  Bvos Member Username: Bvos Post Number: 2316 Registered: 10-2003 |
Here's an innovative Op Ed in the NY Times: Have You Driven a Bus or a Train Lately? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11 /16/opinion/16goodman.html?_r= 3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin GM used to own the ElectroMotive Division, one of the largest freight train locomotive manufacturers in the world. I believe they sold it off a few years ago. Why do mass transit projects in the US have to buy their locomotives and rolling stock from Sweden or France or Quebec? Why can't they buy them in the US? Seems like this would be a lucrative market for the Big 3 if they could think beyond their auto-centered ways. | ||
Lilpup Member Username: Lilpup Post Number: 5737 Registered: 06-2004 |
They don't. GE makes locomotives, including hybrid locomotives, in Erie, PA. but I doubt anyone at the NY Times knows that. | ||
Retroit Member Username: Retroit Post Number: 537 Registered: 04-2008 |
Who's to say they wouldn't or won't be in the same situation as they are today? Let's say they start building high-speed trains...then we have a recession...then transit authorities stop buying from them...then they can't take out a loan due to a "credit crisis"...then they're forced to go to the government for help...etc. | ||
Cman710 Member Username: Cman710 Post Number: 553 Registered: 07-2006 |
Also, considering that the Big 3 have limited expertise in this area, how would this not require an even larger government investment? | ||
Lilpup Member Username: Lilpup Post Number: 5739 Registered: 06-2004 |
If the Dems succeed in healthcare reform so that fundamental disadvantage is removed from US companies there are a lot of things companies could do. In particular GE has announced they are leaving the home appliance market. That's a manufacturing market - one that's in GM's history - that could easily come back to the US. | ||
3rdworldcity Member Username: 3rdworldcity Post Number: 1465 Registered: 01-2005 |
Reference to GM's former Electro-Motive Division is a good case in point to illustrate the problems facing GM. E-M and GE were the major locomotive manufacturers in the world. E-M locomotives were sold around the world and helped our balance of payments significantly. It was barely profitable. One of my friends was head of world-wide marketing for E-M and a coupler of other large special products. GM needed money and elected to dispose of non-core assets and put it on the market. It and its investment bankers thought they'd get between $900 million and a billion bucks. What did it sell for? About $500 million. There were higher offers but they were conditioned on working out concessions with the union, which had to approve a sale (how idiotic was management to ever agree to something like that?) The union would not agree to anything significant. The best prospective purchaser was -- guess who -- Caterpiller. I recall that because of constant labor acrimony with Caterpiller - which never gave in to the union and operated while the union struck them, the union would not agree to a sale to Cat under any scenario. So, that's illustrative why GM and the union are in the situation they're in today. One could say they deserve exactly what they're now getting. However, it will be interesting to see if they'll learn from the past, or just fade away from the manufacturing scene like the manufacturers of buggy-whips. | ||
Retroit Member Username: Retroit Post Number: 539 Registered: 04-2008 |
Bvos, I think your idea does have some merit as far as a long term strategy. The Japanese have what are called "keiretsu", which are companies from various industries all working together with their own central bank and with government support. They're kind of a unknown concept here in the States, and probably even illegal, but they are very successful and worth consideration by us Americans if we hope to compete in a global economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K eiretsu | ||
Izzyindetroit Member Username: Izzyindetroit Post Number: 134 Registered: 07-2008 |
This is what Michael Moore has to say about GM and the gov't. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =NHKAbPwaXho GO EMU!! Like him or hate him how do you feel about what he has to say??? | ||
Cinderpath Member Username: Cinderpath Post Number: 919 Registered: 05-2006 |
GE actually builds great locomotives, and it has been interesting to see how much market share they took away from then EMD, now E-M. The reality however why we need to buy transit equipment from foreign manufacturers is that rail-transit/passenger trains have been on the decline in this country from the 60's on, until recently and the business models of Budd and Pullman for example could not sustain an ever shrinking market (sound familiar?). I don't think there has been a domestically built electric locomotive built in this country in decades. Meanwhile the Europeans and Asians have been continually refining the technology, and some of the products are amazing. I was in Germany and France last month riding on their High Speed Rail trains, and was again reminded how far behind we are on this. Not only in equipment, but more importantly on the infrastructure to support this. |
