> From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> There
> are RR historians here on this list who can give you all the reasons
> why the railroads failed. Efficiency doesn't really come into play too
> much. If cost of shipping a trailer on rail across 8 states was truly
> less than road, then any smart shipper would use rail. But
> time-sensitive delivery also is key. You can blame this on JIT
> manufacturing and inventory management.
Or you could blame it on cheap fuel.
When energy is cheap, efficiency doesn't matter very much. When energy
is expensive, efficiency matters a lot!
I would turn this around: JIT manufacturing and the demand for fast
delivery is an artifact of cheap energy, rather than a force on its
own. If the choice was $1,000 to get something tomorrow or $10 to get
it in a few weeks, JIT would "go away" overnight.
----------------
I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it
once was: an arctic wilderness. -- Steve Martin
:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality Co-op ::::
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