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Mac, Mark, arbfbe, and others; I don't believe the salient point to all this is that such projects are out of the realm of reality, so much as I am certain that transporation planners do not read this forum and base their decisions on the ideas and critisisms put forth here. This entire forum is fantasy. That being said, what I would like Mac to address is: -My contention that an open access venture could not go it alone without some form of modal ROW equalization with highways and waterways via tax benefits or federal/state aid. -Why you chose the SP&S corridor as your example of an open access venture vs the MIlwaukee corridor. -If you include as a caveat more than one user being needed before you'd engage in such a venture or if you are content with being proxy for a single operating company. -I would also like your opinion on potential corridors and missing rail links that you think need to be studied, regardless of whether they be open access, joint ventures, or proprietary lines. Mark, I will concede I need to correct the reduced unit grain cycle times from Midwest to Portland/Pasco/and Lewiston under my scenario of the L-M rail link. I was using carload transit data that is not appropriate for unit train operations, and to be fair I should use projections that assume best modal operations. Therefore, I would say the reduced cycle times would be 18 to 24 hours for transload at Pasco vs Portland under the current rail situation, and an estimated 48 hours for transload at Lewiston via the new rail link. The L-M rail link would reduce rail mileage by 200 or so miles, so the time savings difference Lewiston vs Portland by rail via this new link would be less than 48 hours. This would add four more cycles from Midwest to Portland per year, assuming 2 weeks current (and ten days Lewiston via new link). This time savings does not include grain originating on the High Line, since even with the Silver City spur and the rebuild of the Great Falls-Havre corridor with a fly by west of Ft Benton to avoid the river, the time savings Havre-Lewiston would be negligible compared to Havre-Pasco. Also, when I refer to "tidewater", understand that is a commonly used venacular in this area, and does not refer to any oceanic characteristic The mileage savings via the new link are thus: Havre-Pasco via new link (including Silver City spur and Great Falls-Havre rebuild/fly-by: 10 to 20 miles e.g. insignificant Great Falls - Pasco: 100+ miles Missoula - Pasco: 100+ miles Missoula to first "tidewater": 220 miles There obviously is no time savings Midwest to Portland using a rail to barge transload, but we are talking about commodities that are not necessarily time sensitive. There may be a time savings Missoula to Portland by rail using this new link. The estimated fuel use savings by transloading rail to barge (based on 1500 ton/miles per gallon by barge and 600 ton/miles per gallon by rail) are thus: Pasco vs Portland via current system: 2/10 of a gallon per ton of cargo Lewiston vs Portland via new link: 1/2 gallon per ton of cargo Lewiston via new rail link vs Pasco under current: 3/10 gallon per ton of cargo Thus, it depends on how much the parties in question would use this new link and transload option to determine how much fuel savings would acrue. Even as little as 10 million tons moved this way would result in 3 to 5 million gallons of fuel use per year. Regarding rail to barge transloads on the Mississippi, there are some unit trains that transload on Mississippi River ports according the the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative. Obviously, there would be more if there was a common ownership of both rail and barge properties, because then the company could charge a lesser rate to the originating shipper and still get a larger ROI by utilizing lower barge rates. The other advantages of the L-M rail link include the idea of national economic security and the subsequent idea of corridor dispersion and redundancy. As you know, currently all rail traffic off the Norther Tier rail corridors is funnelled over a series of viaducts in Spokane WA. If there was a natural or man made disaster that disrupted rail traffic through Spokane for a time, in addition to the costs of repair there would be a significant cost to the economy caused by the disruption in commodity flow. The options currently are rail bypass via UP through Southern Idaho or CP through BC, both longer and already congested lines. The L-M rail link (including the connections to Great Falls and Havre) would alleviate this disruption and save the economy millions if not billions. That insurance in and of itself could justify the cost of the link to U.S. taxpayers. Also, although not of concern to you or others outside this area, there has been a fraudulent campaign waged by environmental extremists to destroy the hydroelectric dams on the Snake River. Since 1992, the federal government was complicent in this movement, and the resulting loss of industrial investment born by North Central Idaho and Southeast Washington has had a devasting effect on industrial business recruitment to this area. Now that sound science is being implemented in regards to this issue, there is a movement by this area to force the feds to provide mitigation for the lost investments. Although most people would prefer the construction of an Interstate throught the area to entice econimic development, it is my view that the L-M rail link would be more beneficial to the natural resource-based economy of the region, and could be built at a fraction of the cost of a new Interstate, and alot quicker. arbfbe, the L-M rail link would supplement BNSF's network, not compete with it. I doubt BNSF would provide much oppostition if such a project came to fruition. The U.S. has always been and will always be a net exporter of grain. The idea of enhancing the export infrastructure would only strengthen the position of U.S. exporters vs the rest of the world. Consequently, to not do so will only weaken U.S. trade postions. As for financing in a time of budget cuts, can anyone argue against the use of a land grant to aid construction of such a project? The U.S. owns 800,000,000 acres of land, the State of Idaho has over 50% of its land under federal ownership, all economic studies have shown that federal land ownership tends to induce recessionary pressures on the local economies relative to state and private land ownership, and this federal land ownership is costing the U.S. taxpayers more than it should. Since much of the Western U.S. rail system was aided by land grants, it would be apt to do the same for new rail construction.
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