TeamsterGrrrl

I was talking about one specific railroad, the Minnesota Prairie Line. You're also missing other facts: Amtrak owns some of the tracks they run on such as the Northeast Corridor, etc.. And to get you studying, who owns Amtrak?

More "alternative facts"- In this and several other cases the counties along the tracks bought the railroad to protect the asset with an eye to resume service. The counties own the tracks, but lease them to a private sector operator. We have several shortline operations like this in Minnesota and surrounding states. One of the largest is in South Dakota, where the state bought up all the Milwaukee Road tracks in the state when the railroad went bankrupt in the 1980s. Most of these tracks are in use again, and the state has sold some of the tracks to BNSF. BTW, the "government bureaucrats" you hate are largely our overworked and underpaid rural county commissioners, who have shepherded these abandoned railroads back into service.

I know the numbers, that's why I don't own a big truck.

So you're taking political advice from a senile old man?

Sounds like the republican legislator in the next district over- He decries the government, but other than the short job as a welder that he quickly got fired from, his entire career has been as a public employee!

Rowdy, the tracks are publicly owned and the railroad operator pays to use them, besides the saved wear on the parallel roads. David, sometimes I wonder if its the opposite... I've done the numbers on owning my own truck before and it was always less profitable than being a company driver. Sometimes makes me wonder if some guys become owner-operators because their porn watching, drug use, boozing, fighting, and other bad behaviors keep them from getting a legit job in government or for a trucking company?

Rowdy, I trust the CBO's facts a lot more than I trust your "facts". If we go back to the $.05/ton/mile as the real cost of trucking to our road infrastructure, even if you're running half empty you'd be costing us over a buck a mile. Not trying to blame you personally, your taxes sound high compared to some of the fleets that use every trick in the book to keep from paying taxes- For example they're often paying no more that you are in registration and highway use tax fees, but some of them are double shifting a truck and running 200,000 and more miles a year! On the other hand, I've talked to farmers who are paying $3k a year or so in registration and HUT alone, despite the fact that they're only running their truck 10k miles a year between their farm and the elevator... These folks are clearing playing their way and then some! This is why we need fairness in road taxes, and the only way to do that is with a ton/mile taxation system for vehicles that are putting on a lot of miles, electric cars included.

In your application a straight truck works better, in other applications tractor-trailers work better. As for the stats, good to see you're serving some real family farmers.

Takes damn near a thousand dairy cows to fill up your Titan tanker every day, and even 200 cows is considered a big family dairy farm. 45 foot long straight trucks have no advantage over tractor-trailer rigs in maneuverability, their main advantage is traction as with the auxiliary axles lifted they can put more weight on the drive axles.

The trucks contribute more to the congestion- The highway engineers tell us that the congestion on our highway 23 in southwest MN is largely caused by the 1000+ trucks that use that route per day, not the 5000 or so total vehicle count.

I'm old enough to remember when the typical milk truck was a single axle straight truck, but not old enough to remember cans. I saw that straight truck replaced with a tandem, then pusher axles. I was at the legislative hearings when they gave the straight trucks 5 more feet of length so they could bridge a few thousand more pounds, and since then they've authorized permits so you can operate 91,000 pound straight trucks like your Titan. All that has done is enabled megadairies who run the family farmers out of business... Is that progress?

If you want to look at it on a bigger scale, the railroads are running 25 or so unit intermodal trains a day on the corridor between the California ports and the Chicago area. That's 5000 trucks a day they're taking off the highways and 10,000 trucks when you figure the often empty backhauls. If the railroads discontinued that service we'd have to pay billions to add lanes to I-80, I-70 etc.. On a local scale, we've got a million bushel plus elevator near me that typically loads a unit shuttle train once a week and ships it out. Each train is taking around a thousand truck trips a week off our 2 lane highway that is already at capacity- 4 laning that highway to connect with I-90 and I-94 would likely cost us taxpayers a billion dollars, and we thank BNSF for saving us that billion dollars.

Being a civil servant I see the numbers- For example we have a shortline railroad, the Minnesota Prairie Line, that parallels a 2 lane state highway for about 100 miles. The rail line was bought up by the counties along the line a couple decades ago to keep it from being abandoned. We've invested a few million dollars of public funds in rehabilitating that line and as a result they're able to run a train twice a week to serve the online elevators and other customers. Those are small trains, but the hundred or so cars a week they're moving is taking 400 tractor trailer rigs off the neighboring highway. This reduction in highway wear means we can put off a much more expensive rebuild of the neighboring highway.

No, if trucking paid the real costs of their road use rates would rise and more freight would shift to rail. Taxpayers would be relieved of the responsibility of maintaining roads for long haul trucks and the resulting savings would be a boost to the economy. Given the driver shortage that plagues the trucking industry, there would be little impact on unemployment rates as most truck drivers leave the industry during their first year of employment.

From the non-partisan CBO: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/workingpaper/50049-Freight_Transport_Working_Paper-2.pdf Shows trucking costs taxpayers around 2 to 5 cents per ton/mile. Is your truck paying anywhere near that?

Rowdy, you don't understand "avoided costs". Have you noticed how your electric company will almost give you LED lights for free and will buy up your old inefficient appliances? They do that because it's cheaper than building new power plants! Same with bikes and transit- It's cheaper to subsidize those modes than it is to build more lanes if those people drive instead.

Rowdy, I've seen the numbers- Much more general fund revenue is diverted to paying for roads than is diverted from user fees to bikes, trains, etc.. Bike and transit funding isn't a diversion either- They are part of the transportation system. I've seen the traffic counts on bike trails that are carrying more commuters than many rural roads, and transit take millions of passengers and vehicles off our crowded highways.

Through subsidies we're paying a bit for your food and mine, as well as the highways your CL is wearing out if you run many miles loaded. Truth is, it's just about impossible to avoid funding and enjoying government subsidies.

Not so much free as subsidized, such as reduced price bread. Kinda makes sense, the people have "skin in the game" and don't waste the resource that they couldn't afford otherwise. The U.S. subsidizes a lot of stuff like college education, home ownership, oil, coal, trucking, solar energy, etc.. Sometimes these subsidies are beneficial and sometimes they just distort the market in harmful ways.

Sounds great, with only 80k miles your TDI is a keeper! Cleaned the intake on my '03 TDI last fall, now it will spin the front wheels upshifting to 2nd again like when it was new. I'm buying a new 2015 Golf TDI next week (assuming the deal doesn't fall apart) just to stay stocked up on diesels in case I can't buy another one, and will probably keep the 2013 if I can't get the new TDI. When they start "fixing" and reselling the turned in TDIs I may buy another if the prices are reasonable.

That air line is probably for a "Maximizer" road speed governor that limited speed to 55 in top gear. You didn't need to change transmissions, just disable that stupid governor.

More so caused by an economy overly dependent on high oil prices.

I was referring to the obsolescence of GMs plants, not the jobs there.

No GM plant is worth fighting over...

I like the International better, that sloping hood makes for great visibility. The Scania influence is starting to show in the steering column mounted gearshift/engine brake switch for the automated manuals, looking forward to seeing more MAN and Scania features migrate to International.