Well That's Not Going to Help ME!!

I can say that I am now affected directly by our failing economy. I have recently joined the ranks of the unemployed with the layoff of over 100 of my fellow trainmen here in St. Louis. Little article from the UP follows.

Transportation Companies Prepare for Bleak '09

Some industry executives and analysts predict that 2009 could be the worst year for freight-transportation volume in three decades or more, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Ocean freighters are docking vessels and putting off delivery of new ships. Rail car production is expected to plummet as railroads put boxcars in storage, rather than buy new ones. And U.S. trucking companies are projected to buy just 101,000 tractor trailers next year, down an estimated 22 percent from this year and 64 percent from two years ago, according to freight transportation forecaster FTR Associates.

The drop comes as weak consumer spending has prompted retailers and other businesses to delay or reduce orders. As the carriers have responded, their retrenchment already has reverberated across various industries that heavily rely on haulers to transport supplies and raw materials, including U.S. automakers and home builders.

Several truck manufacturers, such as Daimler Trucks North American and Kenworth Trucking Co., are closing facilities, severely cutting back production or laying off employees.

The picture is similar on the rails. U.S. railroad carload volume dropped 10 percent last month from a year earlier, the biggest drop since the Association of American Railroads began tracking such data in 1997. Norfolk Southern Corp. plans to cut costs by reducing the number of trains it operates, laying off workers and parking some rail cars, says Chief Executive Charles W. Moorman, citing the industry's weakness last month.

For ocean shipping lines, the global downturn is particularly brutal. The lines have been slashing prices in the face of plummeting demand. Maersk Line, the world's largest ocean shipper by volume, plans to lay up eight vessels because of declining freight volume.

Not everyone in the freight-hauling industry is quite so gloomy, however. Ray Kuntz, the chief executive of Watkins Shepard Trucking Inc., says he expects business to improve in the second half of 2009 for stronger trucking firms who will pick up business as weaker competitors shut down.