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Railroads Struggle to Deliver Coal to Utilities

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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie OK - baby steps..... Railroads sold off a lot of "assets" - rail lines and ROW? Is that correct? And you think they should have held onto them. Still correct? How would they do that w/o becoming over-extended in the accounting department? Had they kept all their original acquisitions and holdings, how would they make enough $ to cover all the expenses? Mook [/quote] I would argue this: It often costs more to go through abandonment proceedings and to physically remove rails and ties, than it is to just keep it all there as is. If property taxes are that extreme (and in most cases they are not big cost drivers), just give it all to the taxing authority and let them deal with it. The likelyhood is, if the line has future merit, the local jurisdiction will keep it in a mothballed state until growth warrants a reopening of the line in question. And of course, if the line is then reopened, guess who gets the business? The original Class I owner. Can you name any other transporation mode that engages in wholesale retrenchment of the ROW? Highways? No. Waterways? No. Airports? No. Pipelines? No. Transmission lines? No. Nope, just the railroads. That should tell you something right there.
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