Hi,

This reminds me of the Broad Top Coal Fields in Pennsylvania.They supported the East Broad Top Railroad for many years.

If I recall correctly there is still a lot of coal in the Broad top Mountain Coal Fields. However the closing of the East Broad top Railroad and the deep mines in the middle 1950s was mostly due to geology and automation.

The coal mining industry got automation with conveyors and so forth that brought down the cost to mine, The geology of the Broad Top deep mines was folded coals seams and fracture lines so the automation was not cost effective. They had to follow the "wavey" coal seams and the search up and down for the fractures to relocate the seams.

The broad Top coal fields did not lend itself to easy automation and they could not remain cost competitive with other mines even though the Broad Top Mines were some of the best anthracite available.

I am trying to recall this from the Rainey and Kuyper (?) book on the East Broad Top Railroad.

Doug vV

I understand why coal is down but why is the rest of the traffic down as well? Allegedly the economy was doing better.

The operative term is "allegedly."

The people who follow this stuff for a living note that the Feds in the Dept. of Commerce have "tweaked" the ways they measure such parameters as economic performance, inflation, etc. This started allegedly as far back as Clinton I, so don't go pointing political fingers. The better analysts pull up charts showing current-methodology figures versus the older methodology, and the results show that inflation has been about double what the Feds have been claiming for fifteen years, unemployment vastly worse, etc.

This results in a serious disconnect between what we're told by the headlines in the pages of the newspapers and at their websites, and what every American who actually spends money in a grocery store, etc. can see in their own wallet.

I'm not saying we're all sackcloth and ashes. But I see that no one is rushing to ask "are you better off now than you were eight years ago?" from a certain political campaign.

Hiow are YOUR visitor numbers and revenues?

Hi,

The Feds since, 9/11 at least, have found that the way they report things look better when they use older formulas for calculating different items.

One big one comes to mind is the way the old calculation of unemployment does not seem to show the reality. People who give up looking or are only part time employed are dropped from the unemployment roles.

The strength of the economy is still using outmoded ways such as stock prices. It used to be that transportation stock prices were connected to the pulse of a thriving economy - one where we were an exporting nation. This is now very much muddies by day-traders who want quick profits and drive larger swings in stock prices regardless of real business (moving or producing goods). We are now a consumer importing nation that buys more than it sells.

at one time, the unemployment numbers using the outmoded FED formula was under-reporting the total work force size by 50% - hence a 7% unemployment number reported was closer to 14%.

These are simplified examples but does state the case that politicians. Presidents, congressmen, etc. do not want to loose their jobs by reporting bad numbers.

Sort of like News services are going more for ratings and less for reporting facts.

With such a high deficit that the current administration put in place to try to stimulate the economy (in my opinion only) failed when the government could not keep spending levels artificially high. The short term economic gain turned into a large ball and chain. And few in Congress or the President want to take the "bull by the horns" and tackle the deficit issue.

I do not listen to the "economy" statements because I no longer believe that the way the numbers are calculated have any relationship to reality except in the most loosely defined terms.

My opinion only.

Doug vV

There are several websites that track the economy by comparing the older methods of computation with the current numbers. One of them is John Williams Shadow Government Statistics site. He also publishes his own economic forecast comments, the detailed documents are available to his subscribers but the summaries are generally posted for the public after a period of time. I am posting this for general information only, and make no endorsement of the site. The comparison using the older methods and today's measurements of the economy is very interesting, as Mr. Mitchell has pointed out.

PC

The only REAL measurement of the economy is how I'M DOING....and it ain't so good (as compared to 8 years ago!)

Freight traffic is considered a leading indicator of the future economy.

What is included in, and how inflation statistics are formulated have been changed twice since 1980. Plus you have the consumer price index and the producer price index. And there is a chained CPI, what that is.

Tom

Many of us have noticed the same trend. Unfortunately for the railroad history and preservation hobbies, the most immediate way that most people have available to compensate for the economic situation is to reduce their expenditures on non-essential activities (including railroad related hobbies). That in turn takes us to another discussion presently on this site.

PC

Hi,



Thanks for the information. It seems to track what I have been feeling all along.

I recall the "pain Index" that Jimmy Carter used against Gerald Ford in 1975. Ford's was something like 14-15%. It was some made up number that was to show that you were worse off now than in the 1972 election (Nixon). Carter did not do so well.

This pain index as defined by Carter's campaign in 1976 was used in Reagan's campaign in 1980 and the pain index came out to be 23% (IIRC). Carter's 1976 campaign claimed an index above 10% was bad.

The basic conclusion is no to take any one person's numbers too seriously. Statistics and poling is one of the easiest ways of using the same data and proving opposite opinions from the same data. I've done it many times. It is all based upon how the questions are worded and how the wording changes the results based on "interpreting" the data.

I hope our economy starts growing and we move to an export oriented economy. If you wish to see how this may work, look into the countries devastated by WWII - England, France, Germany, Japan, etc. It took Prime Minister Margaret Hilda Thatcher to bit the socialist bullet and turn England around in the 1980s from a consumer nation (port WWII recovery mode) into a better balanced economy with both imports and exports.

The US was an exporter in raw materials and an importer of finished goods during the British colonial period.

England invented the steam engine but the US took off and ran with it.

The US landed the first man on the moon but the current administration canceled any US manned space craft. He "privatized" it. In the 1600's wars were run by a few navy ships owned by the Government and the fleets were filled out with armed merchantmen (normal merchantmen with a gun deck added). These merchantmen were 90% of the fleet British or Spanish fleets.

If the US was to go to war in space due to someone else breaking the :no weapons in space" rule, where can the US go? Mercenaries? Seems like a bad idea to me.

Basic idea here is to look at more than one source of information before believing anything. Don't distrust the governments numbers, just find something that may confirm or deny it. Learn what can be trusted and in what way.

One of our greatest enemies during WWII is now one of our greatest allies. Things can change.

Oh well.

Doug vV

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/fre ... channel=50

Coal and petroleum (which includes things like frac sand) are down, I saw a report that timber is down also. I am sure the railroads have been planning for the loss of fossil fuels traffic for a long time. I think the remoteness of a lot of coal branches would make it hard for them to continue as tourist lines. The former Rio Grande Craig branch for example, while scenic, is a difficult place to reach by car, many hours of winding roads.

[quote="train guy"]The only REAL measurement of the economy is how I'M DOING....and it ain't so good (as compared to 8 years ago!)[/quote]

Well, that may be a REAL measure of something, such as whether one has been led to believe that Ayn Rand was a philosopher.

Besides, even assuming one is personally worse off at the time of any particular presidential election than eight years previously, isn't the real inquiry whether the challenging party's own snake oil would poison you faster? Put another way, do you truly have nothing to loose?

To bring things back to forum relevance, it's my observation over time that "me first" and "I'm the one who counts most" are personal outlooks that tend not to presage success in the field of railway preservation, or any other form of education. Show me a successful museum or preservation project, or one truly aspiring to be successful, that is not led by fairly selfless individuals.

Alongside the usual dire predictions of doom for railroad museums from forum participants with no apparent connection to the operation and management of even a single one, it would be interesting to hear from folks actually involved in railway preservation who are successfully meeting the challenges of a changing economy. I have not heard of many railroad museums that have gone out of business due primarily to the national economic policies and outcomes of the past eight years.

A significant factor in the decline of coal mining is the increasingly strict limits on sulfur content. This has rendered many coal fields in PA uneconomical to exploit, and thus the market shifts to other fuels not so burdened.

The original post raises a question I have thought about, too.

Throughout the course of the industrial revolution, the economic drivers of regions tied to specific carbon-based fuels have taken hits when the fuel falls out of favor. One only needs to look at regions that were once hubs of charcoal, anthracite coal and high-cost extraction oil to see what happens.

From an historical preservation point of view, very little of these industries was preserved right at the end of the decline. For the most part, preservation in these regions has been achieved through reclaimation of what was abandoned or otherwise forgotten under the weeds and rust.

With the coal regions now going through the process of a declining marketplace for their product, we have a unique opportunity. We are aware.

We are aware of the history. We are aware of what is disappearing. And we have an established railroad preservation community and a growing (and quite dynamic) industrial preservation community.

All of which adds some interesting spice to the conversation the OP started. We are aware of the change. It is here. What can we do now to spark preservation and perhaps bring a history-based economy to towns transitioning away from carbon-fuel extraction economies?

Rob

Other than theme parks like Colonial Williamsburg, large, well funded and few enough not to glut the market of heritage minded tourists, is it even possible to replace a vibrant mineral extraction economy with historic tourism?

Yes. Look no further than Jim Thorpe, PA as an example (although technically it was a transportation town adjacent to extraction communities). Is the economy there better than what it was in 1890? Maybe not, but it is certainly better than it has been in the last 75 years.

Rob