Rail
- Posted by ryan on April 21st, 2008 filed in Uncategorized
Interesting story in the Post looking at the recent freight rail boom. Factoid:
A train can haul a ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of diesel fuel, about a 3-to-1 fuel efficiency advantage over 18-wheelers…
The piece notes that railroads are furiously adding track, AND that passenger ridership has also increased, but it doesn’t note how the two trends relate to each other. Passenger and freight trains often share track, placing passenger service at the mercy of freight companies where time, frequency, and reliability are concerned. It’s interesting to me that private firms are concluding that the freight market is ready for expansion, and a lot of it. No doubt expansion and service improvement could work in the passenger market, as well. Too bad Amtrak has to work hard just to maintain its annual operating budget.
One other thing. This boom is all the more impressive given that the railroad companies will pay for about 65 percent of the network expansion. Trucking companies, of course, are not required to pay for the highways on which they operate.
And it should go without saying that any significant move to price carbon or congestion or both, which we should be doing, would only improve rail’s competitive position.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
This boom is all the more impressive given that the railroad companies will pay for about 65 percent of the network expansion.
Railroad companies generally own the trackage. (There are a few exceptions, such as in the Northeast Corridor, or along the North Carolina Railroad where NSX leases the right to operate cars.) Owning the trackage, combined with the deregulation under the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, means that the trains can charge what they want, particularly so in areas with near monopolies (a fact that their customers complain about in the Post article.)
The tracks are profitable right now. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m not all that bowled over by a company being willing to invest in order to make a larger profit.
Passenger and freight trains often share track, placing passenger service at the mercy of freight companies where time, frequency, and reliability are concerned.
Indeed. Since generally the freight companies own the trackage, their concerns tend to win. The freight companies are much, much less concerned increasing speed to shave an hour off a 500 mile trip than Amtrak. It’s definitely a problem for Amtrak. Freight hardly cares about trips 100 to 500 miles, and certainly cares not all that much for speed; by contrast, those are the trips where rail has the greatest comparative advantage. Trips any shorter, and the time to get to and fro the station is long enough to outweigh advantages; trips too much longer, and air travel will beat most options anyway. (I will note, however, that the slowest trackage on the Acela is actually owned by the state of Connecticut.)
It’s interesting to me that private firms are concluding that the freight market is ready for expansion, and a lot of it. No doubt expansion and service improvement could work in the passenger market, as well. Too bad Amtrak has to work hard just to maintain its annual operating budget.
Interesting. The freight market is making large profits; Amtrak is not. Yet it’s “no doubt” that the company making a loss would benefit from expansion in the same way as the ones making profits? Seems a bit strong to me.
One reason why Amtrak has a hard time holding on to its operating budget is the tension between, on the one hand, people who don’t want to subsidize Amtrak if it’s going to be running massively empty, money-wasting, inefficient, cross-country trains between cities too far apart, and, on the other, people who don’t want to subsidize Amtrak unless it has a stop and train through their state or district.
Trucking companies, of course, are not required to pay for the highways on which they operate.
An argument for the privatization of highways? In any case, trucking companies, of course, are required to pay both gas taxes and pay taxes at truck weigh stations that are designed to pay for the highways on which they operate. I’d agree that it would be certainly better to price congestion or carbon or both, but it’s quite in accurate to claim that they do not pay for the highways on which they operate.
Anyway, I’m just sitting here eagerly awaiting the end of the Environmental Impact Statements for the Southeast High Speed Rail. (Going since 1999, and still going strong, the EIS.) I’m really looking forward to having a viable rail option for DC-Richmond-Raleigh-Charlotte trips, linking to the Northeast Corridor.