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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding Future Model: I am a little bit confused.(understatement). In a post some time back, I thought I understood you saying BNSF should be willing to lower rates in Montana because way back then, they had been "given" government land by land grants; and somehow "owed" it to the people to pay them back. Now I see you mention "targeted land grants" in a post above. Wouldn't that be the same thing? Also, I'd have to kind to question the real value of some land in sparsley populated areas. [/quote] Some clarification is in order: 1. If I said anything about BNSF being willing to lower rates in Montana on their own, it has nothing to do with the moral obligation of the land grants, rather I believe such a move would be wise for BNSF if for no other reason than to get the regulators off their backs, not to mention better customer relations. Of course, they won't take such action, because it is irrational for a monopolist to do so. Only competition or regulation will result in such action. 2. What I said about BNSF's (and other railroads') land grants is that they are an equivalent of any government support for highways and waterways outside of applicable user fees. Since non-user fee support for highways and waterways is predicated on open access competition for use of those modal infrastructures e.g. accessable by the people, there should be some caveat of similar degree for those railroads who received land grants. Some would say that the reduced rates for hauling government stuff was a satisfactory "repayment" to the people for the land grants, I say that the moral obligation inherent in the land grants goes on into perpetuity. Not to be pendantic, but since an open access railroad is open access and presumably would be open access into perpetuity (or until the Left has completely emasculated our nation into the dust bin of history), any moral obligation with new land grants would already be met by the open access caveat. That's why these land grants would not be quite the same as past land grants, the return obligation is "hard wired" into the new land grants' charter.
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