Willie Green was a supporter of passenger railroads.
Freight traffic did not interest him...
He was on weird fellow...
“That is a truck will have the fright in the warehouse on the east coast before the railroad will get it out of the rail yard in California. “
All the while, the truck is subsidized by the taxpayers. Freight railroads are very efficient at moving large quanities of items long distances. Trucks have their place in the long haul — short hauls to the customer from the rail yard or high priority long haul. However, that high priority long haul should be available at the real price and not be subsidized by the taxpayers.
“Mainly because they abandoned tens of thousands of miles of track, in short they downsized.”
Yes, they got rid of old outdated lines that made no sense to operate (and pay tax on the property). Also, the Class A RRs sold many of those low profit lines to short lines (with non-union labor) who can operate those lines at a profit. Overall, the system worked because the government got out of the way.
When you go back to the mid-1960s and take a look at the Trans Pacific tariff hearings the basic design specs for Sea-Tainers, Trollies for Sea-Tainers, and TOFC (truck on flat car) parameters, you quickly see that they were the controlling factors. In earlier times the negotiators would have been looking for ton-mile charges, demurage rates and international certifications of compliance.
Literally everybody in the transportation industry around the world, in every country, with whatever degree of sophistication, was in on this one.
The result was the selection of several international intermodal containers that would fit on ANY railroad system (European narrow gage or American and Russia wide gage), or any freighter (and freighters became container ships), or any flat bed or trolley configuration!
NOTE: The Transpacific rate cases started out as a way of dealing with the prices for freight, baggage and mail being hauled by air (mostly to and from the USA, Japan, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, etc.) Still, surface (meaning ships) transport had a piece of the agenda. With the arrival of solid proposals and plans for Intermodal Systems world wide built on certain standards, the attendees quickly jumped out of the air issues into the surface issues. That's where the money was, and where everyone's more serious future careers in transportation would be tied. Today it costs about as much to move a box of TV sets from Seoul to New York in International containers as it does to move that same box of TV sets to Pusan ~ a few hundred miles away.
This has been the Chicom secret as well. It's not as much their lower wage rates as it is the fact that transport from China to anywhere has become cheaper than sand in Arabia.
Rail costs also dropped through the basement. TOFC (and variations) meant you didn't have to tie up rolling stock to load or unload anything in open air cold, nasty and window sidings. Just lift the box off the flat bed onto a trolley and any tractor could be out and gone with it on the Interstate in minutes.
The biggest advance fostered by the intermodal system was the ELIMINATION of regulation on rates that could be charged. The ICC in the USA was eliminated, and even Communist countries were forced to adopt what can only be described as BIDDING to deal with these new rock-bottom prices.
Agreed, they abandoned thousands of miles of track that prior to deregulation they were forced to provide service to.
The consolidation has now resulted in an oligopily. There are 7 major railroads in North and Central America(BNSF, UP, CN, CPRS, KCS, CSXT & NS).
Where the real money has been made are some of the smaller regional railroads that move cars around metro areas. They will charge up to $1500 to move a car 20 miles or less.
And yes, I miss Willi green -- I didn't agree with all he said, but it was good to have a devil's advocate voice.