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I see Tom "I misquote 'em as I see 'em" Diehl is at it again........ [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl I see "Conspiracy Theory Dave" is at it again. In a free enterprise system, if someone buys abandoned sections to rebuild, or builds new infrastructure for running trains, there ain't a thing the railroads can do about it.[/quote] Yes, there is. They can (and most absolutely would) lobby against such intrusions into their respective territories. They would throw frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit against the "new" guy. They would claim first rights against any cross-overs, underpasses, overpasses, and any interconnections. How do we know this? Read your railroad history books once in a while, as all of the statements above occured with regularity back in the boom days. So why would anyone who claims pertinent railroad knowledge state otherwise? [quote]QUOTE: The whole thing just goes back to the one simple fact: building or rebuilding railroads isn't cheap. Where are you going to find the rich sucker to pony up the money? Even though Barnum said there's one born every minute, there aren't very many rich ones.[/quote] Actually, there's several born every second of every day, and there called American taxpayers. Most railroads received government aid back in the day, and some still are still. There's no reason to expect a new player to try to go it alone without government backing. In fact, to hear established railroad spokespeople speak in terms of an expectation of private investment paying for new railroad construction is down right hypocritical. [quote]QUOTE: And Uncle Sam is so far in debt, our great grandchildren wouldn't be able to afford it. [/quote] Debt is irrespective of economic investment. There is no real debt ceiling for the feds, most federal debt is due to wasteful spending which could be culled, and the feds will always have easy access to a tax base. And, as has been mentioned many times before, the feds could come up with incentives that do not take one penny from the Federal Treasury. Therefore, federal debt does not have to have any impact over federal incentives for new non-Class I mainline railroad construction.
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