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What may be lost in all this is that some of those abandoned railroad ROW's (or at least sections of them) may not have in this day and age the necessary alignment/placement to optimize thier usefulness. The alignment of railroads built back in the days of 40 ton freight cars and slogging Mallets may not be suited to mile long 10,000+ tons being moved by DPU's, 20'2 height autoracks, or time sensitive TOFC consists. Take the oft-mentioned Milwaukee PCE since that is the one abandoned ROW I am most familiar with. It is true that much of the alignment has wide sweeping curvatures and minimal grades with tunnel clearances suited for doublestacks and autoracks, but as has also been pointed out by Milwaukee detractors there are areas of grades reaching 2.2% with reverse curves, and when templated with current MRL/BNSF lines would actually result in unnecessary mileage if contemplated as a stand-alone rebuild. There may be long sections with deep cuts and tunnels that prevent the effective use of remote control technology for DPU's. Then of course there are the sections that have been built over with development, where bridges and trestles have been taken out, etc. What you need to envision when considering a ROW rebuild is how that left over alignment fits into the dual need for (1) easy grades and reduced superelevation for HAL consists and (2) more direct higher speed corridors (which can probably handle steeper grades up to 3% but which would need more generous arc of the curvature with more superelevation). Then, are you going to run your own closed access railroad, lease out your line to a current operator as sole operator, or open your line to all comers aka TTX/open access? Therefore, if I was going to rebuild as much of the PCE as possible: 1. If predicated for HAL (grain trains, coal trains, etc), I would need to realign around the steeper westbound grades such as the Saddle Mountain crossing and Homestake Pass (with thier 2.2% and 1.9% westbound grades respectively), and probably go with a new lower elevation tunnel via the original survey through the Bitterroots to eliminate the 1.7% westbound, e.g. keep all westbound grades around 1%. The 1.4% near Martinsdale and the 1.7% from St Maries to Plummer I could live with. The expensive reaquisition of ROW to the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma could be a problem, but more pressing is how to connect with the Lower Columbia River ports since that is where most export grain is headed. Remember, Milwaukee was granted trackage rights over BN to Portland, now that would be nearly impossible to revive. One way around that is to find rail access to one of the Columbia/Snake River barge ports in the eastern part of the PNW. 2. If predicated on higher speed COFC/TOFC, then the grades up the Saddle Mountains and Continental Divide are not that paramount, but the need for curvature to keep the grades around 2% back then may be superfluous. Therefore, I could then consider a more direct shorter steeper grade up those hills and reduce some mileage in the process. Ideally, it would make sense to work with MRL/BNSF on a trackage rights deal over Mullan Pass, with a new 3% fly by betweeen the East Portal and Helena (as opposed to MRL's current 2.2% with reverse curves). The same could be done for St. Paul Pass, e.g. keeping the current tunnel for re-use as a rail tunnel (sorry, mountain bikers!), but then head straight down to Avery via a 3% rather than re-utilizing the entire 1.7% original grade with it's horseshoe curve 5 miles to the east. 3. If wanting to handle all types of trains to maximize usage, then I may have to encompass both strategies, e.g. build longer reduced grade tracks for HAL consists and also build new steeper grade fly by's for TOFC. In this instance, I'm not using the original 2.2%/1/9%/1/7% westbound grades at all, instead going with dual 1%/3% redundant trackage over these portions. Well, that's just one example of what would need to be considered for a re-build of an abandoned railroad corridor. Some of that Eastern US trackage may not have that type of a dilema e.g. mile long heavy tonnage trains vs higher speed trains, because the relative lack of mountainous territory and subsequent lower grades and easier curves would allow more dual participation of diametrically opposed operating philosophy's.
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