When a billionaire tells you they're smarter than most people, nod. When a billionaire tells you they're smarter than most billionaires, raise an eyebrow. When EVERY billionaire tells you they're smarter than most billionaires, laugh. And with that said...
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One constant thread in American railroad history is a preference for freight over passengers. There are a number of reasons for this, some more legit than others, but the core of it relates to a quote from the same book that I tweeted yesterday:https://twitter.com/380kmh/status/941365870370197504 …
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If you're trying to run a railway so that it's solvent, you need revenue to cover expenses. If you're running it so that you get as rich as possible, you need max revenue from minimum expenses: you need to run as few trains as possible, but for all those trains to be sold out.
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This automatically favors freight, since a great deal of passenger travel is both spontaneous AND time-sensitive: a passenger wants a train to be there for him within minutes of arriving at a station, and for this to be true no matter what time he arrives there.
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Time sensitivity for freight is a bit of a different matter: so long as it arrives at its destination when it's needed, it doesn't mind WAITING the way that people do. Consider a route connecting two cities which only runs twice a day in each direction...
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...one freight and one passenger. Assuming the total freight demand between the cities isn't more than can fit on a mile-long train, this once-per-day frequency will account for all of it. One train, totally full, done and done. But passenger?
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With only ONE train per direction between the cities, you're meeting only the demand for travel *at exactly that time,* probably even less (since only one direction, at best, can make a round trip in a single day!). Your one train, even if just one car, will be mostly empty.
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For a rail service to be useful to passengers, it must come FREQUENTLY, so that wait times are as short as possible, so that you can be sure of a train being there for you soon after reaching the station, no matter what time you do so. This means most will be pretty empty!
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If the train isn't available for travel at *every* time, then it'll discourage people from riding it at *any* time. A railway which runs half-empty trains all day can still break even thanks to rush hour, but one which only runs rush hour trains will have trouble.
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So: American railroads, unwilling to merely break even, shunned the prospect of running empty trains at ANY time, and lowered freight rates in major rail hubs (where the ability to pay was highest) in a bid to make more money off otherwise empty trains. Small towns suffered.
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Now moving on to a more nakedly corrupt practice: discrimination between individualspic.twitter.com/pDrAHaqKne
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and closely related to it: discrimination between merchandise you will notice that the author--a Brit, visiting the USA--is scandalized by this flagrant corruption and contempt of the customers. This is a particularly American style of abuse.pic.twitter.com/NHxZAHn2um
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one more in this vein: the abuse of free passes, which were handed out like candy to bribe the press, the government, the courts, and other businesses notice a common theme in these abuses: they all involve not charging customers for the actual costs of providing servicespic.twitter.com/hn2C7zIa4s
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Notice also that they frequently miss the actual cost by being too LOW, rather than too high: discounts for freight at major hubs, discounts for favored customers and merchandise, free rides for reporters and politicians, etc...
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...and also that in all cases, the customers who are most capable of paying are asked to pay the least, while those who are least able to pay have to make up the difference. Does any of this sound like a familiar mentality to you?
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"...for a moment it seemed...the enemy would be crushed, as if the fortress, representing a capital of [2 billion] sterling, commanded by the best brains of the nation, protected by press and legislatures, but...a stronghold of tyranny, injustice and corruption, would perish..."pic.twitter.com/gM010b4O60
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Remember what I said at the start of this thread? Here you can see it in action: every railroad somehow thought they were the only ones smart enough to cheat, and they believed this for so long that they very nearly drove themselves out of business.pic.twitter.com/lm1E5Kw9Fb
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When they finally figured out they were gonna be ruined by racing to the bottom, railways elected instead to collaborate and extort high fares. Anything but run an honest business! America doesn't value hard work so much as it values getting paid, and this has long been the case.pic.twitter.com/FSLL3kez50
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And with that, I'll set the book aside for today. More installments in the future. The psychosis which is present in many American industries even today manifested in spectacular form during the railroad era, leaving a permanent bad impression...
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...but rather than going after the mentality, Americans found it easier to get rid of the particular expression of it. It was easier for us to give up on railways than to admit that there might be a wrong way to make a buck.
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End of conversation
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