Several things of interest – some good

A new study reported by the Heartland Institute states that railroad commerce generates in excess of $32.6 billion in tax revenues for local and state governments. In addition to this benefit, they employ millions of workers who also pay taxes and spend their paychecks on necessities and luxuries. Furthermore, the report states, indirect benefits are widespread and immeasurable to industries using railroads to achieve movement of goods and provide services. Hooray for the “Class Ones!” I’m sure these figures go along with an acceptable, if not sustainable, profit for each and every railroad stockholder.

Now let’s see if the Class Ones can maintain their footings during the downturn in business represented by the Democrat “Good-bye Forever” policy on coal, the slump in oil production that can only be answered by the question, “How low can it go,” and the uncertainty in intermodal represented by the newly re-opened Panama Canal allowing East Coast & Gulf Ports to receive ships directly from Asia.

On the negative side, some states and municipalities, mostly left-leaning ones, are trying their own versions of railroad re-regulation by slapping hefty fees on shipments of anything they consider “hazardous” (it could be corn flour) carried through their jurisdictions by railroads. We’ll see how the federal courts view this version of states’ rights, and I’ll wager it won’t be with big, happy smiles.

But talk about cutting off the nose to spite the face. It’s just such provincial thinking that gave birth to the original behemoth of railroad regulation, the Interstate Commerce Commission. We all know how that turned out. (No, wait! We don’t all know. If we all did, there wouldn’t be these nincompoops slapping fees on rail transportation.) If those same railroads who are “big and mean and don’t care about the locals”, because they are moving hazardous shipments though populated areas, decided to remove their tax-revenue-producing properties from those states and municipalities, there would be a hue and cry that could be heard on the moons of Pluto. Nothing wrong with demanding safety, but it’s just insane to demand zero risk.

Then there are the recent rumbles I’ve been hearing—rumbles coming from environmental corners where the unhappiness rivals the black hole at the center of our galaxy. These are the “electrify everything” rumbles. They go something like, “If we electrify all railroads, there will be no more pollution producing diesel locomotives dirtying up our pristine communities.” The theory is that the electricity can be generated by wind farms—lookout Audubon—and solar fields adjacent to the railroads, transmitted into the catenary, and voila! We suddenly have a totally non-polluting form of transportation.

If that’s the case, we’d better ground all the airlines and the air freight companies and get used to getting your Internet orders by snail mail in five to ten days. Oops! The Postal Service uses air, too. Make that a month. But those in the environmental corners won’t do this. On the other hand, anything to inconvenience the railroads—don’t forget Positive Train Control (PTC)—and force those obscene profits down to manageable—read “nothing”—ranges.

Although PTC seemed extremely difficult, it was doable simply because technology advances with time and the law doesn’t require PTC literally everywhere. Just where it will do the most good. On the other hand, to eliminate the internal combustion engine from all railroad tracks, we either have to go back to steam locomotives (not environmentally acceptable—there’s that word again) or literally electrify everything. We’d have to string wires into every nook and cranny, every siding, every industry, every grain mill, steel mill, and terminal. The cost would dwarf that of PTC. And I’ll bet that the environmental corner-dwellers won’t like all those wires above (spoiled views) or below (third rail is dangerous and clutters up My Back Yard) and will probably demonize the steel and copper companies who will try to make a living on selling those irritating wires, poles and rails.

Damned if now I don’t think we should try it, just to get on their nerves.

©2016 – C. A. Turek – mistertrains@gmail.com

(Charles A. Turek is a writer and novelist based in Albuquerque, NM. After four decades working in areas of the insurance industry related to transportation, he now writes on all aspects of American railroading. Charles is a political conservative but believes in public funding of passenger rail as a part of the federal government’s constitutionally conservative obligation to provide for defense and public infrastructure so that private enterprise may flourish.)