johnpbarlow wrote:
WRT the benefits of competition, I'm not going to waste my time arguing with the opinion that if you're a not a RRer, then you don't know what's going on (sounds a bit arrogant...).
Not my argument at all. Of course anyone who has access to information, in any line of work or avocation, can "know what's going on." My remark was intended toward pat attitudes held by the uninformed...that suddenly, with the dissolution of Conrail, there was "competition."
Shippers along the former Conrail routes are now served by one OR another of the bigger surviving companies. NOT both. That is scarcely competition.
Regarding access to the NY/NJ ports...instead of being served by one railroad, the various ports are served by TWO. Two entries isn't competition - it's a cartel. Was Ford/General Motors true automotive competition in the 1945-1980 period?
And claiming it necessary that those ports MUST have other rail companies' access, ignores the reality that shippers have many other options...trucks, other ports on the Eastern Seabord and the St. Lawrence/Great Lakes...Conrail did not choke shipping in a stranglehold.
johnpbarlow wrote:I don't work for the RR (although when I got my MEE degree in 1975, I accepted a position with Penn Central's signal/communications department. But my position was eliminated before I reported to Philadelphia). I do spend a lot of time track side taking pictures. And I read a lot about the industry - in fact, operations are the most interesting aspect of RRs to me. I think I have a pretty good idea what's going on in NE RRing.
Only you know how much you know, sir. You are free to come here and demonstrate it.
We are free to challenge it.
johnpbarlow wrote:BTW, I'm not saying Conrail provided bad service to the customers it wanted to keep. But it's pretty clear anecdotally that CR did the minimum to provide service to Southern Tier shippers. And it's not shocking that CR was not interested in allowing D&H/CP to compete even up on its various trackage rights routes.
The decision was made high up, early on, that the minimal Southern Tier market was costing more than it was producing.
That was the story of Conrail from its first conception. All the service to all the dying Eastern backwaters was making the Penn Central/Conrail hemmorage red ink. Something had to give; the decision was made to abandon marginal service and lines.
It is too bad about the Southern Tier; but a railroad is a business, not a charity. If it costs thousands to provide service that is intended to MAKE money, things will have to be changed.
johnpbarlow wrote:In the Northeast US, the point about the loading dock shipper being captive to a single RR is becoming more "irrelative" as Buc's coach John Gruden would say. For example, the majority of CSX Boston line traffic is intermodal in nature: pigs, multilevels, containers, and bulk products like gahbage, corn syrup, C&D, lumber, etc that get loaded/unloaded at transfer points. I can only think of a handful of shipper loading docks that have sidings along the 175 mile long CSX Boston line. The break-up of Conrail has strengthened competitive intermodal access to the Northeast.
You seem to overlook how Conrail and its predecessors were pioneering the intermodal service. The NYC began offering it, moving it at passenger speeds on timed schedules, in the early 1960s. Conrail aggressively sold its service, long before the axe fell.
CSX, on the other hand, had always focused on bulk commodities: Grain, coal, garbage. Stuff that was under no time constraints. Stuff that would get there when it gets there.
You don't see what goes on inside CSX, its dispatching, its slow-motion operation.
I do. Neither their dispatch system nor their signaling system nor their maintenance priorities, are optimal for high-volume, high-speed operation.
Perhaps CSX management, or its successors, will learn with time. But to say that it is the Eastern coal roads which are promoting and bringing about increased intermodal traffic, is absurd. Case in point: Two years ago, CSX lost a crucial UPS contract because they were unable to meet UPS's time demands...service that Conrail had solicited, meeting the shipper's expectations.