Comparing US and European rail (was Re: Crosstown Expressway, Chicago)

[NE2]

CREATE is absolutely necessary due to the fact that most of the RR infrastructure is located in areas around Chicagoland.  Part of this has been to spread out these terminals around the area, but it's still a ton of rail traffic any way you slice it.  The rails in Chicago are as the freeways are in LA, ten fold.  This is the terminus for the two western Class I RRs (BNSF & UP) and the two eastern Class I RRs (NS & CSX), and used by both Canadian ones (CP & CN).  There are a lot of transfers between the RRs here.  A container will come in on a BNSF and be transferred to a CSX for shipment east, and vice versa.  Nowhere else in the country do this many Class I RRs come together.  Nowhere.

Technicality:  According to most lists I've seen, Kansas City Southern is a Class 1 Railroad, but it does not reach Chicago.  It might be the smallest Class 1 railroad, but it seems to have the best ties with Mexican railroads.  So if one lists Class 1 railroads per city
Chicago:  BNSF, CN, CP, CSX, NS, UP
St. Louis:  BNSF, CN, CSX, KCS, NS, UP

Yes, KCS is the seventh Class I.

Maybe I don't, but it seems to me that funneling shipments northward to Chicago is not the way to compete with trucks that can take a more direct route eastward.  And it seems the railroads have been overzealous with abandoning lines that could have been used for secondary exchange points.

Trains primarily win due to cost, not speed. Most large-scale shipments don't need to be there ASAP as long as they're there in a set amount of time. The time savings in using, say, the Toledo, Peoria and Western to bypass Chicago is minimal and may not exist at all because of lower maintenance.

[tvketchum]

And maybe instead of wasting money on Create, the railroads should be encouraged to spread their traffic out more, not see how much they can funnel through one town.  Plenty of lightly used tracks downstate they could be using.

I don't think you understand the economies of scale of railroads. On flat track, one locomotive can haul a large number of cars. It makes sense to have a single hub that all the regional traffic funnels through, so cars can all arrive at the hub and then be sorted based on destination. Splitting that traffic among a number of different routes means that more sorting has to be done on both ends and either fewer cars are pulled by each locomotive or cars spend more time waiting in yards.

Not to mention having to invest millions more to maintain trackage which is lightly trafficked.

[Brandon]

Technicality:  According to most lists I've seen, Kansas City Southern is a Class 1 Railroad, but it does not reach Chicago.  It might be the smallest Class 1 railroad, but it seems to have the best ties with Mexican railroads.  So if one lists Class 1 railroads per city
Chicago:  BNSF, CN, CP, CSX, NS, UP
St. Louis:  BNSF, CN, CSX, KCS, NS, UP

It is, but it is so small compared to the other six that it isn't even in the same class as BNSF, CP, or any of the others.  In addition, the amount of rail activity around St Louis is dwarfed by Chicago or even Memphis.  They may go to St Louis, but they aren't anywhere as big there as they are in Chicago.

[mgk920]

[thread drift]I wish that there could be some way to have North America's railroads transition towards a regimen where the train operators could operate wherever they felt were most advantageous for their individual train movements, not being limited to their currently owned facilities - much like how trucks, buses, car drivers, airlines and, more lately, electric power utilities (high-energy power transmission lines) now operate - by separating track infrastructure ownership from train operations.



I have seen far too many 'defensive' track abandonments by major railroad companies, including MANY very useful routes, simply for the very short-term benefit of keeping fierce rival competitors out.  Our rail infrastructure is far, far, far too important for our long-term economic health for that to continue - AND, when the time comes to have to start restoring some of those needed abandoned routes to service and undoing that sheer stupidity, it will be exceedingly back-breakingly expensive and disruptive to do.


[/thread drift]

Mike

[mightyace]

[thread drift]I wish that there could be some way to have North America's railroads transition towards a regimen where the train operators could operate wherever they felt were most advantageous for their individual train movements, not being limited to their currently owned facilities - much like how trucks, buses, car drivers, airlines and, more lately, electric power utilities (high-energy power transmission lines) now operate - by separating track infrastructure ownership from train operations.
[/thread drift]

Now, that's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.  This is what has been done, for example, in Great Britain, when privatization occurred.  The track is still owned by a government authority and the operators lease/rent it.  AFAIK, it is still being debated whether this works better than the American model or worse.  We do have some of that here, many shortlines and the lines used by commuter rail near big cities is owned by government and quasi-government entities.

I don't think that the Class I railroads think that is in their best interest.  And, in this county, a government takeover of the infrastructure would not be tolerated, except in an emergency.  Plus, if we are to obey the constitution, the railroads would have to be compensated for the track taken from them.  I don't think any level of government in the USA has and/or is willing to spend the kind of money necessary to do this.

[Brandon]

[thread drift]I wish that there could be some way to have North America's railroads transition towards a regimen where the train operators could operate wherever they felt were most advantageous for their individual train movements, not being limited to their currently owned facilities - much like how trucks, buses, car drivers, airlines and, more lately, electric power utilities (high-energy power transmission lines) now operate - by separating track infrastructure ownership from train operations.

Not.  Gonna.  Happen.  Each Class I RR has its own set of signals and signage (there's no RR FHWA or AASHTO).  In addition, each Class I RR owns the trackage they have (sort of like a private toll road).  They lease rights to other RRs to use the trackage.

Track abandonment is usually done for economic reasons.  The operating costs of maintaining the trackage must be lower than the profit made from transporting goods along the trackage.

[mgk920]

[thread drift]I wish that there could be some way to have North America's railroads transition towards a regimen where the train operators could operate wherever they felt were most advantageous for their individual train movements, not being limited to their currently owned facilities - much like how trucks, buses, car drivers, airlines and, more lately, electric power utilities (high-energy power transmission lines) now operate - by separating track infrastructure ownership from train operations.

Not.  Gonna.  Happen.  Each Class I RR has its own set of signals and signage (there's no RR FHWA or AASHTO).  In addition, each Class I RR owns the trackage they have (sort of like a private toll road).  They lease rights to other RRs to use the trackage.

Track abandonment is usually done for economic reasons.  The operating costs of maintaining the trackage must be lower than the profit made from transporting goods along the trackage.

There is a single nationwide operating rulebook (with local rules spelled out in the employee timetables and special instructions books) and all of the modern Class Is nowadays have to deal with the myriad different old signaling systems of their predecessors (ie, for many years after their merger, only certain ex-CNW locomotives could lead on UP trains on their former CNW mainline trackage due to the ATS system that the CNW used on those lines).  The trend is for more uniformity in signaling to allow easier 'run through' use of power, making it easier to interchange entire trains (ie, coal trains with only either UP or BNSF power can and do operate on CN's ex WC trackage throughout Wisconsin without modifications).  Seeing 'foreign road' locomotives leading on CN trains here in Wisconsin is a very normal thing.

That said, I seriously worry that the very bad rates and service now being provided by CN to their smaller carload customers here in central and northeast Wisconsin is a major drag on our local economy and I would love for a way to be found to open up their track to allow other companies, such as Wisconsin Southern (WSOR), that are more interested in providing such service in to pick up that slack - even with non-compete clauses in place to protect the overhead through traffic that CN really wants.

I know that I was kind of musing on that thought, thinking more on the line of a track infrastructure/operations 'split' like was done with AT&T back in the mid-1980s.

I know of MANY instances where short sections near the midpoints of intact rail lines were abandoned and liquidated in that the lines were useless to their owning railroads, but would have been über-useful to other railroads that would have then competed against them between two major points, entire other lines held inactive by their owners for decades for fear that another competitor would have bought them and used them to take juicy customers away, non-compete clauses preventing use by overhead traffic being placed on marginal lines taken over by 'shortline' operators and so forth - and all of those in various places just here in Wisconsin.  Just think of that on a nationwide basis.

The old 'Rail Baron' games of a century ago are as alive and well now as they were back then.

Mike

[NE2]

The STB (successor to the ICC) still does have power to prevent abandonments or force sale if a shipper or other railroad puts up the cash. They can also determine that rates are too high, at least for certain commodities, but the process is rather convoluted.

They only have the power to eliminate so-called "paper barriers" as part of a larger transaction, however. When CSX and NS carved up Conrail, a couple shortlines were allowed to connect to others as conditions of the STB's approving the larger plan.

Here's an interesting 2002 case where the west end of the TP&W was sold to a scrapper: http://www.stb.dot.gov/newsrels.nsf/219d1aee5889780b85256e59005edefe/8e9d7fa04f29da9f85256c550050046f?OpenDocument

[J N Winkler]

I wish that there could be some way to have North America's railroads transition towards a regimen where the train operators could operate wherever they felt were most advantageous for their individual train movements, not being limited to their currently owned facilities - much like how trucks, buses, car drivers, airlines and, more lately, electric power utilities (high-energy power transmission lines) now operate - by separating track infrastructure ownership from train operations.

Now, that's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.  This is what has been done, for example, in Great Britain, when privatization occurred.  The track is still owned by a government authority and the operators lease/rent it.  AFAIK, it is still being debated whether this works better than the American model or worse.  We do have some of that here, many shortlines and the lines used by commuter rail near big cities is owned by government and quasi-government entities.

Actually, separation of infrastructure and rolling stock has been pushed through elsewhere in Europe, not just in Britain, and the story has a bit more nuance.  There is an EC directive (which has often been blamed for the disasters connected with rail privatization in Britain) which mandates separate accounting for infrastructure and rolling stock.  In principle it is possible for the infrastructure and rolling stock to be owned by different arms of the same organization, as is the case in Austria (your ticket is sold by ÖBB Personenverkehr; the contracts to build and maintain stations and trackage are administered by ÖBB Infrastruktur).  But it is also increasingly common for the infrastructure owner and rolling stock operator to be completely separate.  For example, in Spain RENFE and some smaller public rail operators (like FGC, Ferrocarriles de Andalucía, and others) each owned and operated their own infrastructure and rolling stock, but a few years ago RENFE was broken into ADIF (infrastructure owner) and RENFE Operadora (rolling stock operator), and in principle any other train operator can buy access to ADIF trackage.  It has been suggested that this change will allow the autonomous communities to expand regional rail service by allowing them to rent the infrastructure from ADIF rather than building their own.  I suspect part of the real motivation is to allow RENFE to retreat from regional rail (with the exception of cercanías) and focus on "sexy" AVE and other LAV-borne services.

In Britain the Major government, which was dead-set on rail privatization, considered various options, including breakup of BR into separate regions (which would have amounted to a return to pre-1947 "Grouping" days when the Big Four each operated their own infrastructure and rolling stock in given parts of the country).  The requirement to have separate accounting for infrastructure and rolling stock provided convenient cover for the chosen solution, which was to have a single infrastructure owner (initially private, but re-nationalized after Southall, Ladbroke Grove, Potter's Bar,  . . .), and separate train operating companies differentiated by region served or type of service provided.  Some of these companies have subsequently undergone service takeover by the government.

It is possible to argue the merits of public and private ownership back and forth, just in the British context, until the cows come home.  It is often pointed out that under public ownership BR actually required less public subsidy (certainly absolutely and also, I think, on a passenger-kilometer basis) than the current mess of privatized and partly re-nationalized organizations.  This does not mean that a return to public ownership would actually improve matters.  BR had the internal capability to build and maintain locomotives, freight cars, and railway carriages.  As a result, it had the ability to stretch resources by, e.g., maintaining older carriages in service rather than building or buying new ones.  With privatization, that capability and the flexibilities associated with it are now long gone.  A public operator would have to deal with the same rolling stock leasing companies that the private operators now do, and would have difficulty getting a better deal unless it nationalized those also.  It's actually similar to the problem we face in the US with the new mandate to buy personal health insurance--the government forces you to buy in the private marketplace; it cannot guarantee that the private providers will give you value for money.

The fundamental truth about British rail privatization is that it raised costs by dividing an unitary firm, the old BR, into disparate entities whose relationships with each other had to be regulated by contracts requiring negotiation, performance, and enforcement, all of which are more expensive (i.e., have higher transaction costs associated with them) when they are carried out between autonomous firms rather than within the same firm.  For example, after privatization it was not uncommon for a single station access agreement (between a train operating company and the infrastructure owner) to fill an entire filing cabinet.  This is where we come to the problems associated with separating infrastructure and rolling stock.  Depending on how the separation is carried out, it is possible to wind up with a situation where a separate infrastructure owner and rolling stock operator carry out their combined duties at higher cost than under the previous regime of combined ownership.  The challenge in carrying out a separation of infrastructure and rolling stock lies in ensuring that the efficiencies realized from the change are greater than the higher costs of maintaining business relationships between multiple firms.

It is also difficult to turn back the clock on a failed privatization because the people who service the business relationships that arise as a result of it (lawyers, surveyors, etc.) constitute a well-paid and well-funded political lobby that will resist dispossession.

[NE2]

One main thing to keep in mind is that in general European passenger service is good but freight not so good, and the situation is reversed in the US.


(perhaps this should be renamed and moved to off-topic?)

[J N Winkler]

One main thing to keep in mind is that in general European passenger service is good but freight not so good, and the situation is reversed in the US.

In European terms the freight mode share we carry on our railroads (about 30% of all traffic on a tonne-kilometer basis) is a wet dream.  It would be nice to have better passenger rail, but I am not sure we have the geography for it even if we do "real" high-speed rail (180 MPH minimum), and I'm pretty sure we don't have the institutional structure for it.  Having state DOTs form consortia to build it is increasingly looking like a bust.

(perhaps this should be renamed and moved to off-topic?)

Yup, this is quite a bit of topic drift--I wouldn't object to a thread split.

[mightyace]

^^^

I think you summed it up nicely.  The reason passenger rail succeeds in Europe is the short distances involved and high population density.  The only region of the US that matches that is the Boston-Washington corridor where we have the closest this country has come to high speed rail.

[NE2]

Also the only "true" HSR proposals in the US are on completely separate trackage from freight. The Northeast Corridor has very limited freight and four tracks in many places.

As for population density, I've heard that Spain is comparable to Texas, though I haven't checked the figures.

[mightyace]

The Northeast Corridor has very limited freight and four tracks in many places.

That's why I said it comes close. (not is)

[mgk920]

One main thing to keep in mind is that in general European passenger service is good but freight not so good, and the situation is reversed in the US.


(perhaps this should be renamed and moved to off-topic?)

I have recently seen some articles and figures that are saying that rail freight traffic volume in Germany has exploded since Deutsche Bahn converted its system to full 'open access' (operate like highways and civil aviation) for freight and most passenger services about ten years ago.

Granted, due to the far weaker standard coupling used in Europe (the familiar AAR 'knuckle' coupling standard used in North America, China, Australia and a few other countries has about eight times the rated strength of the 'buffer and chain' couplings used in Europe), trains there run much shorter and lighter than here, but they also run faster and much more frequently.  It is normal for freight trains to run mixed in with local and regional conventional passenger trains in Europe, although they do often have to take sidings in order to allow faster passenger trains to overtake them.  For example, the double-track mainline along the west shore of the Rhine River between Mainz/Frankfort am Main and the Ruhr Valley metro area (Bonn/Köln on north) carries about 400 or so trains per day (average of one train every 7-8 minutes in each direction), much of which is now freight.

Mike

[english si]

Rail freight works best (now there are things like large trucks, and little vans - the latter being the thing that nearly destroyed rail freight in the UK) with long distances, where it's effectively like a land ship - this works well in the US, but less well in Europe, where places are closer to the sea, tracks also have a lot of passenger trains to compete with for paths and there's all sorts of problems with differing gauge (not just the different distances between tracks - though that's a problem in places, but the clearances and stuff), electrification systems and laws.

That said, it's not a total tragedy and as Mike says, there is not a tiny amount of rail freight.

Open access (which is EU law now - meaning we might get Deutsche Bahn trains from Köln to London: they've done a test run and got around the strict restrictions on the Channel Tunnel - but the UK, like Germany, has had it for a while) is a bit of a mixed bag in the UK - it's not helped by competition clauses in the West Coast franchise (running intercity trains on the line serving London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and a load of second-tier towns and cities) - one operator (that ran trains from Wrexham, Wales via Shrewsbury to London to give those two places direct services to London, being two of the bigger places that don't have it already) that was cheap, gave the best punctuality and comfort shut down on Friday, due to things like not being able to pick up passengers heading south from Wolverhampton, being unable to stop in Central Birmingham, which was enroute, at all. On the other hand, Hull Trains, running on the East Coast, is rather successful as there aren't these restrictions.

[Chris]

As for population density, I've heard that Spain is comparable to Texas, though I haven't checked the figures.

Spain has a hub-and-spoke structure, with Madrid located in the center of the country and large cities all around the coast and some in the interior. The European high-speed rail plans are by far most ambitious in Spain. It also has all the right ingredients; the cities are too far apart for commuting, but not far enough for air travel; hence a large potential for high-speed rail for intercity traffic. Add very cheap land to that, partially with very favorable terrain (the Meseta), and high-speed rail has large potential. Spain already has the third largest freeway network in the world after the U.S. and China.

The Netherlands has built a dedicated freight rail line, but costs kind of got out of hand ($ 10 billion for less than 100 miles of double-track, completely separated from other rail infrastructure). It would strengthen the position of the port of Rotterdam being by far the largest port in Europe (larger than the three next largest ports combined!)

[NE2]

At least one US railroad does operate in the European way, where tracks and trains are owned differently: http://www.ncrr.com/

The North Carolina Railroad is a government-owned company that owns a main east-west line across the state (on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Norfolk_Southern_Railway_system_map.svg it's the line going from the clump in central North Carolina - Charlotte to be specific - east to Morehead City on the coast). Norfolk Southern has the exclusive right to operate freight (except where other carriers have trackage rights to connect their own lines), and Amtrak operates passenger trains, some state-subsidized, on most of the line. This situation came about when a 99-year lease to a Norfolk Southern predecessor expired in the mid-1990s, and the state, which had always owned a majority of the stock, negotiated a different arrangement.

[mgk920]

At least one US railroad does operate in the European way, where tracks and trains are owned differently: http://www.ncrr.com/

The North Carolina Railroad is a government-owned company that owns a main east-west line across the state (on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Norfolk_Southern_Railway_system_map.svg it's the line going from the clump in central North Carolina - Charlotte to be specific - east to Morehead City on the coast). Norfolk Southern has the exclusive right to operate freight (except where other carriers have trackage rights to connect their own lines), and Amtrak operates passenger trains, some state-subsidized, on most of the line. This situation came about when a 99-year lease to a Norfolk Southern predecessor expired in the mid-1990s, and the state, which had always owned a majority of the stock, negotiated a different arrangement.

Well, that's similar, but not the same.  Under true 'open access', CSX (and anyone else who wishes to) would also have equal rights to use that trackage for whatever purpose and to serve customers along it - just like trucking companies and so forth can along any roads that are open to their particular classes of vehicles.

The State of Wisconsin also owns a significant amount of the railroad trackage (mostly ex Milwaukee Road branches) in the state, most of which is operated by Wisconsin Southern (WSOR) under contract.

Mike

[NE2]

Well, that's similar, but not the same.  Under true 'open access', CSX (and anyone else who wishes to) would also have equal rights to use that trackage for whatever purpose and to serve customers along it - just like trucking companies and so forth can along any roads that are open to their particular classes of vehicles.

I'm most familiar with the British system, where the government divided the system into several pieces and sold franchises for each. (The three were actually combined in the mid-90s by a Wisconsin Central affiliate, and now Deutsche Bahn controls it.) Which countries do true open access?

In fact the early days of railroading in the US used open access of a sort: http://books.google.com/books?id=yuUoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA201

The State of Wisconsin also owns a significant amount of the railroad trackage (mostly ex Milwaukee Road branches) in the state, most of which is operated by Wisconsin Southern (WSOR) under contract.

True, but those are all relatively minor lines that the state bought because one of the Class Is wanted to abandon them. NS uses the North Carolina Railroad between Greensboro and Charlotte for its Northeast-Midsouth "Crescent Corridor".

[english si]

Which countries do true open access?

Technically every EU country, though it's only just started and will take a while to filter down.

Plus subsidies and proscribed services mean it's not a free-market anyway.

In the UK, while any company can run trains, you have to get the paths, which with the timetable congested with franchise-proscribed services makes it difficult to do anything open access that makes money, as you either have to use slower side-lines, or use less-busy lines (or be one of the two open access Train Operating Companies that exist at the moment, who are doing well off due to the proscribed East Coast services not serving some places well, and a spare path or two an hour up the East Coast Mainline). Plus, as I mentioned above, the West Coast Mainline franchise has competition clauses that stop other companies from running rival services that directly compete with it.

Many franchise holders run train services surpassing the required timetable, which are effectively done as open access. Likewise in metropolitan areas in the north, the Public Transport Executive often subsidise additional services, getting Northern rail (who run the local services in that neck-of-the-woods).