GlobalistPotato
Lead Service Attendant
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2011
- Messages
- 344
At little thought occurred to me while I was reading out of a vintage clothing blog (from a girl in Portland, OR)...
If the government (particularly the ICC) wasn't so harsh on the private railroads of the post-war era, would...
1) Amtrak wouldn't have to be created to save passenger rail?
2) The passenger rail system would still be relatively intact?
3) There wouldn't be as many "fallen flags", with the exception of mergers?
3a) There would never have been a Conrail?
4) Private railroads would be able to increase train speeds to the point where we have HSR, even it is only 200 km/h?
For those who have studied the fall of passenger railroading in the US, the subsidization of the competing modes of travel (roads and airports) played a big role in the decline of the railroads, but the excessive regulations placed on the railroads arguably is the real killer.
These regulations and burdens include:
Local and state governments charging high property taxes on the railroads, while the roads were exempt from taxes.
The 79 mph-speed-limit-without-ATS-or-cab-signaling-rule enacted by the ICC after the Naperville train wreck in 1946. This rule pretty much killed the development of faster trains, and really might have been the one rule that really killed passenger railroading in the US. At the very least, the federal government or the ICC could had helped finance the installation of ATS or automatic cab signaling.
The ICC's blocking and delaying of mergers between railroads.
ICC denying railroads from dropping their failing passenger trains.
The removal of mail service from passenger trains.
And other things...
American-rails.com summed up the situation very nicely:
Sounds like karma...
If the government (particularly the ICC) wasn't so harsh on the private railroads of the post-war era, would...
1) Amtrak wouldn't have to be created to save passenger rail?
2) The passenger rail system would still be relatively intact?
3) There wouldn't be as many "fallen flags", with the exception of mergers?
3a) There would never have been a Conrail?
4) Private railroads would be able to increase train speeds to the point where we have HSR, even it is only 200 km/h?
For those who have studied the fall of passenger railroading in the US, the subsidization of the competing modes of travel (roads and airports) played a big role in the decline of the railroads, but the excessive regulations placed on the railroads arguably is the real killer.
These regulations and burdens include:
Local and state governments charging high property taxes on the railroads, while the roads were exempt from taxes.
The 79 mph-speed-limit-without-ATS-or-cab-signaling-rule enacted by the ICC after the Naperville train wreck in 1946. This rule pretty much killed the development of faster trains, and really might have been the one rule that really killed passenger railroading in the US. At the very least, the federal government or the ICC could had helped finance the installation of ATS or automatic cab signaling.
The ICC's blocking and delaying of mergers between railroads.
ICC denying railroads from dropping their failing passenger trains.
The removal of mail service from passenger trains.
And other things...
American-rails.com summed up the situation very nicely:
It can be said (which is true) that one reason for the decline of passenger railroading and the “depression” of the railroad industry as a whole, which occurred beginning in the 1950s until deregulation in 1980, is the result of severe sanctions and regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). However, the railroads also, in a way, caused their own downfall by the shoddy and monopolistic practices they took part in during the 19th and early 20th centuries (which resulted in many of the regulations imposed on them)
Sounds like karma...