The efficiency of Britain's silly little bobtailed coal wagons: A comment on Van Vleck

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Portsmouth
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700024153
• 发表日期: 1999
• 页码: 1072-1080
• 关键词: compatibility; INNOVATION

摘要

Va Nee. L. Van Vleck has sought, in a recent issue of this JOURNAL, to dismiss Thorstein Veblen's characterization of the British system of coal rail haulage as embodying serious inefficiencies arising from the interrelatedness of its rolling stock and infrastructure, which inhibited modernization. This she rejects in favor of an alternative view of the small coal wagon, understanding it within a broader system of distribution in which the small wagon provided flexibility and substituted for the more expensive means of delivering coal by road. The little coal wagon was exactly the right type of technology to employ.(2) In support of this Van Vleck argues that, by delivering coal in small quantities to points close to final markets, the British system of small coal wagons economized on the costlier resources involved in road transport; by contrast, the inefficiencies entailed in small rail wagons were insubstantial. This note will demonstrate both these assertions to be false. It will show that moving to a system of larger, common-ownership wagons offered considerable operating cost savings for Britain's railways, but that these were outweighed by the high sunk costs of existing rolling stock and infrastructure.