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Greyhouds: The comparative rates charged to Montana grain shippers vs Nebraska grain shippers are based on unit train and shuttle train rates. BNSF runs shuttle train facilities in Billings and Mocassin. The rate they charge for these 100 car trains out of the Montana facilities are 50% higher than corresponding unit train facilities in the other states. That's where the rate discrimination is taking place. The smaller carload lots are usually confined to the shortlines and they take the cost of aggregating these smaller car lots into full trains. BNSF is only taking the full trainsloads to the coast. In other words, what BNSF is doing is charging Montanans twice as much for step #3 as they're charging other states. BNSF is not having to spend more for steps #1 and #2 because those jobs are either being taken care of by the shortlines or being bypassed altogether as farmers truck their grain long distances to the shuttle train facilities. Therefore, it is disingenuous to imply that BNSF has to charge higher rates for Montana shipments due to more expensive aggregation duties, because it is only the long haul rates that are the point of contention. Even if you prorate the shortline rates in with BNSF's rates, that still doesn't justify a 50% rate increase, because the shortline's cut just isn't that much. Jeaton: The "nationalization" argument is taking place on a different thread. Suffice it to say, if your business was railroading, you would have to operate under the auspices of the FRA and STB, and your "business" probably got it's start by some hefty land grants, and is relegated to a rather inelastic head to head market. It is rather simple minded to infer a commonality of the railroad industry with an office business. For a better comparison of what would be entailed under an open access reformation, try the AT&T breakup, since telecommunications is a form of transportation. I don't know too many people who consider the AT&T breakup an example of "nationalization". If the same was done for the railroad industry and infrastructure separated from transporter operations, both segments would still be in private hands, so there is no semblence of nationalization. The offer of tax incentives to infrastructure owners is just a recogniztion of the need to equalize the funding mechanisms among other modes' infrastructures. If as an addendum the federal government decided to expand the rail network with new capacity built in the manner of the Interstate Highway System, that still wouldn't qualify as nationalism, since the rail service providers would all be private entities, same as the trucking industry. Unless of course you consider the trucking industry as nationalized....... As to the rate discrimination, the way the STB rules are set up, it costs individual shippers a bundle of time and money just to present a rate discrimination case, with no guarantee that their case will even be heard. There aren't to many farmers and co-ops that have that kind of time and money. Michael Sol presented a fine example of that problem, go back and read it.
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