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RXR Anti Trust Exemptions. Is it a problem?
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As a RR fan and a heavy user of the RR through my industry (electric power), a few perspectives. <br /> <br />People will be screaming no matter what's done with regulations until "captive shippers" are set free. No amount of regulation will solve the problem until, and ONLY until the RR's are forced to open their rails to any train that wants to pay the fee to run on them. That's being a common carrier. That's often called Open Access. <br /> <br />The electric utility industry fought this approach tooth and nail for years, proclaiming immediate failure, massive outages, and much higher costs. FERC forced it upon them. They had no choice. When Open Access hit, none of the dire predictions came true. True some improvements needed to be made, and still need to be made to the transmission system, but it's all driven by the economics. <br /> <br />In a utility that sees a 40 year return on investment as typical, the transmission improvements being driven by open access are seeing payback times of 5 years or less! I suspect that when the RR's have to open up their system we'll see the same sort of thing going on. Some lines will become VERY heavily used, and additional trackage will be built to accomodate the additional haulage. <br /> <br />Electric utilities used to think they made the most money by generating power. They are now realizing that the money to be made is in the wires. If the RR's realize the same thing, they'll see that the money to be made is not in the running of the trains, but in the operation of the rails. You could conceivably see RR's in the future with no trains, but a lot of rails that they've opened up to multiple carriers under long-term contracts. <br /> <br />The RR industry is in a state of change. Eventually, no matter what the RR's want, they'll be forced to be open access, fully deregulated, and have to play on the same level playing field that all other businesses must work on. Will they still have some "privlidges"? Sure. They'll undoubtedly always have the ability to condemm property and such to be able to establish new routes, similar to electric utilities. In many ways, RR's and electric utilities will be operating under the same types of regulations. <br /> <br />Mark in Utah
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