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(Hey, a reasonable response from Ed B without an insult! To quote Al Michaels, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"[swg]). Murphy - I believe that infrastructure companies should be regulated to emulate the characteristic of a public utiltiy. This was one of the "either/or" questions brought up by TRAINS writers - Either the public regulates railroads like before and wait until they all go bankrupt, or allow the unregulated railroads their monopoly profits to ameliorate the cost of capital issue. I pointed out in a response (that never got printed) that one could theoretically regulate the infrastructure side to allow for access of competitors and preventing chicanery while still allowing the transporter side to set martket based rates and confidential agreements with prospective shippers. Regulation of only infrastructure would prevent the sort of monopolistic actions that are occuring now. However, regulation without ROW equalization among highways and waterways via access to fuel tax funds, property tax exemptions (to emulate the property tax exemptions of highways), and maintenance tax credits (since railroads probably need more fine tuning than highways to enable higher speed operations) probably would not work. BTW, for what it's worth, in reality regulated utilities make a higher ROI (a government mandated 10.5%) than the average stock market holding (which averages 8 to 9% ROI). So the complaints about regulation being a disincentive to investment is not really accurate. As for who drives and who toots the horn, it is likely that an owner operator of short haul consist would utilize remote control packs to facilitate one man operation. You can toot the horn, I'll be in the office making sales[8D]. nanaimo73 - It is my belief that desires for new lines would have to go through the same processes as those for new highways. The whole Rochester thing with DM&E is a crock in my view, since the railroad ROW was there long before the lefties showed up. If Rochester wants a new railroad bypass then Rochester should pay for it. However, to answer the gist of your question, the need for new lines should be placated by access to fuel tax receipts paid by all modes (the Intermodal Trust Fund, the replacement for the Highway Trust Fund), as well as right of eminent domain, exemption from property taxes, and maintenance tax credits. Maybe apply the tax credits to new construction, maybe have access to federal loan guarantees for new construction. CSSHEGEWISCH - I think your commens are all valid. Two I want to respond to: The Rio Grande was a victim of being a bridge carrier for that expedited freight. There's only so much time sensitive freight and fewer customers between Salt Lake and Denver. If D&RGW's connections had also committed to the short fast train concept, we'd have more historical data for analysis. As it is, D&RGW's short fast freights did make good money while they lasted, and customer response was very positive, which implies that if other railroads with longer hauls had taken on the concept they would have had a similar degree of customer appreciation (which usually results in more business). Regarding absolute advantage vs comparative advantage, this is a basic tenet of economics as it refers to trade between nations. Although one nation may produce all that it can consume, nations that produce less can still benefit by focussing production on one or two things and (with the economies of scale) be able to offer these products to the bigger nation at lower cost, which in turn allows the bigger nation to redirect production away from what the smaller nation is producing and toward things that the other nations cannot produce as well. Thus both nations benefit exponentially more than if they did not trade. To apply this to railroads of differing qualitiies, although the rail line with the better profile could carry all the sub-capacity traffic optimally, the rail line with the lesser profile could concentrate on maybe lighter axle loads and higher speeds to facilitate intermodal and passenger, which would allow the better rail line to focus on heavy haul unit trains and the like. If commodity flows favor one direction over the other (e.g. loads going west, empties going east), the two lines could agree to run loads over the good line one direction and send the empties back on the lesser, or use one as the line for empties both directions and one line for the loads. The lesser line could increase superelevation to improve transit times, while the other retains a minimized superelevation. This allows both lines to optimize capacity exponentially, rather than clogging the one and abandoning the other. Regarding lighter axle loads and/or bi-modal, as older equipment needs to be replaced, companies will base their new equipment purchases on their trade lane demands. We all know that limiting axle loadings to 66,000 lbs would not necessarily imply only 264k cars, as the use of tri-axle bogies would allow a 396k car with those 66,000 lb axles. Load factor need not suffer with lighter axle loadings. And since trucks are the main feeders for railroads anyway, as new transporter companies enter the open access rail market they will be able to analyze the benefits of using bi-modal as a new entrant rather than as an existing operator, so acceptance of newer technologies would be apparent.
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