Must be a recession (Parked up Power)

Yeah 280 autoracks are being stored at Kentucky Railroad Museum and there are about 40 being stored on a siding in Marshall Illinois. The economy is hitting hard.:confused:
 
Wow Lots_Trainz, that's "lots" of trains!
:o
I live next to UP tracks in Illinois, and have noticed a reduction of daily freights of at least 60%! Sign of the times!
 
Yeah, There are hundreds of hopper cars parked on the P&W tracks in my town. Every passing siding is full. They don't use the sidings so it doesn't matter. Also the freight trains are getting shorter and shorter. Used to be 30 cars. Now you're lucky if it's 10 cars.
 
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Yes and the economy is hitting railroad museums hard too. Strangely enough though my museum [Monticello Railway Museum] actually had a ridership increase last year, and a fairly big one.
 
Yeah, a sad reflection on the economic state, in all countries. I hope they don't scrap those locos, I might chuck in a few quid for an SD70M, she'd look lovely in our garden, it'd give the kids next door something to clean on a Saturday afternoon......:D :udrool:

Cheerz. ex.
 
Either that, or a 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 car train:hehe:
 
NYC Trash Trains

On the NY-Balt CSX line there is no shortage of Trash/Garbage trains headed south loaded with NY City garbage. Dozen or so long, trash trains each and every day, 365 days a year...Whew Stinky...good thing it's still cold outside...26F today...in summer they get ripe QUICK ! Trash-one recession proof commodity.
 
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Yeah, a sad reflection on the economic state, in all countries. I hope they don't scrap those locos, I might chuck in a few quid for an SD70M, she'd look lovely in our garden, it'd give the kids next door something to clean on a Saturday afternoon......:D :udrool:

Cheerz. ex.
What recession? Wasn't Obama going to fix all that as soon as he got elected? (I love campaign promises.:hehe:)
I wonder how much it would cost to ship an SD to Nottingham.

:cool:Claude
 
Railroad $$$$ seem ok for now....

What recession?

:cool:Claude

Railroads had a great year in 2008 and even though traffic has deceased so have fuel costs in looking at 2009. At least in Pennsylvania coal seems to be moving on the main lines. Train traffic depends a lot on what commodities are shipping.
 
What recession? Wasn't Obama going to fix all that as soon as he got elected?

Funny? According to the owner of Starbucks, there's no recession anywhere else in the world except Britain and we're wallowing on the bottom!

........A very good reason for Brits to boycott Starbucks!

Shame about all that American Motive Power Muscle though.
 
Bit like the pot calling the kettle black via that Starbucks boss. After all aren't they having a hard time and closing places?
 
What recession? Wasn't Obama going to fix all that as soon as he got elected? (I love campaign promises.:hehe:)
I wonder how much it would cost to ship an SD to Nottingham.

:cool:Claude

Its not exactly an overnight fix, nor was it an overnight problem. If he can do anything he said he would in 4 years, I will be very surprised. 8 years, I will still be very surprised. This is a HUGE problem, and it needs a big solution


I personally am happy with how things are getting along. Some progress has been made, thats all I ask

On the other side, seeing as I work at Lakeside Park in Denver, where its only $2.50 to get in, I think were gonna have a great year. Although I am about at the point of begging my boss to ask the owner permission to fix one of our two steam engines. I want to be behind the throttle, and two, to many people come through asking about them. If your in the discount business, expect 2009 to be a good year. Saving a penny has never mattered so much to so many as it does now
 
I think I'd have one of them SD's shipped over to Germany, were it not for the axle load those things have. I'm pretty sure they're a tad too heavy for UIC 60 rail, much less S 54. Nonetheless, I truly find this picture to be a sad, sad sign of the times. I guess this won't make railfanning any easier when I head back to Kansas for a while in March.

WileeCoyote:D
 
Don't worry...the rails will still be there...:p

ngbbs47ed89a0e5238.jpg


WileeCoyote:hehe:
 
From a front page article in today's Wall Street Journal:

"The nation's five largest railroads have put more than 30% of their boxcars - 206,000 in all - into storage, according to the Association of American Railroads. Placed end to end, the cars would stretch from New York to Salt Lake City."
 
I must admit, that is a far wiser decision than the one that DB AG has taken. Instead of putting their excess stock into storage, or just outright mothballing it on abandoned sidings, they've decided to scrap the lot. Thousands of cars will now be scrapped and create a massive hole in their roster, which will no doubt be a serious problem once the economy gets rolling again.

WileeCoyote:o
 
Yes, storage makes far more sense then scrapping the excess. The only reason there is excess cars, is because traffic is down. What happens when traffic goes back up?

Well, on the bright side, that means there will be lots of new car orders, meaning lots of cash flowing to fill up the roster
 
And by scrapping rather than storing, they save a bit of money which makes the next quarterly report look better.
Which, by the way, is the mindset that put us in this condition to begin with.
The stock market has mostly stabilized. if the politicians will just stop saying stupid things to panic the market (again) we've already started to recover on our own. A little help would make it go faster, as long as its not something incredibly stupid.
But then, this is Washington we're talking about.
If they required early pre-ordering and rail transport wherever economically feasible it would go a long way to help the rails and the economy.
Done right, the high speed rail program could be not only a powerful long-term stimulus, but a profitable one as well.

:cool:Claude

p.s. Come on over, Wilee, we'll run some trains especially for you.
 
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