Railroads are downsizing


Holy crap that sucks. Just be glad you still have a job.

Speaking of furlough, IBM (who I work for) has been in a downward spiral for several years now. I had to take 35 days furlough days off last year. This year I expect the same.
 
I think you are right about the low gas prices leading to more shipping on long haul trucks. There's an article in the local newspaper about the shortage of truck drivers.

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I beg to differ about long haul trucks. I have been in and out of the industry for over 25 years and right now freight of any kind is slower than I have ever seen it. We run a fleet of refrigerated trucks mainly from the Pacific Northwest to New England and all point in between. I have contacts in some of the largest freight brokerage companies and they also say that freight is at an all time low.

People just aren't spending money. Maersk, the container ship company just took possession of the largest container ship in the world, but cancelled orders for more. Infact they have park a few ships because of lack of container traffic.
 
Many things driving the car loadings down. The low price of natural gas caused industries to shift from coal to gas. The low price of oil and gas has driven down new drilling, reducing shipments of steel, pipe and sand/drilling mud. The economy in the rest of the world is down, so they aren't ordering US goods, the price of the US dollar is high so the rest of the world isn't ordering as many US goods, the other oil based economies aren't getting oil revenue so they are having to sell off stocks to generate cash, forcing stock prices down. Nobody in the presidential campaign is encouraging the economy, all you hear is how bad the situation is (even though the numbers are much better than 2 or 3 years ago) so people have less confidence and buy less.
 
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