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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by bobwilcox [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal The truth is, the idea of open access is new, perhaps too new to have entered into legislative debates. Part of the problem is that the entities that should be be introducing the topic into the lexicon of public debate (such as those organizations that represent captive rail shippers) seem to rather prefer to reha***he concept of reregulation, a lose-lose proposition for both sides. Meanwhile, the Class I propoganda arm (know collectively as the AAR) did a pretty good job of misrepresenting the open access debate when it was just budding during the late 1990's. If history is any lesson, it will take some kind of economic catastrophy involving railroad/shipper relations before the topic will be able to take it's rightful place in the halls of Congress. Meaning alot of people on both sides have to be hurt financially before Congress will act. So much for the idea of pre-emptive economic policy foresight. [/quote] I think your correct about Congress not wanting to get involved untill there is a crisis. There was a lot of blah, blah, blah about the banckrupt Penn Central untill GM, Ford and Chrysler went to a Senate hearing and gave their lay off forecast if PC stopped operations. It was about 10,000 people in the first week with the collapse of the auto industry within 90 days. Since laid off UAW members tend to vote in their spare time, we got CR legislation very shortly after that hearing. The ideas put into Staggers were just think tank stuff untill CR management told Congress deregulation would allow CR to stand on there own and thereby reduce the Federal deficit. Since that was back in a day when someone actually cared about the deficit Staggers was passed within a few months. The 35 year soap opera concerning Amtrak funding is just absurb. Recently the Amtrak board put out a very good plan to start a serious discussion but everyone in the White House and Congress did the same old dance. I am worried that Amtrak will lose its ability to attrack good leadership and we will go back to the "glide path to self sufficiency" bipartisine silliness of the 1990s. If you do not know about Asa Whitney I suggest you look him up in David Bain's Empire Express , ISBN 0-670-80889-x. He was a tireless promoter of a transcontintal railroad from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. Everyone else thought it was a pipe dream. How would it be financed? In 1843 he proposed the novel idea to Congress that the government pay for a railroad with land grants. He spoke tirelessly about a Transcontiental RR. He was the force that caused the Army surveys in the 1850s. He was the one that pushed his ideas into the Republican Party's first platform. He withdrew into private life but he lived to see the golden spike at Promontory. The Class I have not made their cost of capital for over 75 years. Therefore the country is way behind in its rail plant investment. Someday it will come to a head. Asa Whitney did not have the internet to sell his ideas but you do... [/quote] It amazes me on how dependent the automotive industry is on the railroads.....But the automobile industry lobbys for more money to be spent on roads and not railroads...
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