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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by gfjwilmde Some of you still think that a private entity(another railroad or investment firm) is willing to start up and fully fund a passenger rail company?? Well, let's have this scenario. Once Amtrak is shut down, NS will swoop in and gobble up what they've wanted all along. The remaining piece of what was the Pennsy mainline, which by the way is Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. This mainline is very valuable for several reason. The first being, that this main passes by every major port facility from Baltimore to Boston. NS knowing this would block CSX from any rights to this main(NS is brutal at this), giving NS more access to said ports. Second, it would aleviate NS from paying huge trackage rights fees to Amtrak for the use said main, because it will be their's(except for the portion of track between CP AF[Alexandria, Va.] and CP Virginia[Washington, DC] which is owned by CSX). So then, they'll be able to run more of their intermodal trains on a truer north-south route through DC, instead of diverging through Hagerstown, Md. like they're doing now. NS would now have a two-four track mainline on which to run their trains, with no time restrictions(and probably no weight restrictions either). Although, CSX has a mainline that pretty much parallels Amtrak's main from DC to northern New Jersey, it's mostly single track, and so, capacity will be limited. Plus, if NS muscles CSX out of the remaining CR properties(the yards in northern & southern New Jersey), CSX will find it harder to maintain a presence in those port facilities I had mentioned earlier. Let's say however, Amtrak is restored after being shut down for several weeks. Now, with NS having control of the Northeast Corridor, were jammed. If they have control of this property, they'll see to it that their trains get priority ove Amtrak's instead of the other way around. Just something to think about before 1 October, 2005. GLENN A R E A L AND T R U E RAILROADER!!!! [/quote] I would think that with the demise of Amtrak, the NEC would be the most likely candidate to be spun off to a desiring private operator. It serves a usefull and in demand need, and I thought it was the one segment of Amtrak that was truly capable of carrying it's own weight. I just hope the government doesn't "give away" the improved right of way without reasonable recovery of the public funds that have been spent to improve it, or ties some form of strings to such a deal to protect from the outright greed that might result if one entity got sole control, and tried to leverage their "monopoly".. Perhaps as an alternative to selling outright might be the leasing of the actual roadbed on a 3net type basis?
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