Rule292 posted:Number 90 posted:The single-carload business is not being solicited any more. The payback does not justify the expense these days. It takes a lot of people to handle single car shipments from pickup to delivery. The shippers gave up on it, too. They can no longer call downtown to the local railroad agency, release a loaded car, and expect to have it picked up promptly.
For the most part, industrial spurs are, and will remain, unused. They don't even build tracks into new industrial parks any more.
I think it may not be that bad out here in the east, Tom.
Plastic pellets and liquid/bulk products such as corn sweeteners and chemicals as well as bulk frozen food shipments still ship best by rail.
I guess I was being kind of provincial. We run a double-ended local between Amarillo and Clovis daily. Because agriculture is the business of the Great Plains, the local's pickups and stouts are mostly fertilizer, wallboard, lumber, cattle feed, and things of that nature. We don't have much manufacturing, refining, or distribution, and I think I failed to look out and take a broader view.
Mea culpa.
