Technical Change in the Railroad Industry. Part II: Unit Trains

摘要

This report consists of four papers involving technical change in the railroad industry, particularly in the use of unit coal trains. Included are the following: (1) 'Coal Markets and Rail Utilization in Canada since the National Transportation Act' discusses the export metallurgical coal market, the domestic coking industry, and the thermal coal market; (2) 'The Railroad Rate Structure and Service Innovation in the Transportation of Coal' searches for evidence of some causal relationship between rate regulation and service innovation in railroad coal traffic; (3) 'The Rate Structure of Unit Coal Trains in the 1970's' suggests that the railroads have not been entirely successful in exploiting their latent monopoly power with respect to Western coal markets and derives a rate model under monopoly conditions; (4) 'Railroad Volume Coal Rates, A Review of Litigation Accompanying an Innovative Marketing Strategy' evaluates an hypothesis that a regulated firm, in seeking innovations, is constrained through the regulatory process from maximizing the benefits it might receive from a freer market environment.