Re: OT It's all a Conspiracy-was: Demise of Steam Locomotives

[Paul Stenquist]

Wasn't there some late seventies legislation that eliminated many of 
the government regulations that required railroads to maintain 
unprofitable spur lines? I did advertising for the Association of 
American Railroads in the early 1980s. I recall doing a series of ads 
that were intended to combat the coal companies efforts to repeal 
legislation that had removed restrictions from railroad operations. I 
remember one ad that featured a quote from Thomas Jefferson. It was 
something like, "Business will manage best when left to manage for 
itself." Those might not be Tom's exact words, but, hey, it was twenty 
years ago or more.
Paul
On Feb 14, 2004, at 5:17 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Frank,
     The biggest lament of the US railroad industry in the '60's and 
'70's was the competition from trucks.  They were faster, more 
flexible, and used cheaper labor (independent truckers) than the 
railroads.  They didn't pay to maintain a system of roadbed/rails, and 
government regulations didn't force them to keep that 3 mile spur line 
to Ma & Pa's grain elevator open for that one carload of revenue 
traffic they got per year.
     The deck was stacked in favor of trucks from the beginning!
Regards,  Bob S.

Frank writes:

Now, your line about truckers "stealing business" from trains got me 
to
thinking, and it brings me back to conspiracy theories (which were 
mentioned
by Tom earlier) of the auto industry killing competing industries:

One of the reasons that trucking has stolen business from trains is 
the
current model of low inventory factories, made possible by "just in 
time
delivery".  Trains are great at moving large volumes cheaply.  But 
they
can't compete with trucks when a factory says, "we want a certain 
number of
widgets (but not too many) delivered between 2 and 3pm on Tuesday".  
In
essence, the truck becomes the warehouse.  Warehousing and storage 
costs are
kept down, and more factory space can be devoted to actual 
manufacturing.

IIRC, this low inventory "just in time delivery" model was developed 
or at
least championed by the auto manufacturers.  But, who makes trucks?  
Could
it be the auto manufacturers?  Yeah, I know, GM makes locomotives 
(gee, they
never made steam locomotives though - hmmmm! <g>), but does
Ford or Chrysler
(sorry, Daimler-Chrylser)?

It's all starting to make sense now...