US Railroads should be Nationalized
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- čas přidán 6. 12. 2020
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US: *Confusing privatized rail system*
UK: "Aite imma go spaghetti." *Completely incomprehensible system*
I mean, nationalization didn’t work very well for them.
Thank you margaret, very cool.
This is sadly accurate, the UK system is a complete cluster duck ;_;
UK is not Europe,so feck off
@@the4tierbridge Nationalization for rail has a better record across the globe though than privatized.British Rail when it was state owned wasn’t the best but was cheaper to maintain and wasn’t as expensive as when it was privatized later, it had horrible service mainly because of low funding and horrible management.But what little revenue it made meant lower taxes for Brits and it’s subsidies were lower than the current private ones.However good nationalized rail examples are Chinese Railways,Hong Kong Railways,those of Switzerland and France.Mainly cause of good management and funding,specially the Swiss and HK ones,HK has a really well funded one since it doesn’t only get its revenue from cheap ticket sales and government funding but also from getting revenue from owning land around the rail that it rents out to private companies and also makes money that way.
As a right wing guy I must say I pretty much have no argument against this and am very much in favor, if we're going to pour billions into road infrastructure and massively subsidize the airline industry then I see absolutely no reason we can't also throw at least a fraction of what we put into roads into railroads especially for passenger service and electrification
Passenger rail service in the United States doesn't work. When cities are between 200 to 300 miles of each other, that is when a efficient rail service is possible. In many areas of the United States such as along the US East Coast and California it makes sense, however in places such as between Chicago and Las Vegas and Minneapolis and Sand Point, Idaho, there is NOTHING THERE. Communities in this region of the country are to small for rail service to make money. On top of that over 2/3rds of Americans own automobiles, and we have more interstate highways than we do passenger rail corridors, meaning that unless if we make more that actually make money, then we won't have a passenger railroad service.
@@BuckeyeNationRailroader oof. Please stop. Your ignorance is showing.
a nationlized infrastructure would increase competition on the fright train market, like truck logistics company on state owned streets.
@@Neuzahnstein No it wouldn't. Nationalized infrastructure would mean that the US Government would be in charge of all things, there would in fact be less competition as everything would be in the control of less than five companies
@@BuckeyeNationRailroader sounds good to me
Don't forget the USRA: "The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) was the name of the nationalized railroad system of the United States between December 28, 1917, and March 1st, 1920.[1] It was possibly the largest American experiment with nationalization, and was undertaken against a background of war emergency."
.. and the railroads lost millions.
@@reforger839 Yes, the USRA was an utter disaster. The only good thing to come out of it was the valuation maps.
That failed in creating a lasting effect for railways whom tried to get their so called lemons of locomotives and cars off rosters as fast as possible, because war time requirements created shitty short lived infrastructure and equipment.
Yes, a great example of government mismanagement. While there was some improvements made in interoperability, in general the government ran the railroads into the ground. When they returned them to the private companies the rolling stock was worn out, the physical plant (tracks, etc.) was in bad shape.
The interesting thing is that a large part of why the government took over the railroads during World War I was because government laws and regulations where preventing the railroads from doing things better. The railroads had wanted to set up a unified system to work together for the war effort, but the federal antitrust laws were used to prevent it from happening. The ICC was also strangling the railroads of cash to maintain and improve their system, buy rolling stock, etc., with the rate controls that it had in place (does that remind anyone of the situation in the 1960’s and 70’s that led to the need to form Conrail). 🤔
I used to work in the federal government. I will say that if you want something done well, efficiently, and at reasonable costs, do not have it done by the government. With few exceptions it will cost more, be less effective and poorer quality than if it is done in the private sector.
@@ThomasJackClark Exactly, with one of the few exceptions being Conrail.
Americans: "nationalize the rail networks, what are you talking about? That's socialism"
Americans with highways and stroads: "Add one more line and take my money, yes yes"
the sad part is that it only benefits and breaks even from the people that want to live there, which is decreasing rapidly. soon massive real estate firms will be propping up abandoned suburbs entirely from taxpayer dollars
This has been discussed for decades. But trusting that government will ever do anything well is a fools game. We can't even fix the two party system and it's lobby fueled corruption and the sellout to billionaire manifested globalism. Proper and fair regulation could be a better option. But serving the citizen is a lost art.
@@schemaricvg4221 Henry Ford was in favor of public highways. The reason of course is that by using government financing with motor fuel taxes investors can buy government guaranteed bonds if financing is needed and the individual road need NOT be profitable. Lots of infrastructure was destroyed by the two world wars so that is why the Capitalist and Socialist governments stepped in to rebuild the European railroads. The American capitalist don't want to give ground on the government taking over private business. Instead they maintain the fiction that government regulation is the problem which capitalism requires as the solution to greed. The problem of course is that capitalism begins to fail as machines replace labor that reduces the rate of profit by which all capitalist judge success. So instead of the old fashion wage today inflation of the currency takes the place of the wage cut since property values rise faster than workers can fight for higher wages. The best the workers can hope for with capitalism is that they invest in expanding production but they only do that when they see profits ahead in a new market.
@@schemaricvg4221 are people actually leaving the suburbs though? Never heard about that, but then I'm not American either.
@@ano_nym More people seem to be moving back to the suburbs nowadays. This makes sense since people are far more willing to raise their kids in suburbs than they are the inner cities.
I have a feeling the algorithm is about to boost you up
That would definitely be nice!
Spongebob narrator - 2 months later
Hello its me from the algorithm
Hello it's me I got aware of this channel today 😁
sorry bud
JR actually is a group of private companies, the Japanese rail network was nationally run as JNR, however as of 1987, it consists of 7 for profit companies.
JR Hokkaido, JR East, JR West, JR Central, JR Shikoku, JR Kyushu, JR Freight.
Also, I forgot to mention, Conrail was privatized that same year.
@@flashrocket9158 sounds like AT&T, a.k.a. "Ma Bell" after the "Baby Bells" and Western Electric were divested and established as separate companies.
@@dog-ez2nu Japan does not lack the experience of interconnecting railways. In fact JR, local transit authorities, and other private rail companies often work together to setup through services. Nationwide they just use Shinkansen as backbone and other limited express and local trains to fill the gaps.
The historic railway system in Japan was built in partnership between the British and the Japanese government. Trackage is British Empire gauge, 3ft 6 inches (42"). this system met the trade and travel needs of Japan at the time and into and through the war. Due to the geography of Japan, cities might be relatively close but due to mountains, this old railway system was so slow that passengers often flew between cities so in the '60s Japan started development of its high speed network, this was the equivalent of the US interstate highway program and had high national priority. The high speed lines are for passengers and run on standard gauge track (56.5"), I believe that most of the Tokyo subways are also in this gauge. The old system is still in considerable use and much of it is electrified, it handles both passenger and freight traffic.
My dad was Penn central and went conrail. He was rail gang. He was proud of the work him and his rail gang did. They fixed thousands of miles of track that fell apart.
I spent over a decade (14 years) working for Union Pacific Railroad in the maintenance of way (MOW) department.
working conditions were so bad, pay was so little & unions were so weak.
I went to night school, got a degree in Hydrology & now I work for the water department.
A degree in a hydrology is a thing?
@@priestofronaldalt
Sometimes, you do need to tell the civil engineers when something is a dumb idea
I never understood this double-standard for the railroads!...
Subsidized airlines, subsidized roads (maybe even boats 🤔!?), but only trains has to make a profit?! 🤔🤨
Greetings from Romania! 🙂
No lobbyists for railways(roads). Why would the reps/senators be interested when they aren't getting those sweet campaign donations?
@@zoid88 Railroads don't have lobbyists? Seriously?
That's a good reason to not subsidize anything. How else can you know what is the most economical mode of transport if you throw away economics and substitute politics?
Trains were originally heavily subsidized, back when they were built in the 1800's. Led to some of the greatest scandals in the history of American politics (the Credit Mobiliere scandal). Trains then made some of the greatest fortunes in history for their owners. It wasn't until the Interstate system was built that they got their comeuppance. Trains sucked as much of the life blood as they could out of America.
It is a matter of worth... Less than 2 percent of Americans have ever rode a intercity Amtrak train. Some 80 percent have flown at least once in their life. 100 percent have used a road one way or another, either driving, riding, or walking... And guess where the politicians desire to spend the taxes considering these facts: roads and airports...
Japan Railways (JR) is actually a private company. Japan's railways were also privatized during the neoliberal push in 1987. It was broken into 6 regional rail companies and 4 out of the 6 are in the black.
Japan is weird and I hesitated putting JR in that list, but essentially most of the JR companies function like modern Amtrak, where once they go in the red suddenly the government steps in to help.
@@alanthefisherHmm I see what you're saying, but UK train companies get subsidies too. And nobody calls them anything other than private. However, doing some more research, Japan IS weird: JR East, JR Central, JR West, JR Kyushu are publicly traded, but JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku and JR Freight are owned by the government.
@@muhilan8540 about the UK it's a wormhole however the rail is owned by network rail owned by the UK government, the franchises then offers to run a service at a public bidding as a service eg GWR will get payed 100million to run a bihourly service between A and B. So I guess you could call the franchises in the UK for government contractors
I think the idea of citing the other countries national railway is not the best idea. If I'm not wrong, from this video, some companies own some railroad in the US which charge Amtrak for using their railroad
The concept in other countries, such as Japan is completely different. Most railway operators own their railroad, for example
1. Some of the high speed railways in Japan were built with government's money and operated by JR
2. There are a lot of services running through multiple companies' railroad. But they did this in coordination to reduce passenger's time on transiting.
Nevertheless, the concept that the train operator owns the railroad is vital. For example, JR freight pays other JR companies for using the railroad, but they are also operators on the railroad and thus offer very high quality railroad (unlike the single tracked stuff mentioned in the video)
@@muhilan8540 if you further look into Asia's railway company business model, we can find that most companies with a profit have shopping malls, residential housings etc as well. While some other counterparts like the Chinese high speed railway are always on deficit. Nationalising the railroad in US is a way out but doesn't solve all the problems
Help, the "on the sixth day" bit has me bent over wheezing...oh my god I can't stop laughdiagndsa
Hmmm, yeah, probably the same as in germany. A LOT of people wish to go back in time when the whole rail sector was owned by the government. At least in the former western part of germany, the service was far better than nowadays. The DB (Deutsche Bundesbahn) was privatized in 1994, it went downhill immediately. Nowadays, the trains are often delayed or don't even arrive at all. The service in the trains for longer distances also isn't what it used to be. And everything because of some managers who just COULDN'T get enough of their money.
I don't think you're being very fair here. When DB was nationalised, train timetables were very poor. A few good S-Bahn and IC routes, but outside of that, schedules were the bare minimum with a handful of trains a day. Nowadays, there's at least an hourly service on most lines, with a few two-hourly ones. Of course, if the infrastructure, which was always in national hands, isn't expanded along with the timetable (to the contrary, reduced in a lot of places), we have the situation we have today, where trains are less reliable because there's just so many of them now. The privatisation isn't as black and white as you say it is
@@SimonS44 Also, when DB was privatized, they pretty much had a mandate to go for a public offering. That meant making it look financially attractive, one large part of which was to defer any maintenance that could be deferred. And then at the time that the public offering was to happen, the financial crisis hit. Stupid moment to go public, so *that* was deferred. And then DB was in some sort of limbo for quite a while, until they finally scrapped the plans to go public and started making good on all that deferred maintenance and so on. And that catch-up they're still working on, and as far as I know, they're actually investing serious money in that stuff, for example rebuilding hundreds of train stations. Plus, there's the fighting with the NIMBYs that don't want infrastructure improvements to happen anywhere close to them.
You simply CANNOT compare the United States to any one country in Europe. You must compare the US as a whole to Europe as a whole. They are roughly the same geographical size. However, Germany (your example) has a population bigger than any US state except California, but is geographically the size of Arkansas. If you put Germany's 83 million people in Montana in place of their 1 million, no doubt high speed trains would work. Don't like the Montana example? California has less than half the population of Germany with California being 18% larger than Germany.
To summarize, if you more than double California's population, trim 18% of the geographical area, AND place as many large cities (population centers are EVERYTHING with rail) as Germany, then you have a legitimate argument.
I spent 10+ years working directly with the US Gov't Medicare/Medicaid wing. You do NOT want these people running anything that you enjoy or want to be reliable.
Personally, I believe the NEC in private hands is the only option for viable, true high speed rail in the US. The NEC already host very minimal freight (off hours), connects major cities over a short geographic space (DC/Baltimore/Wilmingon/Philly/NJ/NY), AND owns the right of way. After 50+ years of Amtrak, it's time to sell it off and let others have a shot as doing the same thing over and over is just not having different results.
Gross simplification, but elements of truth: Compared to the US, European railroads are like streetcar lines, serving geographically compact and densely populated areas. Lots of people, lots of potential fares. US railroads reflect the fact that large parts of the country are not heavily populated, and generate freight traffic, but not passengers. Outside the northeast Boston-NY-DC corridor, inter-city or transcontinental passenger service is a nostalgia trip or a heavily subsided boondoggle.
I like train travel , and have gone coast to coast in the US, the Trans Siberian, Australia's Ghan, and the Panama Railroad. Fun times, but to get into high speed rail for prestige reasons is simply not economically reasonable.
Where did You all took the information about DB being private if it is 100% owned by state. The only difference is that it's rated on market. What happend in 1994 was reformation process with DR (Deutche Reichsbahn) into Deutche Bahn AG - which became state owned joint-stock company
Senators: _tries to make nationalized freight railroad_ U.S. Government: *No, i don't think i will*
Berkshire Hathaway may own BNSF, but over the decades the railroads have been owned by the largest and richest American corporations... The Vanderbilts, Carnegis, JP Morgans, Rockefellers, Goulds, Huntingtons, and Harrimans, etc., etc. The Railroad Barrons have no intentions of selling out to the US Government...
As I recall, when Contrail was sold, the US Government wanted to get out of the railroad business. Somehow Amtrak survives, but as a skeleton of what we once had under private railroads. If you don't mind have 1 train a day at 2 in the morning, I guess Amtrak is OK.
hey i just want the locomotives to be unotuched be the goverment what happend last time a goverment got their slimy fingers on steam engines?
hundreds of classes were scrapped
@@IndustrialParrot2816, what you just said is the biggest crock of bullshit, and then some.
@@Neville60001 um hello British railways
The idea that the infrastructure, right of way, track etc be publicly or semi-publically (a chartered special purpose public interest corporation, all profits go to maintaining, improving, and sometimes extending infrastructure) owned while the operation of freight and passenger services is private could possibly combine the best aspects of private and public ownership.
There won't be any profits after hiring the required unemployable political hacks.
@@CEDEFE41 ya sure about that? The USPS was doing okay until a GOP controlled Congress put onerous advanced pension funding on it back in '06.
@@edwardmiessner6502 Onerous pension funding? Same as every other private company has to do. Thank you for illustrating a problem with public - private arrangements, Congress sets the postage rates to keep the public happy and the post office is destined to lose. When Congress sets the shipping rates the railroads will lose - as they die when the ICC set the rates.
That happens in the UK and it is highly ineffective.
Tried in the UK. Sucked. Railways since renationalised
Australia (after the state owned railways died) tried to nationalise the system twice, and both times ended up selling and privatising the companies ending up destroying the entire systems of one state and giving a single company a monopoly over rail freight so strong it tried to blackmail the Government.
Blackmailing as in the take or leave contracts?
@@Coolsomeone234 blackmailing as in threatening to let all the railways in the state fall into disrepair (and stop running trains) if they weren’t payed a few billion dollars.
@@jamesliketrain6788 That's extortion. Blackmail is threatening to release damaging information if not .
only one state? I think a few have had that since then
Ah the aussie government
Truly a masterpiece
When the railroads do get nationalize my only selfish hope is that they paint heritage units for certain zones
Imagine Conrail having CSX heritage units... talk about a twist of fate lol
When? You're gonna be waiting about a thousand years AND then some
Couldn't agree more
“When” yeah good luck
Thanks for watching and welcome to the cage match know as the comments. I started a discord! If you'd like to join its in the video description!
Also yes I know that JR isn't "truely" nationalized, it works similar to modern Amtrak.
Your Discord invite link expired :(
@@KoruGo hmm weird, let me check on that
@@KoruGo It should be fixed, just make sure that you're signed into discord
It worked, very nice.
I think JR is not really quite like Amtrak either, it's a bit more sensible. JR is split into regional companies, they own all of the infrastructure including the tracks. They run freight services too. They're sort-of government and sort-of private. With the exception of the Shinkansen they are generally quite cheap compared to other railway companies still. I think most people consider the privatization of JNR into JR to have been a good thing, but I'm not really quite clear on why, other than vaguely that the service improved due to more independence and incentive to make their services comfortable and attractive. It definitely still works better than anything the US or UK have in terms of private mainline rail.
This is a very good introduction to the topic. I'd like to add that a nationalised rail system in the US has a bit of an advantage over Europe as the US is not in the single market and a publicly-owned high speed rail network in the US would be allowed to sell tickets at a loss, which is not allowed under EU regulations (this is why low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and Easyjet have proliferated there). We also have the ability to run the railways as one government agency as opposed to a state-owned corporation, which is not allowed in the EU. We can not only have as good public rail investment as mainland Europe, we might even be able to do better than them with sufficient political will.
Yeah I never understood why the EU has those rules. Everyone hates Raynair too, like just make the trains cheaper.
@@alanthefisher The EU is basically just an elaborate series of free trade agreements that grew various bureaucracy and other legislation on top of it, beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community. One of their base principals is that private property and the free movement of capital are crucial democratic rights, and as such, price dumping on state high speed rail services is considered an illiberal and anti-competitive abuse of government power. I hope this clears things up.
@@samlerman-hahn2674 While Europe may have a lot of high speed rail, it isn't continent wide. That high speed rail Peters out at Berlin, and Budapest, there is no high speed rail to Bucharest or for that matter to Athens or Istanbul connected to Germany, Italy, and France. There are CZcams videos up of folks riding high speed trains to London from Berlin or Munich. After three or four separate high speed train you finally get to your destination ten hours or more later when you can fly that distance in two hours. Yes, even the Europeans prefer to fly long distances. America is large, it is a five hour flight from London to Tel Aviv, it is even a longer five and a half hour flight from New York City to Los Angeles, a six hour flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Riding high speed trains inside Germany or France isn't the same as riding high speed trains across America. That distance I mentioned before, London to Berlin is actually shorter than the distance from New York City to Chicago. Your choice for a businessman, a two hour non stop flight or a twelve hour high speed train ride using three or four different high speed trains... And the biggest limiting factor in Europe and Japan as far as high speed trains are concerned, is the water tank capacity for the toilets... Yep, the human element, as people shit and pee... Their high speed trains go about two to three hours between two large city pairs, and then sit as they are cleaned and their water tanks filled before returning on the same route. Maybe why there aren't any single high speed train running from London to Madrid, London to Munich, or London to Berlin.
So why should they be allowed to operate at a loss? Don’t taxpayers have enough to pay for already without another large payout to big industry? It’s bad enough that government has paid for the infrastructure of just about every other mode of transit to the point that none of them know how to survive without it. Don’t turn the railroads into leeches as well.
@@samlerman-hahn2674 EU desperately needs reforms, but things have to change from both state governments and the European parliament
First and foremost, single track railways should be taxed at higher rates than bi-track. In theory a more incentive based tax policy and forgivable loans, as opposed to grants, could be used to beat private companies into making rail infrastructure better.
But most branch lines are single track, won’t that cause companies to close them
@@markdebruyn1212 I suppose such a policy could be limited to class A railways. Also, looking at that meme video floating around of a branch line that is complete garbage, maybe they do need a carrot and stick approach to keep their infrastructure in better repair.
@@markdebruyn1212not really, they couldn't operate like that, they would shut down some, but in the long term it would force them to do something right when it comes to building new tracks
I seen Single track Rail road Rail road ways move more trains then Double Track
For anyone thats looking: the trippie music mentioned is called "cannibals" from the album mouth dreams
Remember the lobbyists, cooperate interests and our corrupt gov’t who’d most likely put a stop to any of this good stuff
Ain't no corporation larger than Berkshire Hathaway....
Sadly they don’t see the real estate profits that can be made from a greatly improved passenger rail system
The fossil fuel industry is the reason we don't have better public transportation in the US. They bribe lawmakers to not subsidize rail and give all priority to cars.
@@racewiththefalcons1 I don't even think they need to--Americans want to choose where they go, rather than having a rail-network designer choose for them.
p.s. To clarify, I'm not saying that rail has no place in the US; it's just that our needs are different. Since we have lower costs of living (outside certain cities) so more of us can afford cars, and most inter-regional distances in the US are much more suitable for air travel, the main need the passenger trains can fill is high-density transit: Transportation at a reasonable speed on shorter routes that currently suffer from severe congestion. Nobody wants to sit in their car going 2 mph on the freeway, and most commutes that suffer from this problem are far too short to be efficiently served by air travel.
When you said the the government would own the tracks and infrastructure, I immediately think of the UK rail system, where the government (Network Rail) does indeed own the tracks and infrastructure. But their franchising model tho... 😬
The problem might be with granting a regional monopoly on service.
@@michaelvelik8779 Also having train operators not own the trains but lease them from rolling stock companies isn't great. Be interesting to see how Great British Railways changes things.
and now i think of BR and have flashbacks to the mass scrapping of steam locomotives
@@IndustrialParrot2816 mass scrapping of diesels in favour of electrification would be good
@@IndustrialParrot2816 Very sad, but it got sadder when they gutted the interiors of the carriages and replaced them with plastic shite. Sit in an ugly plastic box for three hours? Yes please!
You've lost your mind...government couldn't run a lemonade stand
If the class 1 railways don't get off thier anti union high horse, nationalization is coming
The first railway in continental Europe, the Belgian main line (constr. 1835-1840), was state owned and planned from the start. Private regional and freight railways were allowed, but in many cases the service of private passenger rail was so lacking and expensive that members of parliament begged the state to nationalise the private railway in their region (e.g. in West Flanders). Between 1870-1882 almost all railways were nationalised.
This arrangement, apart from a name change and some restructuring, remains to this day.
While the physical state of many of our trains and stations is...Belgian..., the service is decent, the network dense and fares are cheaper than in neighbouring countries.
The workshops of the Belgian state railways also produced some important technological innovations, such as Walschaerts valve gear and the Belpaire firebox.
My grandfather worked for conrail and all I ever heard was how awfully they treated him. He actually ended up dying from multiple cancers caused by the work he did for them. Im glad to learn about this but I will say that I would never work for a rail company given the history of high turnover rates from them I see through my current Jin with a uniform company
A favorite quote of mine about why I love infrastructure:
"If it's infrastructure/continuous, it can be electrified. If it's logistical/discrete, it probably can't."
I want fast, low cost and carbon neutral solutions to transport, dammit! Discrete packet options like planes, cars and trucks make sense for companies, because you can pay for them 1 at a time (ignoring the fact that 2/3 of these needs roads built by... yea), whereas a rail line or canal needs to be finished before you can start using it. But a rail line is static, so you can electrify is and use electric trains, and you can transport more people/cargo for cheaper per unit! But it's a 10 year project, and that falls outside the people who would greenlight its' term of office, so fuck the next guy taking credit for their work, short term action to keep me in power!
I hate short term thinking, it's why we can't have nice things
Yep That’s a very important disadvantage of the US political system. No political incentive to long term plan so no one does it
@@Fidel_cashflo Bailouts are a very large issue as well.
If people loose their jobs because the company did poorly, they blame politicians?
No, when a company folds, they leave a vacancy behind which breeds life into a dying economy.
Just let the companies fold based on their own corrupt nature.
I agree so much the US is pretty sucky at that.
Public infrastructure with private services has worked excellently for our roads. It's about time we do it on our railroads.
High speed rail would be excellent, but even a proper low-speed passenger network would be a complete game-changer for America.
2022 strike brought me back here lol
Just bring back conrail and nationalize the rail road and treat the rail roaders better, my dad was happier on Conrail than he was on CSX
The problem isn't that railroads aren't nationalized, the problem is that highways ARE. The government has accidentally tricked us into subsidizing the worst form of travel and then we wonder why the better options suck so much. I would much rather take a train to New York, but I can save a half hour, not get stuck behind freight trains, better time my arrival, etc. etc. so long as I take one of the multiple highway routes that will get me straight there.
In order to actually cover the road I'm using, I should be paying tolls that are two to three times the price of the inexpensive train ticket, but I won't because the capital cost and maintenance of that road are buried in state and federal budgets. In fact, I'll SAVE money driving my car if I'm not overly concerned with factoring in wear and tear on my vehicle, which I'm not because I need that anyway so I generally just consider a fact of life in Philly unless I want to get raped on the train, watch a guy die from an overdose, or take a 15-minute drive in one hour
Isn't the whole point of a service like passenger rail not to make a profit directly but to assist the economy as a whole? Like public transit generally doesn't make a profit, but if it shut down, millions of people would no longer be able to get to work, meaning the businesses that employed them wouldn't be able to fiction.
Just to clear up on thing, JR started privatisation in 1987. Of the 7 companies in the group, only 3 (Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Freight) are still controlled by the government. JR Kyushu was also only recently privatised in 2016. From what I can tell, the reason the other three weren't also privatised is because they run at a loss. Kinda makes it sound like privatisation is just a cash-grab for corporations....
thats exactly what it is. Build something up through nationalization only to have it sold off and destroyed by corps making short term profits
Thank you, Mr. Fisher, for alluding to the Lackawanna Cutoff in your video. Once considered an engineering marvel, the line dashed 28 miles between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Cutoff crossed the Delaware River on a beautiful concrete viaduct, then carved deeply into rock cuts and soared on earthen fills, eschewing automobile crossings.
I was a newspaper reporter in 1983 when local government officials tried to dissuade Conrail from abandoning the track between Slateford Junction, Pa., and Port Morris Junction, N.J. After 40 years since writing my first story about this, the Cutoff is not whole again.
Blame was placed everywhere. Fire damage to the Poughkeepsie Bridge that blocked an essential junction. Conrail’s refusal to consider reasonable alternatives. Amtrak’s wishy-washy attitude toward reviving a route that once carried 70 mph passenger trains. Part of the right-of-way being sold to a developer, and then reclaimed by eminent domain. And more. Some were reasons; other were excuses.
The only bright spot for the Cutoff’s future is NJ Transit’s plans to revive 7 miles of the line between Port Morris and Andover by 2026 for weekday commuter service. I understand a construction contract has been let.
Not to change the subject, but the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority has revived 66 miles of track between Carbondale, Pa., and Slateford Junction. The Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad operates most of the line at an increased volume of freight traffic. Steamtown USA, a project of the National Park Service, operates tourist excursions primarily from Scranton to points to the south.
But unfortunately the remaining 21 miles of the Lackawanna Cutoff between Slateford Junction and Andover continues to languish. Local, state and congressional leaders have pledged to restore the entire route. Studies have been done. But no one truly knows how much rebuilding the line for freight and passenger service will cost. Or when the first train would run. It's sad.
2:56 Hold the music! The federal government played a big role in why the old railroad companies went bankrupt in the first place by dictating what they could charge and forcing them to keep money-losing routes.
And subsidizing their competition while the railroads pay taxes.
Yeah back in the 1800s when railroads were ripping off farmers the same thing happened
True. BUT… If you think widespread access to the rail network and affordable rates/fares are important components of a functional society, as far as I’m concerned, that’s just another argument for nationalization.
I.E.: “We as a society have determined that we need our railroads to do theses certain things. It has been shown that railroads can not make a profit while doing so. Therefore, there is no option but to treat them the same way we treat other un-profitable necessities, like highways.”
@@DAOzz83 so the solution to the problem is the **very** cause of the problem?
@DAOZZ83 lets follow the logic of the original commenter: 1)Railroads are privatized 2)Railroad companies elevate prices and cut less profitable lines 3) A less popular inferior product in every single way. This is exactly what happened and that's the problem:
Railroads are not a product, they're a public utility. They're not supposed to make money (though they certainly can), much like the post office, they're meant to provide a basic service. fares and charges are just an extra source of revenue meant to help with upkeep.
That's why full nationalization is a must.
Love the mention of the Lackawanna cutoff! should have never ripped up the rails.
DB sadly has been privatized, the stereotype that german trains always run on time has been gone since then. :/
czcams.com/video/wXjhszy2f9w/video.html
No it is not.
Yea sadly
I don't know what you are talking about. On every source that I found on the internet, it said that DB is the national rail company in Germany and it's detained by the German government.
@@fabian7977 Its a private, profit oriented company majority owned by the german government. It´s nationalized with the problem of privatisation (That being profit) or private without the freedom. The worst of two worlds...
One of your biggest arguments is that companies put in the bare minimum in terms of maintenance. That's not true at all. The big four give the public access to their yearly budgets if you want to look it up; BNSF alone plans to spend about 3 billion this year for maintenance and expansion of their infrastructure. Furthermore, the railroads are already highly regulated, and the FRA has a heavy presence throughout the industry, even up here in Montana. Because of this, I fail to see how nationalization will make any difference.
Also, there are different track classes, with higher classes requiring more maintenance and precision. Amtrak routes are better maintained as a result. They're talking about reestablishing a passenger route through southern Montana, and there's talk about what will need to be done to the track if that comes to fruitation.
It will make a difference. It will make it worse
Thank you so much for that polymerization edit! Didn't realize I needed that lmao.
NOOOO but MY FREEDOM or something
I stumbled on your wordpress script while trying to research how much nationalizing the US rail system would expand passenger rail access for communities across America. I'm in the KCMO area, and our infrastructure is abhorrent, but there are all these lightly used and unused rail lines throughout the suburbs that could really help with our traffic issues. Doesn't seem to be a lot of graphs on the topic that I can find so far, might be a fun line of research!
A correction to your video, Japan’s JR is not nationalized at all.
It was privatized decades ago into regional companies. The smaller less urban JR Hokkaido and JR Shikoku are privatized but loss making and their stock is mostly owned by the government, but JR east (Tokyo and most eastern Japan), JR central (Nagoya area and makes most of its money from the cash printing machine that is the Osaka Tokyo Shinkansen line) and JR west (Osaka, Kyoto etc.. and the rest of western Honshu island) and lastly Jr Kyushu (all of Kyushu island) are all privatized and on the Tokyo stock exchange, they all make a significant profit.
The reasons why Japan’s private railways work are complicated but it proves that under certain conditions, private railways can strive. (Not subsidizing parking and highways is a big part of the reason why Japanese private railways can remain competitive )
there is functionally very little difference between a nationalized industry and a heavily regulated monopoly that has to adhere to pricing laws and strict industry guidelines. at the end of the day, the industry is primarily controlled by the government, and that's what matters.
@@kagakai7729
But that's not the case at all for JR. Only a tourist would think that JR is a monopoly when in fact most intra city transportation is being carried out by private companies that rose to prominence in no small part due to the privatization of the railway system. Having a stringent set of safety regulations is not the same as having a monopoly and the fact there are an increasing number of railway companies in Japan despite a decrease in the number of people across the country throws what you said out the window.
Dude I’ve seen 2 of your vids. Both you that🔥 vulf. Subscribed
Private rail companies can sit and block multiple major intersections for hours, but the rest of us get fined and ticketted for causing minor inconveniences for the road system
"All of the best countries when it comes to inner-city regional rail networks are all nationalized..."
Hi, let me introduce myself. I'm a Canadian. We have VIA Rail, which is just as shitty as Amtrak only "run" by our government!
Japan's shinkansen system which is considered the best in the world , is privatised with the company JR ( a for profit company)also owning the land around the stations and railway track where.
How is VIA different from Amtrak? Doesn't it still operate on CN/CP tracks just like Amtrak has to pay UP/BNSF/NS/CSX?
@@Glaggle you win a prize! Pretending VIA Rail is anything but the Canadian Amtrak is madness - except VIA owns even less trackage than Amtrak. Moreover, Canada only really has two mainline operators, with one of them being notoriously hostile to passenger rail and basically being impossible to work with.
I live in Poland, Europe and we have a PKP (Polskie Koleje Państwowe) which are just shitty as Amtrak.
Nowhere does it say that Europe is better, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.
amtrak is government owned
I suggest you look at the cost to move cargo in Europe vs the USA. In the USA, we have 4-axle cars, which can carry 286,000 pounds per car, or about 130 Tonnes. Europe is about 44 Tonnes per car. Second, Europe has a height restriction and cannot carry double stack. Third, trains in Europe are limited to 750M, and the USA averages 2000M per train, and can be as high as 6000M.
You can see that China is following the US model for their freight services on the Great Silk Road project, using large, fast freight trains to move between Europe and Asia.
Second, I would rather we pay railroads directly to operate passenger service, by both the passenger and mile, as well as allowing rolling stock to be deductible and newer than 20 years old. Cities and towns can pay for the station and the railroad can lease it. Frankly, I don't see how adding an entire government bureaucracy would make trains better.
DB is a pain.
For example i was on a trip to a neighboring tiwn on the weekend. Its hakf an hour or about 8 stops away.
First train had a malfunction and got canceled. 2nd train came 20 minutes late but then also got canceled without an announcement. Third train had "do not enter" on its display but the staff told me "nah mate ofc u can enter". The third train departed 15 minutes late after standing at the station for about 20 mins. In total i arrived only 1.5 hours late. Good job DB.
Thos is how 60% of my trips go
Including the JR, there’s no national railway company in Japan.
I like how what killed passenger rail was. . . Nationalization of roads xd
Plus amtrak cough, cough cut most of us passenger routes, stations, jobs and so on ;)
It shouldn't be a question of "railway nationalisation," it should be a question of _infrastructure nationalisation._ A good model for North America is Britain's *_Network Rail._*
Nationalise the infrastructure and lease access to any company that wants to run a railway (for freight or passenger services). Limit the length of trains to 1'000 m (0.62 miles) in length (±40× 25 m cars) so that freight can move faster (as they do in Europe) - this would reduce level crossing infractions dramatically: a 1 km train moving at 60 km/h (~37 mph), would pass through a level crossing in 60 seconds; a 1 km train moving at 120 km/h (~75 mph) would pass through a level crossing in 30 seconds; a passenger train moving at 180 km/h (111 mph) would pass through a level crossing in 20 seconds. These delays are a far cry from the almost 6 minutes a 150+ car train typically takes to pass through a level crossing at 25 mph. (Of course, removing level crossings entirely would be the preferred solution.)
With a nationalised network, all operators (freight or passenger) would pay the same fee per tonne hauled over the track, but passenger service would be given priority over freight (being faster and lighter). In congested corridors, quadruple track could be provided (2 fast (high speed); 2 slow).
In North America, the early railways were granted the right-of-way lands by the federal government on condition they maintained those right-of-ways and provided rail services to the communities they served. Over the past 100 years, the railway companies have abrogated their commitments by abandoning right-of-ways and track because they weren't economically viable to maintain (and they saw no financial benefit from leasing access to their track - while carrying the maintenance costs - to 'short-line' freight or commuter rail operators).
In essence, public lands _granted_ to private corporations were sold for private profit and not a dime of that profit was transferred back to the original public landowners.
I've watched a few of your videos on railroading and I completely agree. Thanks for providing some common sense on this topic!
That conrail montage was incredible.
I had no idea who owns the rail network in the US. This explains a lot.
Watching this from Russia, it feels weird. Even on paper, private-owned railroads will turn operating passenger service into hell because it's the freight trains that make profits on rail. Good passenger service is almost always operating at a loss, but that loss is subsidized by the government. But since it doesn't make as much money to railway owners compared to freight trains, passenger service still gets the short stick. Then comes the track improvement. If it doesn't make a buck, then the owners won't do it. Simple as that. Private-owned railroads is a bad idea, and it's a bad idea even on paper. Principles, sure, but USSR stuck with it's principles to the very end, and how does that country do today, I wonder?
That's the lesson we here in the west still have to learn: it wasn't "socialism" that took down the USSR - it was dogmatism.
In other words: you won't be a very respected doctor for long if you try to cure every disease with the same medicine.
Private companies know how to reduce costs and still operate. The government rarely is able to do that. Government usually ends up requiring more and more money, especially when it comes to something as large as the rail lines in the U.S.
@@bradbiesecker162 Even if we assume that's true, privatization is a bad thing. Under private companies track improvements and good passenger service can't really exist because there isn't much incentive for it. In order to compete with something like the interstate system passenger rail really has to be subsidized by the government. Would you rather have an "efficient" rail system that the public gets very little benefit out of or a subsidized rail system that the public gets a lot of benefit out of and that results in fewer miles driven by polluting cars? I think it's a no-brainer.
@@bradbiesecker162 private companies don't operate to reduce costs, they operate to increase profits. They are the middle man after all. They gladly take subsidies from taxpayers money. But in return they demand more money from people for better service. The money starts to accumulate in the hands of private companies. While the people need to pay higher than average price because there is no alternative. And if they aren't highly regulated, they become a regional monopoly and start operating like cartels. Take American healthcare for example, it's one of the most privatised in the world. Government healthcare spending is more than any other country. People get charged absurd amount for trivial things. Yet it is one of the least efficient among developed countries.
Private companies operate for profits not for the people. Privatisation doesn't always mean cost reduction or more efficient, in most cases it's the exact opposite and it's obvious why.
@@sanket.solanke @Sanket S Private companies do exist to make a profit. With that much I agree. But obviously you have not spent much time running a business, or even perhaps working for a private company. Every company for which I have worked, from the largest employer with 50,000 employees, to the smallest with less than 25 employees, reducing costs is of paramount importance. This goes without saying, or at least it should.
It is a lack of competition which engenders an apathetic and wasteful culture in management and companies. And when the government is the sole provider of a business or service, and because they can tap into a huge reservoir of money that they themselves did not earn, there is little incentive to reduce costs.
As for the quality of service provided, most start-ups work in uncomfortable and aesthetically unattractive circumstances to make sure that every dollar is spent wisely and in such a manner as to improve the product or service AND YES, the eventual profitability of the company.
Points well taken , from: my family started railroading before WWll. Ty for an excellent presentation
In case you wanna pronounce the "Ö" from ÖBB, it's a lot like the sound you make in words like "hurt" or "dirt".
This aged like a fine wine.
I'm old enough to remember Conrail and how it went bankrupt. Amtrak continues to operate at a loss. In your plan to nationalize railroads, what would you do differently?
Amtrak is a for-profit yet government subsidized corporation; it is not fully government-owned.
Conrail never went bankrupt,it was privatized and sold off to CSX and NS
Lol was not expecting to hear Niel Cicereiga in this video. You put it to good use.
3:10 when you have retro dj aspirations but also like trains, Alan you crazy bastard!
Canada needs this too, re-nationalization of CN and the nationalisation of CP would end the stupid fights over ROWs, especially in urban areas where many cities want more commuter train service and want to move trains to another line but the companies refuse to work with each other.
Toronto is a fucking disaster.... if I were grand dictator of Canada, I would force CP to host passenger trains... if CP executives made a fuss, I would have them hung from signal bridges for trains to whack like pinatas.
@@Belleville197 thats quite violent... however as someone who used to live near the milton line👀👀👀👀
@@alexi-divasskinner960 do you remember what they said?
@@nikolasvahrusev8407 from what i remeber they went on a tangent on how they want to kill the CEO of Canadian pacific or something wild\
@@nikolasvahrusev8407 Smoke weed
The US Railway freight network is the envy of Europe.
Passenger lines are the flashy part of railroads but the bulk of their use comes from freight trains and in Europe the axle loads for freight are nowhere near those of the US which means longer less economic trains, this is also why road freight is so prominent in Europe.
The average axle load in Europe is 22,5 tons while in the US it's 35 tons which means you can take heavier loads. The load profile is also much narrower prohibiting larger cargos or double stacking containers.
Sweden is an outlier in Europe as the standard axle load is 25 tons and the prominent iron ore railway in the north has 32,5 tons and lot's of comparisons show up in reports about infrastructure where Sweden the EU and USA are compared and axle load is a major impediment to rail freight in Europe. Rail freight in europe in the year 2000 was about 15% while in the US it was 49% having barely declined in the last 30 years while in Europe it had gone off a cliff.
I couldn't even follow most of the narration from about 7:00 to 8:00 because I was HYPNOTIZED by that INSANE progression of cars. I've seen such a train IRL, but not in a really long time.
Nice video, I love Vulfpeck almost as much as I love trains
i feel you on the topic on nationalization.
Here in germany the politicians came to the 'brilliant' conclusion that we should half-privatize the DB becuase "private corporations always are sooo good at saving money and the DB drains a lot of cash"
.. you can imagine what happened in the following years (last 10-15 years basically ?)
We now have rotting infrastructure all over the country, no employees to make travelling reasonable and train stations good, and large streches of single track railroads that cause major fuckups in scheduling etc ... who would have thought
How is it privatized fifty percent when Deutsche Bahn is owned 100% still by the Federal Republic of Germany? I agree it sucks because I scheduled my train ride to get to the airport five hours before my flight and it arrived at departure time of my flight, so a five hour delay cost be 500 Euros.
Yeah, I'm with you.
It's even more embarassing, considering that our neighbours Austria and Switzerland are doing such a fantastic job with their trains.
But I feel like the politicians nowadays don't really think much about this.
Also, you have to remember that we have a VERY strong car lobby, so that might be a hindrance for change as well.
@@adh615 the car lobby is so unimagineably large.
They will throw in their wrenches for sure
The DB is a private company that is 100% owned by the the state. So it ist de facto nationalized. The problem is that the infrastructure isn’t keeping up with demand. The passenger numbers doubled in the last 20 years. Until 1994 it was a fully state owned authority and not run as a company but it wasn’t better at all.
@@DerVersteherPlus
The DB as a company is kind of weird in its structure. I mean everyone speaks of the "Teilprivatisierung".
DB is run as a private joint-stock company, with the government having all the shares.
When we say, we should fully nationalize DB again, what we mean is reverse the Bahnreform and not run it as profit oriented enterprise.
Rolls off the tongue better, you see.
You are correct in that the Bahn was in a bad state before the Reform. Only Problem being that it's in a even worse state now. So I wouldn't call it a success. And I don't believe going all in and privatizing everything is going to make things better. Let's face it, our Anti-monoply ministry is dogshit and corrupt. The companies would just go onto a merger spree and form a big company with a monopoly. I mean just look at what's happening in Britian.
I truly believe the problem is the structure of the DB as profit oriented. Infrastructure doesn't make you any money, that's literally what Infrastructure is all about. Nobody expects to get money from a bridge, because that's just stupid. So why do we believe, that rails will make profit?
In order for there to be a plus in the balance sheet at the end of the year (profit), the company has to cut corners where ever it can. That means, for example, putting railways that aren't lucrative out of buisness, no matter if they're still needed by some.
A friend of mine has to buy herself a car now, because her train to Augsburg no longer drives its route.
Another thing is, that the company has to pay for maintenance work, but the government pays for new projects. So it's in the companies best interest to abbandon the infrastructure until it is beyonf repair, so that the government has to pay for it.
Do you get what I'm trying to say? Trying to extract profit out of rails is just fucking ludicrous, but it's exactly what the goal of DB is because of its structure.
And I think the other countries are proof of that. Just look at how much better they're doing
This video is more timely than ever in 2023.
This channel is excellent! That emo penn central f unit in another video had me rolling. Subbed. Lmfao.
"And on the sixth, the Feds said, let there be Conrail and it was good". 🤣
You try to nationalize the major railways in the US, and all you will get is a huge, drawn-out, mind-numbingly expensive legal fight.
Or the govt can make laws to increase competition by blocking mergers and acquisitions and to encourage unique investors per operator. Increased competition will eventually force companies to look towards lesser profitable lines and built new and better infrastructure.
Since when (with few exceptions) does our government do things better than the private sector? Do people not pay attention to the incompetence of government-run entities? You can't effectively compare how railways in much smaller European nations do things, with the far larger and more complex US. Ridiculous, plain and simple.
Russia, who is literally the largest country on Earth having a decent nationalized railroad:
*Am I a joke to you?*
@@rbgerald2469 Not quite sure what you mean by the "Am I a joke to you" comment.
@@Hyakman5408 ... You're saying Nationalization only works in small countries in Europe, that they wouldn't work in a massive county like the US. Well Russia is 10 times bigger than the US, and yet its railways are nationalized. That's what I meant.
aslong as the cool railroad museams and steam excursions are kept, and UP's steamshop (and steam locomotives) stays in the realm of the living i could see this being ok
Conrail had an Awesome paint scheme
I loved D&H, old BN green
Those were the original ones back in my childhood
Easier said than done. In America that's anathema because it'll be branded as socialism. While almost limitless government support for the industrial-military complex isn't.
“Defense” is something completely unique in a nations purview.
Countries can have bad public policy,
They can have economic slumps
They can experiment with different ideas
But defense to a country is something it doesn’t tend to play with and will go to any lengths to secure. Cause unlike the others, defense is the only reason nations can even exist.
There’s a reason we developed organized warfare the moment we developed society and it has always been a public affair in every single society in history.
The Criticism of the excesses of the MIC are fair, but criticizing defense being in state hands is so dumb only retarded a caps would make it. Don’t go there, it doesn’t work as a valid criticism. The government doesn’t support the MIC, the government IS THE MIC. Always has been, always will be.
The limitless government support for the industrial-military complex is socialism.
@@RussellNelson Socialism by definition is NOT “When the government does stuff”
The MIC are private industries who specialize in technologies the government wants, they compete with each other and have to outbid each other and oftentimes they sell to other countries as well. Microsoft, Google etc are just a few steps short of Lockheed, Ratheon and Boeing
The only reason it doesn’t feel that way is cause the former also have significant general use products apart from the cutting edge cyber weapons and services the provide their government.
This idea of “when the government does stuff, it’s socialism is beyond ridiculous”
@@BasicLib Socialism is when government owns the means of production. What does ownership get you? Control. Given the massive amount of regulation on US businesses (far less than the supposedly socialist Nordic countries), can you argue with a straight face that this is not a socialist economy?
@@RussellNelson wtf ?
Neither the Nordic’s or the US is socialist
Socialism has very little to do with the government and rather with labor. WORKER ownership of the means of production, that is socialism.
The workers don’t own Lockheed anymore than the Grunts own the US military.
A part of me is wonder if you’re trolling here.
When the government is in bed with big business, they call that … “corruption”
Or if you want to be fancy, “crony capitalism”
Socialism is more similar to if at your workplace, you’re payed not a wage but a percentage of the overall profits, you get to vote for who your bosses are and what direction the company moves into etc. that my friend is “control”, worker control of the means of production
And I say this as someone who’s partial to capitalism who believes such a system (socialism) wouldn’t work much atleast now. But I take the time to learn the accurate terms so I can argue from an informed position.
You might want to take an academic look at socialism, it’s true definition, the various schools, attempts at implementation etc so you can better understand it if you wish to fight it or help implement it, depending on your leanings.
It’s much better to be informed.
Nationalize the rails then lease them back to the freighters and use the profits to run passenger trains.
Take them by eminant domain.
Why did you mention JR though ? JR is the complete antithesis to this video : a privatization effort gone (Somewhat) right. They are 100% for profit and make much of their money through a combination of fares and real estate investment. I say somewhat because it worked wonders for central Japan but not so much for isolated places, mostly Hokkaido and Shikoku, where perhaps the railways really should have remained public.
None of this invalidates the video, I just found it silly to include JR there. It's like putting a McD logo on a video about fighters against capitalism or something.
Well a few points..... nationalized rail networks with exceptions have done a terrible job with handling freight traffic. France mentioned in the video has about an 8% share. In alot of countries in Europe carload freight is practically gone, the European nationalized carriers PSRd their freight before it was cool. In the Eastern Block and Soviet Union freight had such a high modal share because often long distance trucking was outright banned. In the GDR and Romania for example trucks were not allowed to drive more than 200 km. In western Europe there were also some protective legislation to favor rail transport, but this was largely eliminated due to EU driven neoliberal legislation in the early 1990s. Look up the MORA-C program in Germany if you want to learn about the German version of PSR, admittedly this was after the German railways were fake privatized (another long topic...). In the European context the only country that is doing a good job with rail freight is Switzerland which places very strict regulation on truck traffic and heavily subsidizes rail freight. My experience outside the US and Europe is limited but in India the railroads gave up single wagon traffic in the 1990s, from then on only handling unit trains. Alot of negative things can be said about the current US rail landscape but the long PSR land barges makes rail cheap enough to compete with trucks and gives rail in the US a higher modal share than most other places in the world. Personally I think there is alot of opportunity to improve passenger rail within the current model, just there is zero political will to do so. The freight railroads are generally willing to cooperate if the government will actually pay for the necessary infrastructure upgrades for passenger rail. Funding for capacity upgrades and a neutral dispatching solution like done on Brightline would be a good first step in the right direction for improving passenger service.
Your argument kind of falls apart if we consider modern Russian Rail. Its fully nationalised and freight still takes up the majority of it.
Or just toll the highways or sell them off.
How much grain/oil/coal/ore etc do you think france is trying to move around? Easy answer, not much
@@nate4fish He has a point, though - and in the time of the container, rail freight is not just for basic commodities. And it's a similar story across other European countries.
Freight is hauled on roads for thousands of kms across several countries because it's easier, quicker and cheaper than rail freight. Despite this vid's condemnation of private rail companies, they appear to be considered cost-effective by their customers.
It's because freight rail is not seen as a priority. In most of the US network freight would still have the priority. But there are certain areas (cities, urban corridors) where better passenger train priority is warranted. With nationalization there could be a boost to build new (passing) tracks, splitting the investment costs over the entire nation.
I agree that a hybrid system would be best, like you said the lines and hard infrastructure would be owned by Federal, state and local authorities, than they could bid out service contracts at intervals for public transit, and charge flat rates per car for freight. This would mean that taxpayers only have to foot the bill for the immediate investment of a station and lines leading up to it for each project, and than add the station to a complete line schedule it bids out to ensure that companies cant pick and choose coverage based on population sizes. this guarantees access to the public, while allowing competition between companies for better service/price ratios to consumers
In Denmark we used to send out offers for these small stretch of rails once. We do the same with busses
If you want to operate this route then you must take a lesser used as well.
But some small towns only have mon-fri busses and that in some areas can also mean no busses during school holidays
Bruh, your videos are AWESOME, the bit with the godly voice and gospel music XDDD
Also, FINALLY AN EXPLANATION AS TO WHY so many American rail tracks are single tracked. Bruh. Like. You already built the embankment for ONE line, slap another one right next to it? Even countries with less open space than the US can do this. Single track rail lines are for like. Mini-regional lines that are in really, REALLY sparsely populated areas. Not a line that goes across most of the country.
Japanese National Railways was privatized in the 1987 forming the current JR Group and while it has worked for Japan, I don't think privatization would work for other countries. As we have seen how well the US handles it's private rail network.. Also if you look at JR group, most of their profit is not transportation related..
yeah they were a bad example to lump in. Also JR has been cutting alot of services in rural areas, well focusing on intercity and commuter services.
"But the federal government came to help." If that isn't enough to scare you I don't know what will.
"Hi, I'm Dennis Prager behind you at Arby's." Now THAT is scary.
This video was missing that trippy Conrail montage!
just out of curiosity, what would this mean for Canadian railroads like CN and CP in the US with their track? Would it stay as theirs or will that be absorbed into Conrail as well?
Precision Schedule Railroading is like when you're sitting in bumper to bumper stop & go traffic.. then you have the bright idea of, "if everyone pressed the gas at once... .."
But that idea actually makes sense when everything is centrally controlled and you can go on the walkie talkies and tell all the cars "on the count of 3. One...two ..."
@@IIAOPSW Better idea:
Five red lights turn on one by one. And then a pause.
AND IT’S LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO
The reason why those countries have nationalized railroads is because they evolved from being primarily passenger carriers. In The United States the railroads evolved from primarily being fright carriers as that was where the bulk of the earnings came from. During the first half of the last century United States railroads operated their first class passenger named trains to promote all the services they could provide to fright customers.
one the issues that lead to the collapse of the railroads in the 70s was the government over regulating and taxing the railroads, plus the forced admission of the New Haven into Penn Central
Can someone please, please let me know what song is playing over the let there be conrail sequence? I've been searching it up and trying to shazam it for hours but its not working? Maybe I'm being incredibly stupid, but someone let me know if they know. starts at around 3:30 thanks
czcams.com/video/mz_bGGecKAM/video.html
I think you are partially correct. I do not think the movement of freight should be nationalized, but the tracks should get interstate treatment, and call it interstatelization
I think the airport model should be used on railway stations.
@@Ben31337l ?
@@Dan-gs3kg Rather than nationalising the network and having governments own and operate the trains.
I suggest having an airport / airplane model.
It's essentiually a model which the government would own the track and private companies run the trains (TOCs), determnine schedules etc.
And finally, seperate private companies own a station and the TOCs would bid for schedule slots at stations, similar to the way airports and airplanes operate, hence the name.
@@Ben31337l That's not how airports work though, they're all with the exception of Heathrow owned and operated by the government. Heathrow is only an exception because it's literally the busiest airport in the entire world.
Also the model you're suggesting was tried in the UK and failed, railroad systems simply can't function without a single large nationalized company to be the backbone of it. You need that company to create the profitable niches that private companies can come into otherwise you'll just run into competition that creates inefficiencies, the mainlines of a network have to be centrally managed so they are run most optimally but if you have multiple companies you'll both need redundant systems and they will be directly incentivized to run it in a way that hurts their competition the most rather than what's most optimal. There's a reason why the FAA is not privatized.
@@hedgehog3180 Oh, okay
A huge missed opportunity was making the Interstate Highway Act the Interstate Highway and Railway Act back in 1956
The interstates never should have been built at all.
I don't know a whole lot about trains or tax policies but I'm really appreciating your use of Vulfpeck
You had me at "Amtrak owns less than 700 miles...."
For my 2-cents let me plainly say that WE (the USA) are in terrible shape with respect to regional rail service. I live innSE Ohio and have ZERO passenger service, actually for me to connect with any type of rail service I am required to travel 4 hours to Pittsburgh, 3 hours to Cleveland or approximately the same time to Cincinnati. This needs to be fixed by whatever the means be. I understand economics and P/L but a high % of AMERICANS living in the rural areas no longer have any contact with rail services.
Finally, I thought I was the only one who thought this way; bring back Conrail Quality
People forget Conrail, the main railroad of the northeast at one time, went bankrupt for the same reasons why most of America lost their passenger trains. The railroads lost their USPS mail contracts. No longer do a dozen or more mail cars run on American passenger trains consists. When the US Mail chooses to fly the mail, maybe people do and did too.... Facts and figures. The busiest Amtrak station had 10 million riders, the largest American airport Atlanta had 110 million flyers... Not even close... Americans fly.
And for the best example of a renewed Conrail would be to revitalize the old B&O Royal Blue Line between Baltimore and Philadelphia (making the line double-tracked) and shifting all CSX and NS operations from DC to NYC onto this, using the NEC only when necessary and with the freight movements segregated from the passenger movements. Same with the old Reading Mainline west of Norristown (with the emphasis of having a separate passenger-only track for SEPTA service to Pottstown; Reading - from the planning of the old Schuylkill Valley Metro - being dropped due to the region's decline), the ex-National Railway/Reading New York service between West Trenton and Bound Brook, the old ex-Reading Bethlehem Branch (as far as Quakertown, as it is within the SEPTA five-county operating area), and the biggest of them all, the old PRR Main Line between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg in which the one-time four-track line, now under NS ownership, but under Conrail, would be rebuilt with four segregated tracks, two of them reserved for Amtrak "Pennsylvanian" service which desperately needs to be expanded beyond the one per day schedule. (Pittsburgh being a hub for a dedicated Chicago-Pittsburgh-only 125+ mph high-speed service; the Pennsylvanian and Capital Limited being capped at 110 mph due to the Allegheny Ridge and older infrastructure.)
@@ronclark9724 given the Far Left now controls DC, get ready for alot of airlines to be charging alot for air delivery service (even if the USPS was to be dissolved and mail carrier service given to, let's say FedEx, as the GOP is very pro-privatization and very anti-union) as they'll jack the taxes up for JP-4 consumption and because all-electric 18-wheelers could not do cross-country (and other vehicles, including trucks, electric or not, will eventually be subject to, give the Far Left half a chance, Swiss-style "Vignettes" to travel on the Interstates and U.S. Highways; states controlled by the Left like Kalifornia doing the same for their highways), don't be too surprised to see mail trains again.
@@rwboa22 this is the funniest shit I've ever read. The far left lmao
@@ronclark9724 Imagine thinking that the only source of revenue for freight roads is mail
Just discovered your content and love it! Keep it up! Also: If you ever find the time, I‘d love to see an video about the european train system in general!
The United States has the most efficient and productive railroads in the world. Not coincidentally, the United States also has the most private railroads in the world. Other than Canada, almost every other country that has railroads has nationalized them.Private railroads operate with very different goals from those that are owned by the government. Private railroads seek to maximize profits, and to do so they must be as efficient and productive as possible. Government-owned railroads seek to maximize political popularity, and to do so they must favor actions that are highly visible and often are highly inefficient and unproductive because economic costs translate into political benefits.
If you want to know how much a mess Conrail was I suggest you read Rush Loving Jr's book the Men Who Loved Trains
you'd enjoy my newest video on the Lackawanna Cutoff where we point out alot of conrails flaws.
i've been seeing the distance argument a lot and honestly i cannot comprehend how someone thinks this isn't a good idea but the interstates or transcontinental railroad were. interstates pass through mostly nothing, even on the east coast (trust me, i've driven them, exits on the njpike seem like they lead nowhere half the time and that's in one of the densest states of the nation), so this argument just doesn't work. nationalized rail means services are forced to run, meaning new growth opportunities. but it doesn't benefit EVERYONE directly, so god forbid, right?
I Australia most railways were once government owned. Each state Government owned and operated the railway within the state. They built a good rail network, but there was a lock of corporation with intestate freight which caused many problems. The federal government setup their own rail business to handle all nation freight. In the ;ate 90's and early 2000's, there was a rail privatization move across the country. The federal government continued to own and fund the rail infrastructure and setup a rail corporation , but sold the freight business and sold rail access to any private company. This seemed to work well and it increased rail traffic on the main eat west line across the continent. However, in the sate where i live, the sate government leased the infrastructure to a private company and they were responsible for maintaining the line and running freight. This has been a disaster and has seen lines closed.
DB was i think partially privatized a couple years ago and its gotten gradually more expensive and unreliable since. Its at the point now where a long distance bus company called flixbus is buying and running trains.
Great analysis of freight nationalization. I heard a common solution for this is for the government to own all American tracks, similar to Britain's Network Rail, so that the government can take care of track infrastructure and maintenance. However, the reason why nationalizes works in European and Asian nations, especially for passenger rail, is that they place much more emphasis on rail transport while the U.S. focuses *MUCH* more on cars and highways than rail transport, and there is much political deadlock which would stall a new government or state owned passenger rail project in the U.S.
I believe that the reason why these systems are unfunded and under used comes alot from the fact that the government didn't fully nationalize the system in the 1970s. But there are alot of other factors too. I'd love to do an episode in the future that basically highlights and alternative timeline and how things could have played differently.
@@alanthefisher I remember reading somewhere that a big reason the long distance routes failed back in the 70's was due to cost cutting measures cutting out the feeder networks, thus actively reducing available riders, as it's only then convenient to people that live in the city with the station going to the other city with the station (IE, Buffalo to NYC) but my local town, which has an Amtrak service already going past it, still has its local rail station closed in a derelict state. It should be 100% possible to re-open it and allow an Amtrak commuter service to funnel people into the city, who.could go anywhere from there
Looking at the potholes on American highways, I can't imagine what would happen to the quality of the tracks, were the railroads nationalized.
@@RussellNelson They don’t have much quality now,also have you seen Chinas state owned metros and railways?They look spot clean and nice with good Interior and top quality service,clearly seeing your comments you are blinded by ideology here.Also as someone who rides the highway on a daily basis i like to know what potholes you speak of sir.
@@mauricio9564 You must have learned to avoid the potholes!