Another question for train buffs....?

Question

Is it possible(though VERY unlikely) the railroad industry will go back to how it used to be when the railroad companies had their own passenger service, and you could find a caboose at the end of every freight train?

Answer 1

they still have passenger trains.. the polar bear express is one......no cabooses tho!~

Answer 2

NO

Railroads HATE paying labor.

If it werent for labor just think of the billions and billions of dollars the railroads could rake in. (their apparent thought process, not mine)

Passenger service never paid for itself and never will.

The biggest revenue for railroad passenger trains back in the day was hauling U.S. Mail, when the mail service switched to trucks the railroads got out of passenger service.

The only countries that have first rate passenger service is when it is subsidized by the Goverrnment, otherwise tickets would be too expensive.

We build airports for airlines, highways for busses and personal automobiles, canal and river systems for barges, and squall like h**l over railroad passenger service.

I dont get it LOL.

As for cabooses, nope. There were a lot of personal injuries on cabooses. On locals and trains with a lot of online work there are still cabooses but you wont see any more than that.

I wish we would have had the foresight to enact train length legislation when cabooses were being phased out.   A mile with no caboose should be enough but we get longer and longer with no end in sight.

I agree with Alco, a FRED just doesnt look right, (flashing huh? thought the F meant something else)

Answer 3

Hello again Mike. Passenger trains could only come back if for some reason it became more cost effective than driving personal vehicles. Cabooses are nearly all gone now. They were kind of a pain anyway. Took extra time to remove them when switching at various towns, and to get them on the rear again when reversing direction. I work for a 120 mile short line, and we still have one. But we always leave it behind. The only time it gets used is when the weather is so bad, I can't drive home at the end of the day. I stay in it so I know I can be on the property to work the next day.

Answer 4

very unlikely.  you do know how and why amtrak was formed right?  no need for waycars thanks to Mr. FRED.

Answer 5

Always interesting questions but the economics of such make them both highly unlikely.  For instance, passenger service is almost never profitable, which is why Amtrak is constantly under heat from politicians.  This was the case even before Amtrak as railroads (for the most part) did not mind operating passenger trains, as long as freight revenues could easily cover the losses of them.  When freight began to dry up following WWII (mostly because of the Interstate system and aircraft), passenger operations began to seriously eat into the railroads' profits and by the 1960s most wanted to rid themselves of the money-losing passenger operations (which happened in 1971 with the creation of Amtrak).  It's a shame the government does not see the economics of passenger rail and the potential Amtrak could become if it were fully-funded, the results would be astounding (a piece by renowned columnist Don Phillips in the September 2007 issue of Trains magazine proves this with stunning frankness, it's as much a necessity as a means to reduce worsening traffic problems across the country).  

The caboose is much the same, in terms of economics.  I too miss the days of this car, it just seems to "complete" a freight train but the bottom line is it just is no longer needed.  With the ability of FREDs (Flashing Rear End Device) to properly monitor the rear of the train nowadays and crew sizes, in most cases, reduced to only the conductor and engineer the car is just no longer needed except in backup moves and other local operations (like switching or some local freight moves).