"RAILROAD SONG" jim croce
SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING
AUGUST 01,2017
5:15 PM
TO ANNOUNCE NEW WARD III COUNCILPERSON
When I was a boy
in the days of the train
I'd sit by the tracks
on a long summer day
On the subject of trains
HUFFINGTON POST:
The CEO of freight railroad CSX Corp. one of the largest U.S. haulers of coal, warns that the days of transporting and burning coal are numbered.
"Fossil fuels are dead" Hunter Harrison told analysts last week, according to media reports. "That's a long term view. It's not going to happen overnight. It's not going to be two or three years, but it's going away in my view."
For that reason, he said, CSX will cease making investments in coal.
"Unless something changes drastically in the market, we're not going to go out and put a double track in, or buy locomotives or anything for coal." "Having said that, the last carload of coal that is shipped out of this country, I want to be the carrier that shipped it."
Harrison joins a growing list of industry experts to signal President Donald Trump's promise to revive the dying coal industry and put miners back to work likely won't prove fruitful.
Coal Industry stock reports start coming out tomorrow.
posted by terminator1 @ 5:48 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I notice a LOT less coal traffic on the local railroads as the power plants are shutting down.
Also, go to the harbor in Ashtabula and notice how many fewer hoppers are in the yard at the harbor. That means a loss of jobs at the rail terminal, in the cab of the locomotives, and in the coal mines wherever the coal was coming from.
I sure don't have a solution to all of this but if I was a miner in West Virginia or southern Pennsylvania, I would be looking at moving to find work or retraining for the future.
Smart CEOs are those who, to the best of their ability, have a sense of future trends and how they will affect the companies they run. I don't know if Hunter Harrison is a smart CEO, but he's being paid to be one, so if he thinks that the demise of fossil fuels, specifically coal, is imminent, his opinion would have to be based on research analysis, not on personal beliefs. No matter how much Trump or his science-averse minions in the EPA, Dept. of Energy, etc. tout the revitalization of the coal industry, it's at best a short-term trend. Natural gas is cheaper than coal, and the costs of generating electricity from solar panels and windmills, in some areas of the nation, is the same. Just like CSX and Hunter Harrison, utility company CEOs are paid to make the best decisions for their companies' futures, so the smart ones will do what's best for business, regardless of what's best for Trump.
11:20/6:12 As the coal miner's sit and wait for Trumps promises?
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