An experience that you computer jockeys, legal eagles and designer/planner/builder types might have missed. In high school we were told we could pick ANY job we wanted and that a counselor would call us one by one, and help us arrange the right colleges, background and jobs. All excited I told the counselor I wanted to work with the railroads, and he laughed at me, and said "We said you could pick any job, we meant jobs that will be around for another 20 years...railroads will all be gone by then and THEN what will you do? Look, your scores will place you anywhere in the top of the military. Why not look at their programs...Seriously, railroads are finished, gone, relics, if you want in transportation I could set you up for an airline, Greyhound or a good truck line, we're opening a new freeway everyday!"
(http://image24.webshots.com/25/3/60/94/32536094mmfLiT_ph.jpg)
Early Southern Pacific Piggyback Train, maybe headed to Jacksonville.
When I was just a kid, the railroads introduced a new concept called INTER-MODAL...by 1958 it had grown to 278,071 carloads. Hardly something one would write home about.
(http://abandonedrailroads.homestead.com/files/ACRRline.jpg)
Entering Sanford, from the old Junction North of Town This marked the end of my hike,
the railroad and my shoes on this fateful day.
Then the school incident which happened around 1968, and the railroads total container/piggyback loadings were 2,419,278. The Florida East Coast led the way and lifted it's double track mainline all the way from Jacksonville to Miami, with it went the branch-lines to Palatka, Titusville to DeBary (Benson Jct), all passenger train service, the unsold cars were turned on their sides in St. Augustine's giant Miller Shops and yards and burned, prior to scraping. They became so anti-public that one could get arrested taking a photo of their trains. ...We don't give a damn, we're slim, trim and making money, so we're prepared to ride this thing to the end...the infamous FEC attitude was born.
(http://www.trains.com/ctr/objects/images/rainbow-400.jpg)
Early Amtrak "Rainbow Era Train" note no two cars matched, no one in Washington thought
of it when they bought them, but the wires, plugs, hoses, heat and AC didn't either!
Could the teacher have been right? By 1971, a political facade designed to look like an attempt to save passenger trains, rolled out by the Interstate Highway building Government, in one day and night, they wiped out 2/3 of all remaining passenger train routes. Amtrak was born. Since World War II we had skidded from astronomical numbers of passenger cars, to about 200,000 in the 1950's. The mergers and sweeping new laws (pre-Amtrak) removed the voice from the States or Local Governments, or citizens for protesting passenger train death certificates. By Amtrak day, we still had a fairly modern fleet of some 25,000-30,000 passenger cars. The government was planning ahead, as evidenced by their purchase of only 4,000 of those cars. Not a single specialty car was among them, no vista domes, full length glass dome cars, sun lounge cars, regardless of route or scenery, all trains would become generic, GI = Government issue.
(http://www.bigskyfishing.com/Montana-Info/city-photos/martinsdale/old-depot.jpg)
Amazing but I rode in here on a Chicago, St. Paul and Pacific train. Today the railroad AND the town are gone, it goes to prove you CAN have a town without a railroad, but a town with jobs requires tracks.
(http://static.flickr.com/2224/2005865641_8ac3ec02ef.jpg)
Highway over the remains of the railways
By 1978, with one oil embargo behind us the dying railroads loaded some 3,177,291 cars, thousands of miles of track were being torn up, the States and Federal governments were taxing the hell out of the property to build the interstate highways! But maybe there was a trend here. If ALL of the railroads didn't vanish, then maybe a few mainlines would carry on as a sort of rail-highway to carry trucks? But only IF the insurance crisis or another fuel crisis didn't wipe it out first.
(http://www.carrtracks.com/Bancroft-seap2.jpg)
Enter the Double Stack Well Car that launched the container
In 1988, Piggyback had started to give way to containers. Now simple boxes that could go on train, truck or ship, and were just at home in the Wal-Mart parking lot. The "trend" continued, even a few trucking companies started playing with long haul by train and the numbers climbed to 5,779,547.
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/Ocklawaha/RAILROAD%20Images/LostFUnitonFLPowerplantlead.jpg)
20 miles, 18.3, 56.1, abandoned - evidence this Florida Scene.
By 1998 my High School counselor was probably dead, (I hope the B#@#%!D got run over by one of those non-existent trains). What that man and his generation did to a whole crop of would-be railroaders is inexcusable, but my story is far from unique, in fact it seems it was "policy" in most states. Policy that still had the railroads lifting track, and State or federal Dot's doing everything in their power to crush these dinosaurs. Between 1988 and 1998 the new container business swept past the Piggyback trailers. By the end of 98', Wall Street reversed a 50 year trend and told investors to "BUY RAIL" and then told the railroad to "INVEST IN PLANT". 8,772,663 carloads of inter-modal traffic were loaded even as Florida allowed the abandonment of the Auburndale-Coleman (Wildwood) cut-off in Central Florida. The Wildwood-Tavares alternate connection to Orlando. The West Coast Mainlines of both the former Seaboard and the Atlantic Coast Line. The huge sorting yards at Trilby, Diesel shops in West Jax and Sanford. And the old Seaboard Air Line main direct North from Jacksonville to Yulee and Kingsland was cut to pieces in Georgia. All in the name of economy, profit and streamlined operations. Ideas molded by the same teachers that advised me, were now bringing down Americas remaining industrial might in one giagantic train wreck. We haven't gotten to 2008's numbers yet, but preliminary data suggests 2007 will be in the 12,026,660 range.
(http://static.flickr.com/18/24189725_8320a8e9e5.jpg)
A beautiful, well planned City, we are in great hands...
Suddenly we are out-of-gas. Amtrak just got it's first ever solid funding, and even the 15 Billion is a joke when stacked next to highway, or air. Under Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush we have seen more cuts in service. Florida alone has lost the: Miamian, Florida Special, Floridian, Sunset Limited, Champion, Palmetto, Silver Palm. Who fiddled while our cities burned? We have no trains, we have no capacity, we have few engineers, designers, or rail thinkers. Stir in Jacksonville, a large boomtown with a huge rail market, no transt, and no clue. Into this mix JTA is leading us? This and the newspaper and City Hall think we "already have trolleys". Union Pacific alone needs 4,000 train crew employees, but UP, like the rest of the industry, is begging for help at any level... They need you, and I, but the pool is very small. We said you could pick any job, we meant jobs that will be around for another 20 years...railroads will all be gone by then and THEN what will you do? Seriously, railroads are finished, gone, relics, if you want in transportation I could set you up for an airline, Greyhound or a good truck line, we're opening a new freeway everyday!"
(http://static.flickr.com/2034/2382022733_cbb04859df.jpg)
Anyone else "feel the pain?"
OCKLAWAHA