Reply #120: Rail is not the magic answer [View All]

[Ikonoklast]

Unless you are willing to give the largest subsidies in the history of this nation to acquire the real estate by eminent domain for rail use, forget rail for moving retail goods and finished products to market.

That hub and spoke style of freight distribution was replaced for a reason; it wasn't efficient at delivering freight in a timely or cheaper manner. It involves having warehouses to carry inventory on hand not only for immediate delivery, but back inventory, and adding many steps (costs) before the end user ever sees the product.

The costs associated with the taxes owed on inventory owned in your warehouses alone cancels out any reason to carry such inventory.

Railroads are the biggest corporate welfare queens after the oil industry that this country has ever seen. Without massive government subsidies to get started, rail would not have been profitable for many a year after inception. Read about the history of rail, and the robber barons who raped and pillaged the Treasury to get their way, the lands with valuable minerals and timber they stole, and those in government complicit in those crimes.

But in the final analysis, shippers aren't stupid. If rail was CHEAPER to move their products right now this very minute, the product would move by rail. The truth is that it isn't cheaper or more efficient to move much besides bulk commodities by rail.