Ghost railcars

The other day I blogged about "ghost ships" -- empty, unused cargo ships sitting anchored in various parts of the world. Well, there are "ghost railcars" as well, parked in locations around the United States.




The above line of rail cars is 2 miles long and has divided New Castle, Indiana for many months. They used to transport autos, back when this used to be a Chrysler town.




The above is a line of hundreds of railcars in Montana, parked (helpfully) near a popular tourist fishing locale. Has anyone considered what effect a huge iron wall might have on moose, elk, or deer?




The above is in Colorado....




And taking the prize, the above railcars (built to haul lumber) lie in a thirty mile stretch through Oregon's otherwise beautiful wilderness. Quoting from the article where I found this image:

The situation is a snapshot of a national picture. The economic slump has idled about 70,000 Union Pacific railcars, now sidetracked wherever space can be found, said Zoe Richmond, a Union Pacific spokeswoman in Roseville, Calif. The railroad has also furloughed 5,000 of its 48,000 workers. Other railroads are in the same predicament, she said.

Back to back, Union Pacific's idled railcars would reach from Seattle to Albuquerque, N.M.

"We don't have 2,000 miles of track anywhere in our system to put them," Richmond said. "Unfortunately, the stored cars are really just a big visual reminder of our current economic situation."

Uh, yeah. Not too good.

Zero Hedge did a post on how railcar traffic has fallen since 2008. It's fallen so much, in fact, that we've gone all the way back to 1993 railcar volumes.

Specifically, in the first 36 weeks of 2009, we've shipped 22% fewer carloads of grain, 23% fewer carloads of farm products other than grain, and 13% less "food and kindred products" than we did in the same 36 weeks of 2008. Now, I think we shipped a little less grain because we shipped less corn bound for ethanol-fuel plants. And, partly, the temporarily stronger dollar made our exported grain more expensive for other countries, so perhaps we exported less, which meant we shipped less. Even so, these statistics seem to imply that somebody, somewhere, has cut back on the food they're eating.

We've shipped 9% less coal this year. Perhaps that was because it was cool (meaning less AC, so less electricity required). But I tend to think of dark, empty shops and houses when I see that coal shipping has fallen 9%. Energy is the lifeblood of any economy, and our electricity usage has clearly fallen off... so what does that say?

Railcars of lumber were down 37%, and cars of "crushed stone, sand, and gravel" were down 22%. Casualties of the disaster in real estate.

Pulp and paper shipments were down 21%. Fewer operating offices, I presume.

Metals & metal products were down 53% (!!), which has to mean that manufacturing is way off. And I mean way off, not "GDP declined by 1%" or similar bullshit, but way off. Even after considering the steel and iron that did not go into construction, that can't account for a 53% decline. This is a hideous number.

Putting aside the government's lies, damned lies, and statistics, things do not look good. As they say: It's the real economy, stupid.