palallin posted:Fair enough, Andre, and quite correct, but it's a sorry situation that we've created when that is true.
No biggie. This isn't a "truck is better 'n railroads" flame fest situation. Really, what we're seeing to day (trucks becoming so vital) was occasioned by more of a shift in our society and our industrial base over the decades, and the trucks were better able to adapt.
All of us here love railroading. As for me, railroading is in my blood since before I can remember. In fact, as many here know, I earned my retirement railroading. (For which I am SO thankful, especially now.)
However, I do recognize that a railroad is at a disadvantage when it comes to responding to individual needs of a smaller-type business that come and go, and/or move about the country seeking better locations to be in business. At the very best, even a "small customer" oriented switching line is disadvantaged on account of the fixed physical plant of a rail line. It's just the nature of the beast.
After deregulation, the railroads responded to this fixed physical plant situation (perhaps a bit knee jerk, but I'm not at the helm of a large railroad corporation) by going mega and streamlining operations, reducing redundancy of physical plant, and aiming for the line haul, indicating there may be validity in the old saying that says "railroads haul, but trucks deliver".
However, it's that darned physical plant of the railroad that has hamstrung railroading since its creation.
IMHO, the bottom line is that in a best case scenario, trucking and railroading are to be symbiotic and feed off each other. (Which they are doing to a degree.)
A fact that we railroad lovers will resist: On a regional level, railroads will NEVER be able to give the speed of delivery that a truck can provide. No way.
Example of a customer I used to switch on the A&M: Feed can be loaded into a truck in the afternoon, and delivered to the regional consumer the next day, and that with compliance with all Federal mandates. It would take a railcar DAYS (or a week or so) to do the same. SO, the best case scenario for the railroad is to be involved delivering the BULK (in this case grain and additives) product to the feed company, and then the feed company processes/blends/mixes and then loaded onto a truck for regional delivery. Win-win.
Andre
