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[quote user="Murphy Siding"]      From what I've seen, the line is pretty well gone, having been reclaimed by the prairie.  All paved roads over the line have been paved right over the rails, etc... What I've read, is that the line is 60# rail.  Consider that in the 70's and 80's,Milwaukee Road probably did no maintenence.  In the last 27 or so years,there might have been a little maintenance done when Huff ran the road for a few years.  The bridges, as I recall, are mostly short, wood piling bridges, over little creeks, all 100+ years old(?).     Even with an ethanol plant, it's hard to imagine enough out-going freight to sustain such a line.  I doubt that much corn would ship in to the plant, as everything for miles around is corn fields.  The railroad would be 100% dependant on BNSF, for shipment to the outside world.  BNSF is also who this railroad would be trying to take business away from. Interesting, as well, is that BN looked at buying this line at one time, and passed on it. What kind of outgoing  freight numbers does a typical ethanol plant produce?     There has been some discussion on this board about the value of ethanol.  Note in the news article, that they would burn corn, to supply 1/3 of their fuel needs!![/quote]That last bit about being 1/3 powered by corn stalks to me is a "tell" that this thing is a giant boondoggle from the get go.  Unless there's something else there not mentioned in the article, they're paying(!) the State $1.4 million for the line, then they'll have to spend or borrow $20 million(?) to bring the line up to bare bones operating status, and all this for an ethanol plant that will have the highest energy costs of any such venture, presumably predicated on *selling* CO2 credits (a market that is ripe for corruption on a massive scale).
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