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BNSF boss says transport system nearing crisis

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Murphy, Why? Because the insiders should have known, if indeed they didn't have an ulterior motive. Ed, The DOT in the 1970's was the Brock Adams era, right? There's your explanation - stupid is as stupid does. You should ask yourself why a 1970's era government agency would come up with such conclusions ("railroads need to reduce capacity") when even then there was the perception that oil was running out and there would be a need to shift traffic from road to more efficient modes? Also, don't those first two statements you relayed say it all? "$1.6 billion in purse strings" "....limited resources are being stretched too far."(!?!) That first statement can lead to a conclusion of possible blackmail by the federales. Question: Why would the federal government be so insistent on reducing railroad capacity? Who gained by this capacity reduction, railroads or truckers/barge lines? That second statement, if taken in the latter context, would lead one to believe that the "limited resources" were being pushed to the max, e.g. demand for railroads was exceeding demand. It doesn't matter whether you are a supply sider or a Keynesian, that section of statement #2 is counterintuitive to the first section of statement #2, e.g. "When one considers the declining financial condition of the industry together with the continuing deterioration of track,...". If trackage was deteriorating, how could putting current rail traffic on a single deteriorating track be a solution to keeping traffic on double and triple deteriorating track? Answer - it wouldn't, rather it would instead accelerate the deterioration of the remaining track. But, of course if it was just a question of maintenance funding from the federales, it would have made more sense to fix all the relevent trackage, and with this balance extend the life expectancy of all trackage by sharing the loads, rather than fixing a single track and expecting it to shoulder all the load burden. All that did was increase the frequency of needed maintenance cycles.
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