Businesses are inherently risky. It’s the core nature of market-based systems. It’s how investors make or lose money. Essentially, it's gambling.
New businesses come and go every day. Even well-established companies with huge brand recognition suddenly find themselves in bankruptcy because the market changed.
In writing the NACFE report Intermodal and Drayage: An Opportunity to Reduce Freight Emissions, I came across some examples of the term “stranded assets,” where the market shifted unexpectedly and left capital investments unfulfilled.
Trains made the U.S. economy. Railroads created a network connecting suppliers and consumers all over North America that enabled many industries to flourish. Rail’s need for steel and coal influenced investment in mills, mines and all the associated infrastructure, including ships and ports on the Great Lakes. Rail was so influential that more than once, investment speculators created stock market and real estate bubbles and crashes that impacted the entire nation’s economy.
The amount of rail trackage in the U.S. peaked in 1916 at over 250,000 miles. Today the estimate is 137,000 miles. The U.S. Surface Transportation Board has a map of the abandoned trackage. But abandoned trackage is more than just wooden ties and rails.
Let me introduce an old term: “tank town.” When the U.S. was expanding and rail technology was based on burning wood to make steam, designers were faced with the issue that all that steam required water to be carried on the train, and that steam was exhausted to the air as the train ran and had to be frequently replenished.
Train system designers had to make trade-offs regarding range and tare weight versus how much water and wood (fuel) could be carried. Very early trains required fuel and water nearly every 10 miles. As train technology matured, the rail industry settled on roughly 100-mile increments between fuel and water stops.
