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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR Back to the original question: I'm not sure that resurrecting any of these lines, for the purpose of re-establishing lost railroad capacity that will probably need to be restored, is practical. In most cases, there is a railroad currently running from Point A to Point B. Are we suggesting that a competitor come in and build a new line over the old right-of-way (which, as been pointed out, is often no longer available for use in many areas)? An example: Who would want to run the old MILW route from Savanna (which is in Illinois, by the way) to Omaha? At Omaha, you have two railroads that go west out of town: UP and BNSF. UP has its own line from western Illinois to Omaha; so does BNSF. What company would want to build essentially a new line to go from the Mississippi River to Omaha? You've got four railroads in the Chicago-to-Omaha corridor already. Would a fifth one be necessary to take traffic from somewhere in Illinois to be handed over to UP or BNSF? Nope--the four railroads that do it today are down from six (seven, if you count Wabash!) for a reason. And neither UP nor BNSF needs a new choice for giving away some of their business from the west-- I'm not familiar with all of the suggestions made here. One--the old C&O of Indiana--might have some justification if traffic between Chicago and Cincinnati took a big swing upward. There is no real direct route any more between those two points. But here, the C&O right-of-way wasn't very direct, either. If a railroad desperately needed to be built between Chicago and Cincinnati, wouldn't it make more sense to strike out on a completely new, more direct route (perhaps cobbling portions of existing lines together to make said route)? Keep in mind that building a new track would not be a cheap propostion, and you couldn't get away with building an unsignaled single track for low-speed operation. A "vision" is no longer enough--you'd need hard facts to get the money, and the least expensive railroad-building technology (from a labor standpoint) would build you a railroad that would have to be supported by plenty of traffic, requiring at least a single-track CTC operation with plenty of second track along the way, and track that could handle gross rail loads well beyond what the abandoned track was designed for (the 286K issue). Again, no "third" company would do that--it'd have to be one or the other of CSX and NS. [/quote] I think you have it ENTIRELY correct. After first reading this thread I concluded that there are 2 ways of looking at the subject. One, from the aspect of driving by abandoned grades and thinking "Wouldn't it be nice to see trains come through here again?" More of a romantic, railfan perspective. And the other, a more analytical, "business sense" perspective as you outline, which is the one I suspect the RR's employed when deciding to abandon what they did. In this latter vein, I don't know all the routes mentioned either, but of the ones I do, my first response was geared more towards looking at whether the surviving entity needs more capacity than they currently have between the listed points A and B. Of those I know: 7. Does NS REALLY need more capacity between Toledo and Saint Louis? One can drive through all those little towns once served by the Cloverleaf, and see that for the most part the line side industry that once was, is no longer along this route. And NS seems to be getting along nicely with the old Wabash, a superior route. If NS needed additional capacity between the two endpoint cities , their best value would be towards doubling up some of the old Wabash's single track segments 8. What can one say about the old Erie that is not properly described with the one memory that among the major routes from New York to Chicago, the Erie was miles longer than all the rest? Do either of the Conrail surviving entities need more capacity between the two? Well, NS has the former Waterlevel route AND the former Nickle Plate, the latter of which is greatly underutilized, and CSX decided that it had so much need in that segment that it leased out the former PRR main to Chicago Ft Wayne & Eastern...so it's not like CSX is strapped for capacity through Ohio. 9.An interesting one, for sure. Seemingly one of the more direct routes, between the 2 cities, crossing a mostly level state of indiana. And, the competition (NS) has grown business like gang busters between these cities utilizing portions of a former PRR routing and part of the old Nickle Plate New Castle District (cobbling together old routes, just as you mention) Having grown up next to that line in the 60's, and then living back in the same spot these last 3 years, I can say the difference is like night and day. 10 times the volume, easy. So, why doesn't CSX reinstate the old C&O and compete for that business ? Good question. I've heard that the old "cheviot hill" routing out of Cincinnati was a deadful slope to have to climb, which was probably why the route was abandoned in favor of superior former B&O routes... Instead of spending a fortune re installing this whole line, I'd think CSX would be better off enhancing their Indianapolis to Chicago route, and sending it all over that way Though I'd like to see 7 and 9 reinstalled, that is just the old romantic in me. All the old romantic railroads went out of business.
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