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Dblstack: I hesitate to dive in to this, because you've rolled so many issues into one post. I'm only good at doing one thing at a time. So rather than go point-by-point, or issue-by-issue, I'll attack just two: p.r. and the basic question, if railroads are dying. Railroads are not dying. Period. They haven't been healthier as a technology, in comparison to other transportation technologies, in almost 100 years. There is no question that for overland transportation of people and goods, the railroad has almost unlimited potential that is still only partially tapped. The May issue, which we're finishing up this week, goes into detail how Switzerland is rebuilding its core railroad system from scratch to eliminate long-haul trucking from between its borders. They're a small, densely populated, geographically disadvantaged country, so they have no choice but to be a leader. Other countries will eventually come to the same decision, when they have to -- no one wants to spend money until it's impossible to do otherwise. In the U.S. -- which is what I think you want to know about -- the railroad has risen from the near-dead to become the acknowledged, preferred method of mass transit in large cities. Every city with any ambition for the future is building light- or heavy-rail or commuter systems (Milwaukee unfortunately is not one of them). Thirty years ago, there were exactly five U.S. cities with significant rail commuter. Now there are, what, 50? You can't ignore this. As for Amtrak, we'll know for sure in another two or three years, but I think it has rebounded from a nadir of inconsequentiality and has nothing ahead of it but growth. Its value to run corridor trains is increasingly acknowledged. Look at California for proof. The long-haul train, if it hasn't failed by now, probably won't, and increasingly they are becoming a series of connected corridor trains. That will inevitably lead to growth. What might be dying is the old way of doing business hauling freight. The investor-funded right-of-way can only compete in limited, high-density lanes, and U.S. rail mileage continues to shrink as low-density lanes are abandoned. Nevertheless, there are more trains, and more ton-miles, than ever, concentrated onto the high-density lanes. There are plenty of people who point to this as proof of the marketplace's success, and plenty who point to it as proof of the marketplace's failure. It depends on what you think is most important -- investor profits or transportation service. Regardless, railroads are not returning to investors their total cost of capital from their revenues alone. To stay in the game, some observers say the business overall is slowly disinvesting in their properties, handing over the necessary cash investors demand as merger premiums or stock buybacks. That will only go so far, and ends when there is nothing left to disinvest in. Other observers say the industry is simply not investing in aspects that have no promise. The nation has no choice but to increase its investment in rail freight. Well, it has a choice: pay through the nose in highway maintenance, increase vulnerability to oil prices, degrade the environment further, make cities miserable with choked highways, and destroy wealth. I suspect it will decide those are poor choices. The problem, as I have pointed out in the magazine (I didn't invent this, I just talk to people) is that no one knows which is the best way to increase investment: let the market do it, use a public-private partnership, or use public money. All choices bear huge risks, either of not spending the money and not getting the desired outcome, or of spending the money and getting too little in return. As for p.r.: a freight railroad's responsibility is to its investors. It will spend money to attract investors (UP's campaign was so directed, televised primarily on financial channels). Whether that's a failure or not would depend on what you think a railroad ought to do.
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