Efficiency and the Decline of the American Freight Railroads
Home Signal - Over the last two years, the crisis of America’s supply chains, the push to expand public passenger rail service, and the urgency of the climate crisis have put America’s freight railroads in the limelight.
Nationalize the railroads?
Supply Chain 24/7 - I have read with interest an increasing number of references to a “North American rail oligarchy.” As a large rail shipper for many years and a former billing auditor for a Class 1, I witnessed the upgrading of executives I interacted with over a couple of decades. Gone were the relationship folks, and in came the smart, often non-rail folks who saw the opportunity to realize the dream of the early rail barons.
U.S. railroads were nationalized in World War I
Freightwaves - By December 1917, it was clear that the existing railroad system was not capable of supporting the war effort; therefore the ICC recommended that federal control of the railroads was necessary to ensure their efficient operation.