such a manufacturer is Kimberly Clark who has a large (Yeah, I know, not as large as it used to be) on the Housatonic RR (formerly The New Haven) in New Milford, CT. For decades, since constructed in the late 50s, this plant was one of the biggest rail customers for both inbound and outbound loads in southern NE. And by the way, a big outbound customer in this part of the country was something to crow about in any era! They're still a big inbound customer, but in recent years the outbound business has trailed off to almost nothing --- simply because the supply chain for grocery products like that (Kimberly Clark makes Kleenex, Huggies diapers, Kotex, etc.) has changed to shipment of truck-size lots direct to stores. This kind of "disintermediation" of the warehouses takes cost out of the supply chain. With the Petco example, the same is no doubt true of commodities like dog food, cat litter, etc.

Everyone has made many good points here. To expand a bit on Tom's statement about shipping directly to the retailers in tractor trailer size lots, Just-in-Time delivery has forced shipping to trucks. You can ship 500 miles door to door in about 8 hours. How many days would it take a rail car to make that trip?

Retailers don't want to take more than they can put on the shelves. Storage space ain't cheap these days so let the seller store it for you, deliver to me just in time for use. Same goes for the distribution centers, space costs so again, let the seller store it for you.

I read an article a few years back that said one of the things that would help the railroad industry was the success of trucking. Eventually there wouldn't be enough drivers and highways to hold them all. In a way, NIMBYs (and I don't think they are evil) probably help every time they block another Interstate.

As far as NIMBYs blocking industrial development in Boston, well, I haven't met too many people who are in favor of industrial development in Boston. There was a proposal by former Gov. Weld to develop a container-rail facility in Boston to help Guilford but if memory serves it was Conrail who screamed the loudest and led the battle against that deal.

Waterfront real estate is, in this day and age, more valuable as residential and office space. Just look at what's happening down in Providence. Big chunks of this country are moving almost completely away from industry, or so it seems.

It would be nice to see ports like New Bedford, Fall River and others get developed around specific industries. The channel into Fall River isn't that deep anymore, so I think that limits things there a bit. I am not sure what the deal is with New Bedford. The Fall River channel will be dredged as part of an LNG facility forced on the town -- I don't think it is a good idea, so I guess I am a NIMBY too. But it looks like part of the project will get done -- maybe the dredging? Let's hope.

I guess it seems the biggest chance to increase rail traffic in New England will come from import/export -- containers, autos and whatever type of commodity that has to be shipped in bulk.

A little perspective from a little to the south:

Where I live in NYC, there was a lot of industry. LIRR had a very busy freight operation. Many of those industries left town (or the country for that matter). A lot more freight ended up going to terminals in NJ and being trucked into NYC and Long Island. Conrail had no interest, as it was all inbound loads with a long haul of empties back to selkirk, and lirr itself is a commuter operation that inherited the freight work.

times changed for the better though. conrail's monopoly went away. CP Rail was given access as part of the merger agreement, and NS competes with CSX via what's left of the cross NJ-NY harbor float operation. LIRR leased it's freight operations to a shortline that has been aggressive in persuing customers, and now, at least on the CSX train to and from town, there is a balanced mix of inbound goods and outbound C&D trash. (CP is doing ok at the moment delivering and removing old LIRR cars... they don't get quite as much traffic but it keeps csx in check)

with business up csx has been investing into fixing up it's connection track to NY&A, and there's rumor that with more customers coming online they will need to add a second round trip per day to handle the increased loads (the single round trip per day already handles a healthy 50-100 cars a day)

It wasn't all that long ago that all seemed rather hopeless here in terms of any viable future for freight operations. today the exact opposite is true. the commodities have changed, a lot of sidings and yards simply don't exist anymore, but the prospects for long term growth and stability are brighter than they have been since at least the late 80s...

if and how a similar turn around can take place in NE, who knows.

There are some big differences between NYC and New England. First off Brooklyn by itelf is about five times larger (in population) than Boston and Queens is about four times larger. When you take all five burroughs in you have an entity that is bigger than Massachusetts, by far the largest New England state. It would actually be bigger than Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island combined.

The other issue is, New England never really had the industrial base that other sections of the country had and what industrial base it had (textiles and shoe manufacture) started leaving in the early 1900s and a big chunk of it was gone by 1930. (A great book that chronicles the decline of New England manufacturing is Amoskeag.) I worked for a time in one of the last clothing manufacturers that was still based in New England in the 1980s. None of the clothes were made in New England they were made down south. All that was in New England were the corporate offices. When the company went public even they left town. The building was since converted into an assisted living facility.

One of the reasons New York came back is that there was a lot of industry there. For the same thing to happen in Boston you would have to build the industry first. As I said in an earlier post, I would at the top of a high-rise in downtown Boston and can see quite clearly in all directions. There aren't a lot of smoke stacks out there and very few ships coming in and out of the harbor. Well, commercial ships, there are a lot of water taxis and pleasure boats.

Another reason I don't think it will happen is every economic conference I have attended all focuses on the same thing -- bringing more white collar industries into the region. Bio-tech is the flavor of the month. People of all political stripes are looking to invest, build and attract more bio-tech into the area. I haven't heard anyone calling for the construction of a steel plant, a coal-fired powerplant or even a plastic toy maker. The only thing smoke stacks are used for in Massachusetts is as cell phone towers.

The bottom line is that people want to make money not spend money. Creating an industrial boom in New England would require a pretty hefty investment up front. The majority of industrial buildings in New England were built 100 years ago or more. Bringing them up to date would cost a ton of money because you would have to tear them down and start over. Bringing in high tech and bio tech into the same building would only costs the price of remodeling.

New England will continue as it always has been. Maybe Norfolk Southern will come in and buy Guilford and develop the port of Portland, Maine or Boston as a container facility. But I think the big future for New England's rail network will be in moving people, which are the new goods for the region. Becasue when you think about Boston one of its largest industries is its colleges. I guess in a way Boston builds people.

If someone comes up with an efficient way to move people around the region north and south, then I think you'll see a true rail boom.

Enter the North/South Rail Link?

Just for the record - that picture of the levelled chemical plant in Nashua NH? That's the spot where they are going to build the Nashua commuter rail station that is supposed to be the new (hopefully temporary) terminus of an extended Lowell line.

I say "hopefully temporary" due to the fact that Manchester NH appears to want to get in on the act and have the line come up there.

Just as the Newburyport extension should have gone all the way to Portsmouth, the line to Manchester should go all the way to Concord in one swell foop! Not wait til later and have the studies drag on for decades. Do it once, do it right.... do it!

While I agree w/steam on doing the line all the way to Concord,there were just too many problems beyond Newburyport. First a major bridge that needed multi million dollar replacement,and then we are in New Hampshire;not the most rail friendly state when it comes to spending money(yet I respect their overall frugality,being a victim of tax and spend(mostly wasted!) Maine.

Only if Federal $$$ TOTALLY paid for it,would NH allow it. Yet,many residents in the RT. 1 corridor work in Boston,and the Downeaster is too far a drive for most! to tie up with.

Bud

Steam wrote:Enter the North/South Rail Link?

If the Guilford organization wanted to interchange with CSX in Boston, they already have the Grand Junction line through Cambridge (which was built about 150 years ago specifically for the purpose of connecting the north side railroads that became the B&M with the south side railroads that became the NH and B&A). However there's no speed advantage or any other reason for interchanging freight in Boston, which is why they use Worcester and Rotterdam Junction (NY) for that purpose. If the North/South Rail Link ever gets built (which I doubt it will), that will be for passenger trains.

I think he made the North/South Rail Link comment in response to my prediction that the future of rail in the Boston area was going to be passenger centered. I have to say, that I, like you, don't believe that the rail link will ever be built in the form that was originally proposed.

Wasn't it Charles Mellon who wanted to link the NH and B&M via a cross-Boston connection way back in 1912? It was to join into the Eastern route main line around Lynn. The 4 track elevated right of way from there was installed in anticipation of that... but then he got the gate and it never happened.

There's even some bridge abutments in Beverly which are 4 tracks wide, for no other obvious reason, at Pleasant St. and Federal St.

So it's been nearly 100 years that the idea has been floated of connecting the north and south sides of Boston.

Steam, Charles Mellon was the creator of the Hampden Railroad around 1912. While he had control of both the NH and B&M, he built the Hampden as a connector between both roads. It started at Springfield to a connection with the Central Mass at Bondsville. By the time they ran two inspection trains and announced new timetables and service, Mellon was exposed for his questionable business practices by the now famous lawyer Louis Brandeis and the line was rejected by the B&M and neglected. After around 1938, the dormant line was removed for in WWII scrap drives.

Guilford