Recent Trains Opinion piece on freight mergers

[me_little_me]

A commentary in the last issue of Trains "Uniting East and West to boost traffic" urges consolidation of the other class 1s to get transcontinental freights. Of course, this is at the expense of megamergers and anti-trust issues IMHO. Anyone else read it?

My suggestion:

Instead of allowing the railroads to merge to form giant conglomerates controlling traffic across the country, why not break them up but in a different way?
Let the operators run across the country but on the condition that they spin off their dispatching and their tracks into two additional companies. Thus, there would be a company that dispatches both UP and NS e.g. and a different company that owns and maintains both company's tracks and NS and UP become operators only on all those tracks with single dispatching. Both companies do what FECR and Brighline do - submit their dispatching requests (with of course Amtrak and commuter also doing the same) and paying for their proportional use. The dispatching company which would be private would have to honor the passenger priority rule. Similarly, the track company would have to maintain standards to a certain level with everyone paying for their use and needs i.e. passenger needs for higher speed and freight needs for heavier weight.

Note that this could be independent of government ownership or not. If the FECR/Brightline dispatching company can survive financially, so could the dispatching and track companies. They could even be turned into non-profits after all their initial "profits" go to pay the railroads over time for the property turned over so they would be purely independent of the class 1s.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[BlackDiamond]

In Britain they tried something similar with respect to a separate company Railtrack that maintained the rail infrastructure although I believe it also did the dispatching. That did not work out, not sure why perhaps the level of deferred maintenance from the nationalization era was too much. The infrastructure reverted to government control under Network Rail which seems to be working out somewhat better.

 

[jis]

In Britain they tried something similar with respect to a separate company Railtrack that maintained the rail infrastructure although I believe it also did the dispatching. That did not work out, not sure why perhaps the level of deferred maintenance from the nationalization era was too much. The infrastructure reverted to government control under Network Rail which seems to be working out somewhat better.

Network Rail is still perennially plagued with cost overruns and schedule slips, sometimes by almost a decade, specially in England. Surprisingly, in Scotland they seem to be more consistently on budget and on schedule.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Network Rail is still perennially plagued with cost overruns and schedule slips, sometimes by almost a decade, specially in England. Surprisingly, in Scotland they seem to be more consistently on budget and on schedule.

Yes particularly the Elizabeth Line which seems to be infected by the NYC transportation project virus.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Network Rail is still perennially plagued with cost overruns and schedule slips, sometimes by almost a decade, specially in England. Surprisingly, in Scotland they seem to be more consistently on budget and on schedule.

Decades of deferred maintenance have consequences that outlast the initial half-century of borrowed time. So, the choices are unsafe operation, cost overruns, or another round of the Beeching axe until the UK has a Scotland-sized network.

 

[jis]

Yes particularly the Elizabeth Line which seems to be infected by the NYC transportation project virus.

Not to mention the Western Region electrification fiasco, which is ongoing.

And then there is a smaller yet significant reduction of scope of the Midlands electrification too, rendering the extension of electrification less useful than it could be.

But of course, forcing the ToCs to acquire universal dual mode fleet lets Network Rail off the hook at the expense of others and the environment.

I was surprised to learn that they actually had to import help from Indian Railways to deal with some 25kV electrification issues as they could not scare up local talent to handle it.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Except that, generally, the UK rail network is growing with reinstated lines, yet more new or reinstated infill stations on branch lines as well as London's RER lite (Elizabeth/Purple Line crossrail).

 

[neroden]

I've recently read a proposal to nationalize dispatching, on the grounds that it's going to be more digestible to governments than buying title to the land under the tracks.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Not sure why a national dispatch would address any issues at all. Capacity seem to be the main issue. Lack of investment and a attempt (again) to lengthen trains before you lengthy the yards and passing tracks.

The water level route runs by my house. CSX has these massive long and underpowered trains drifting by. They are not going to be improved by a national dispatch.

At some point we need to electrify the main lines, don’t see the current owners spending any funds to do so.

 

[PeeweeTM]

National dispatching could set rules for powering trains and their lengths.
It could also help, for example, crossing Chicago; only one office messing with Amtrak's timetables instead of, well, how many railroads?

I'm from the Netherlands and am happy with the government owning the tracks and owning the infrastructure manager. We pay a couple of EUR per travelled kilometer to partly cover operational costs, big projects (like electrifying lines) are, off course, paid for by the governement/us all.

About one third of my salary goes to the governement directly as income tax. (It doesn't reach my bank account, as my employer pays that part directly to the governement).
Sales tax for non essentials is 21%.
And I'm still happy.

 

[MARC Rider]

About one third of my salary goes to the governement directly as income tax. (It doesn't reach my bank account, as my employer pays that part directly to the governement).
Sales tax for non essentials is 21%.

You know, I end up paying about a third of my income in various taxes when you consider Federal, state and local taxes, not to mention health insurance premiums (I pay for Medicare Part B, a Medigap plan and a dental and vision plan). Sales tax in Maryland is 6%. In some states/localities it's as high as 10% (Hi, DC!). Maybe Europe isn't the high-tax hell everyone thinks it is.

 

[Bob Dylan]

You know, I end up paying about a third of my income in various taxes when you consider Federal, state and local taxes, not to mention health insurance premiums (I pay for Medicare Part B, a Medigap plan and a dental and vision plan). Sales tax in Maryland is 6%. In some states/localities it's as high as 10% (Hi, DC!). Maybe Europe isn't the high-tax hell everyone thinks it is.

And you actually get useful benefits your taxes such as health care, paid leave, old age pensions and nursing home care which Conservatives call Socialism!