Mergers, abandonments, limited capacity, and the taxpayer,...OH MY!!

[chad thomas]

I don't think your off base at all. Your right the taxpayer should not have to pay for the railroads to replace capacity that was removed when times were not so good. But having parallel routes is not as efficient as having more capacity on a single route. Out west there are not that many situations as there are not that many parallel routes. Though there has been capacity removed on existing routes (singletracking, removing sidings). I think the railroads that are getting cloged up need to spend more on capacity improvements and if they need to raise there rates to do it that's what they should do. Dont try to get John Q Public to pay for it, Let the shippers pay for it. In my opinion it's as simple as that.[8D]

[Anonymous]

A theme that I've often seen to come up editorially in trains magazine generally plays some version of ~Highways are near gridlock, America is choking, rail lines are maxing out in capacity,.. ---SOOOOO, the TAXPAYER needs to build additional capacity for the freight railroads, as a patriotic duty to country and flag~ (well, ok the last part might be a bit of a stretch, but it generally is portrayed as what is "best for the country").

While admitting there have been some success stories (Alameda corridor, etc) I can't help thinking about the potential for such a strategy to "pork barrel" if left to multiply without a very watchful eye on the big picture.

I live in Indiana which in the consolidation era has been called the most 'overbuilt' state in america, railroad wise. And to some extent that is probably true, since all the eastern roads needed to go through Indiana to have a terminus in Chicago.

Oddly enough, back in the preconsolidation era, many of those lines were put to use. Since that 'golden era', as your remaining big two in the east have gobbled up parallel and competing lines, "capacity" has been seen as expendable, and lines have been pulled up and sold for scrap value.

I think that in some of those instances where the lines have been pulled up, the real value obtained has been the removal of a line that a competitor will never be able to use against them, with the residual value if the scrap being an entirely secondary issue.

Am I completely off base in my view that if the post merger mega giants can see existing parallel lines as "surplus" to the extent that they pull up the spikes and cash in on the steal (pun intended), that they have no business coming back later whining about how the taxpayer owes them funding to add capacity to the lines remaining?