Is presumptive Surface Transportation Board (STB) nominee Robert Primus pulling a Reese H. Taylor Jr. redux and risking his chance for nomination or Senate confirmation?
The Surface Transportation Board (STB) recently issued three separate notices with regards to demurrage.
To: The Honorable Ann D. Begeman, Chairman, Surface Transportation Board: I am submitting this testimony to be included in the consideration and record on Ex Parte 711, Reciprocal Switching. Having served 44 years in the railroad industry, both as a Class I marketing/rate department officer and as President and CEO of short line Maryland Midland Railway, I have a unique and comprehensive view of this entire subject.
Recently, I purchased movie tickets on line. As I was checking out, I noticed I was getting charged a “convenience fee,” which for me begged the question: Just whose convenience? After all I was saving the theater the cost of printing the tickets and their employees’ time selling me the ticket. In my mind this convenience fee was really a profit center for the theater.
Two vacant seats on the five-member Surface Transportation Board (STB) could be filled by early 2020, as a Democrat—to be paired with an already nominated Republican—has emerged as a likely nominee.
By age 10, two lessons should be learned—no ketchup on hot dogs, and government does not move at the speed of for-profit business.
RAILWAY AGE, WATCHING WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 2019 – Although a purchase is said to be worth precisely what a buyer agrees to pay, not all buyers possess equivalent market power as sellers. United Parcel Service (UPS), for example, may choose between truck and rail. But where freight cannot efficiently move by truck, shippers wishing to remain in business typically pay higher freight rates than if they had effective alternatives to rail.
Imagine Surface Transportation Board (STB) members Ann D. Begeman, Patrick J. Fuchs and Martin J. Oberman dining family-style, where one entree is shared. Ann wants fish, Marty chicken, and Patrick says he wants neither and wishes to leave. Unable to agree on an order, the three depart the restaurant.
If you think a currently under way Surface Transportation Board (STB) search for outside experts to rehabilitate and modernize the 30-year-old Uniform Rail Costing System (URCS) is not of significant importance to railroads and their customers, then think again, and stay focused.
Periodically, pundits who are not active participants in Surface Transportation Board (STB) proceedings offer for publication in a variety of newspapers—presumably aimed at members of Congress and other public policy opinion leaders—guest opinion columns containing warnings of dire results should railroads be “re-regulated.”
