Letters - Brief Article

Open mind on open access

The railroad industry's future involves seeking and gaining freight traffic going down the highways. It demands fast, reliable service that pays well. Coal is going down. Agribusiness is looking more fondly at the coastal and inland waterway systems with shorter haul rail and trucking connections. The chemical industry is using the same systems for service that is economical, reliable, and safer."Open access" seeks to give railroads and their customers the advantages and traffic levels that airlines and truck lines enjoy. Shorter trains should be able to run point-to-point, without intermediate classification and yarding, via the most direct routes. Regional jets bypass hubs, and trucks run dock-to-dock. This will mean changes in railroad operations. Growth is going to require smaller dispatching/train control districts for more intensely used track. Locomotives may require cabs at both ends, with "sleeper accommodation." (The older SD40/SD40-2s with their long porches would be ideal for such conversion.) More growth will lead to permanent track structures that do not require the maintenance of current ballasted track. Positive Train Control would insure safety, male train inter-routing as easy as loading computer instructions, and increase line capacity.If the railroad industry cannot make the change to open access, it will reach "the end of the line."David B. WilliamsThe advocates of the most advanced "open access" are not against private ownership and private property. They seek more competition and better service. This would separate train operations and line route provision. Separate companies would own separate and competing railroad routes. Other separate companies would provide train transportation service. Like the airlines, these train operators could layer out into local, regional, and long-distance firms. The local would connect the individual shippers and receivers on each line with "line haul" companies chosen by the rail service customers.Maryland Heights, Mo.John W. Barriger, a virtuoso in railroad turnarounds, would have cited the remarks of a German industrialist: "Either change the figures, or change the faces." Today, the freight railroad industry is faced with either extinction or real growth. Electrical utility industry studies indicate that deregulation will drive rapid conversion to more efficient power generation. That will be combined gas turbine/steam turbine, with the latter driven by steam generated by the hot exhaust of the former. These studies anticipate that one of the two major western rail systems will be driven into bankruptcy with the loss of coal traffic. This bankruptcy will cascade to connecting systems. Federal and state railroad regulators are well aware of this.

David B. Williams