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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding What is the I-15 corridor? Sounds more like an interstate hiway to me. [/quote] CP/CN Edmonton to Calgary CP Calgary to Coutts (Sweetgrass MT) BNSF Sweetgrass to Helena (embargoed between Great Falls and Helena) MRL (nee - BN) Helena to Garrison BNSF (nee Montana Western) Garrison to Silver Bow UP Silver Bow to Pocatello, and on to Los Angeles You might note that many rail corridors are designated (by government transportation officials and the pop media) using parallel Interstate Highway numerations. The BNSF and UP lines from the PNW to So Cal are known as the I-5 corridor, there may be others with such designations, but I can't think of them off hand (I think I read of an I-35 rail corridor in the Texas rail plan). Such designations are useful in describing NAFTA rail corridors, expecially when you have different rail entities that make up the corridor (otherwise you'd just use the rail company designation) while you also have a corresponding single Interstate designation to work with. Unfortunately, there is no single rail entity between the border at Sweetgrass and Los Angeles, so UP sends their Alberta traffic via the rickety ex-Spokane International line via Eastport ID, then down the already congested I-5 rail corridor, while BNSF runs their Alberta traffic from Sweetgrass to Shelby, then west to Wishram WA and south down the ex-Oregon Trunk line (BNSF's I-5 rail corridor) to California. The I-15 rail corridor makes more sense from a comprehensive transportation perspective, but since UP owns the majority of the track in that corridor BNSF isn't going to send anything that way, thus we get a perpetual inefficient fuel wasting, capital wasting "keep 'em on the home rails" attitude, a national embarrassment for the U.S. Yet another reason to rationalize the U.S. rail system to make it more efficient and eliminate the economic fratricide. How to do this? Any number of ways. You could have BNSF and UP merge, have some or all of the U.S. rail infrastructure nationalized, have some or all of the U.S. rail system broken up into separate infrastructure and tranporter entities, or you could have the U.S. rail network re-regulated in some fashion to force the disparate entities to play ball with each other.
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