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RE: The recent Supreme Court Ruling - Don't forget your railroad history. When the railroads were building West in the late 1800's and early 1900's, they were granted the right of Eminent Domain to allow the ROW across established private property. This is nothing new. RE: Unit vs carload shipments - Everything Greyhounds says is true, but in the larger picture it is possible to have a reverse macro effect. We've already hashed out the question of whether it is more "efficient" to move grain from a country elevator to a unit train terminal via truck or whether it would be more efficient to move that grain from country elevator to unit train terminal by shortline railroad. There are real world examples of shortlines being able to beat trucker's shorthaul rates in this scenario (aka Watco's opertations in the PNW). So in that vein the Class I's will participate in carload grain movements vicariously via their shortline "partners" (or shortline "slaves" depending on your particular POV). Depending on the infrastructure characteristics of a certain grain moving corridor, it is probable that shorthaul railroad companies could easily compete with truckers for carload quantities IF they could access the Class I property to get to those smaller elevators. This was one of the points made in the open access discussions, that smaller players would go after the business rejected by the Class I's if they had access to the property. Unit train dynamics are more efficient than carload dynamics, yet carload dynamics are (usually) more efficient than truckload dynamics. Thus, it is possible to have situations in which the combination of truckload hauls plus unit train hauls would be LESS efficient than carload hauls that come in 10's, 5's, or sometimes even single lots over the same corridors (from farm to port). So when Gabe bemoans the loss of individualized services, he's not just being nostalgic.
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