The service meltdown that brought the Union Pacific to its knees for much of 1997 and 1998 and severely slowed the Burlington Northern Santa Fe has not been forgotten. Shippers are concerned that the improvements they ve seen in recent months are temporary, a product of the nearly complete loss of agricultural shipments brought on by the economic slowdown in Asia and the sharp drop in domestic prices. These service problems have caused some shippers to support moves in Congress to force more competition into the increasingly concentrated railroad industry. If Congress acts next year to spur competition, the railroads will have to accept the punishment as self-inflicted. For too long, the railroads denied there was a service problem, with Union Pacific s top executives going so far as to tell regulators that the shippers who were complaining their own customers were lying.
Shippers are the only reason transportation companies, including railroads, exist.
Carriers can t malign them and stay in business.