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Legislation intoduced to make railroads subject to antitrust laws.
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by gabe</i> <br /><br />[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by mark_in_utah</i> <br /><br />Here's from the perspective of someone that has seen the direct consequences of a RR stonewalling competition: <br /> <br />Intermountain Power Project, a very large power plant in central Utah gets most all of its coal by rail. UP refuses to allow anyone but UP to use its rails to the plant. While it is POSSIBLE to ship the coal by truck, it simply isn't practical. We're talking about close to 1 million tons of coal a year required for this plant fellas. <br /> <br />When negotiations broke down once they DID shipt the coal by truck for 6 months, but it was an absolute disaster for everyone involved, especially the roads and the public. UP STILL charges per mile rates MUCH higher for that last stub of line than for any other section of their line for hauling the coal. Competition is available for hauling the coal 80% of the way, so the rates are low, but not on that section of line. It's a csh cow for UP, and they refuse to allow anyone else to use it. <br /> <br />Sure if you're shipping only one car of soy beans you can consider going by truck, but not if you need to ship 250,000 tons of coal. <br /> <br />As for the arguement that you'd destroy the RR by requiring them to allow anyone to use the rails, that's bull honky. Guess what the electric utilities have had to do? We have to allow anyone to run power over our transmision lines, and we can't charge more for them than we have to charge ourselves. It gets you into a TRUE cost of service plan for each route. No longer can you subsidize rates on one route only to make it up on another. It levelizes the playing field, and the final customer has to pay much closer to the actual cost of doing business. <br /> <br />Lets face it, the RR's don't want to change how they're doing business. Those executives that are afraid of going out of business don't know HOW they will have to be running their business in the future. <br /> <br />Mark in Utah <br />Been there, done that, life's still O.K. <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />So who was the genius who built the power plant without multiple railroads serving it? I hate to go back to my proverbial McDonalds that is the only practical place for me to eat on the way home and costs 25% more than any other McDonalds because it takes advantage of its prime location, but every industry that has prime location takes advantage of that location. <br /> <br />As for other companies using other companies power lines, can you explain to me how the use of power lines equates to the use of rails in terms of wear and tear on the physical plant? <br /> <br />I have to thank Jay for pointing out that railroads are nearing cost of capital contrary to other assertions. The last I heard CN was there and NS was close. <br /> <br />Finally, as for the anti-trust taking issue, last I heard, anti-trust divestiture was subject to purchases by the highest bidder. <br /> <br />Gabe <br /> <br />[/quote] <br />The only argument is that UP should have to sell trackage rights (to any part of the route) to anyone for the same price. This is not always a good thing. It could cause price wars loss leaders and put some railroads out of business. That is how telephone lines work any one can start their own phone company using the existing lines for a fee. This might be the idea for the railroads. Does any one know where I could get a copy of the bill? <br />James[C):-)] <br />
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