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[quote user="n012944"][quote user="futuremodal"] The reason we have no intermodal terminals between Portland and Salt Lake City isn't because there is no market for such, it's because one railroad controls that whole territory and since they have a monopoly over that territory they don't have to worry about losing business to another railroad.  [/quote]   Or maybe it is that there is not enough buisness to justify the expense of maintaining the terminals. [/quote] That faulty assumption aside, it's kinda hard to use terminal maintenance expense as an excuse not to provide the desired rail service when the local jurisdiction itself is paying for most of that cost. If there's "not enough business" between Portland and SLC, how do you explain all the commerce that originates east of the Cascades and west/northwest of the salty brine abutting the Wasatch Front?  Why are there container barge ports at Boardman, Umatilla, Pasco, and Lewiston?  Why do the ports of Boardman and Umatilla get most of their containers from Southern Idaho?  Why are 3rd party intermodal firms willing to operate export COFC consists from Wenatchee, Quincy, Yakima, Spokane, and Pasco, even as the railroads either limit the scope of such 3rd party endevours or forbid them altogether?  There used to be active TOFC ramps (literal ramps, not the all encompassing figure of speech) in Pocatello, Nampa, Hinkle, Pasco, Yakima, Spokane, Lewiston, in Montana, some as recently as a few years ago - they have been shut down even as demand for their services increased! It's not a lack of business, it's a lack of intramodal competition.
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