"HELENA - Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer Tuesday called on the chairman of the federal Surface Transportation Board to get behind allowing rail competition “HELENA - Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer Tuesday called on the chairman of the federal Surface Transportation Board to get behind allowing rail competition “to the maximum extent possible” as current law requires.”
Hey, not bad! The governor comes out swinging against the STB!
However, is the Governor correct in his ascertation that the STB simply has not enforced the competitive caveats (presumbably of the Stagger’s Act)?
If the sovereign state of Montana is willing to file an antitrust suit in this matter, than I will say that the governor is willing to put the state’s money where his mouth is. If that isn’t the case, he’s obviously pandering to the voters. Talk is cheap.
And I notice the Governor doesn’t say HOW the STB isn’t “behind allowing rail competition “to the maximum extent possible” as current law requires.” Not sure how he’s “focusing” on the lack of competition.
Or where the investment is coming from for this “competition.”
And granting trackage rights to another railroad on an already clogged rail line? I fail to see how that will help, either.
Have to agree with Paul on the “pandering to voters” statement. (Gee, this wouldn’t be an election year for Governor in Montana, would it?)
AMEN!!! How much out of his own pocket is the governor willing to donate to the kitty to increase competition? That would be a good indicator of how interested he REALLY is.
How about allowing the UP to solicit business along the BNSF mainline and then have the BNSF move it under a haulage agreement to the nearest interchange point? Railroads seem to be able to work under such an arrangement when it suits their needs. Why should the State of MT be required to build another unnecessary railroad mainline that parallels one currently in service?
The other carriers get traffic protection when a merger is put into place but the shippers who are told of all the benefits they will receive from the joining have no such guarantee. The MILW got their Gateways on the BN when that merger happened and they could have forced the BN to haul MILW traffic from Billings under a haulage arrangement but just never seemed to get around to making it work. They did operate their own trains out of Portland and Louisville, KY as a result of the L&N/Monon merger so it seems it can be done for the carriers but not the shippers. When the BN merger happened the shippers were told they could use the MILW to compete with the BN. That worked fine until the MILW left the state. So when the primary shipper protection elements goes away nothing is established to maintain competition for the shippers. Let’s reopen the first BN merger and argue the case all over again based upon 2006 realities. Perhaps the NP and GN should be broken up to maintain options for the shippers in Montana, the Dakotas, north Idaho and Washington.
You mean using all that excess capacity that Dave seems to think BNSF has in this area? If there’s no new rail line or expansion of capacity on existing lines, it doesn’t matter who solicits the business, the capacity needs to be there before there will be any benefit for the shippers.
As far as “unnecessary” we need to go back to capacity of the line as it stands now in comparison to the current traffic.
Perhaps he DID say but it didn’t get printed. Perhaps the writer of the story thought such details would be too boring for it’s readers.
Whether or not this governor knows the details or is just pandering is not clear from the article.
Who say’t it requires “investment”? Maybe just enforcing the written caveats will be all it takes, huh Tom?
Again, the article isn’t clear on which lines if any would be subject to joint use by another rail service provider. But MRL still has available capacity, as well as most of the entire I-15 rail corridor comprised of BNSF, MRL, MW, and UP (some of which is in place but out of service), and the former NP line east of Billings hosts a coal train or two max.
Oh, there’s viable capacity available should it be drafted into service. No problem here.
I won’t disagree that he indeed might be pandering, but you should know two things:
The sovereign state of Montana did precisely that for 17 years as a party to the McCarty Farms case. He is obviously taking a different route than the one that, despite ICC findings supporting Montana’s contentions, ultimately led to the defeat of the case on technical grounds.
No one has suggested that there is a capacity problem on these lines. Least of all BNSF.
It has not only not been alleged, but aside from standard maintenance programs and upgrades, there is no program in place to increase capacity on Montana’s BNSF lines.
Apparently this is the usual made-up dead fi***hat has nothing to do with the matter discussed by the Governor, which is not a capacity issue, but a pricing issue.
This is shown by the simple expedient of noting that the proposal made by the Governor relates to existing traffic already there, and not some new traffic which the poster, who claims to be an “independant” “thinker,” confuses with the issue at hand.
What’s he going to do? Require the BNSF to divest itself of one of the routes? Forcing a recreation of a 2nd northern rail corridor? They wouldn’t have to go through this trouble if the Milwaukee had not been economically torpedo’d.
And Montana can feel free to fund the rebuilding of the Old Milwaukee mainline if he’s really that concerned about it. From what I’ve read in Trains about the old towns left behind I’m sure alot of voters would appreciate it.
Re-create the MILW and “sell” it to the KCS as a safe-harbor operator. The torn-up part and the South Dakota used-to-be owned lines including south to Kansas City would do the trick. And how! Direct export competition to Portland, Seattle, Houston and New Orleans! The MILW came ever-so-close to forcing the GN and NP into recievership before the BN merger – think of what they could do with a management that really wanted to beat the competition.
The MILW had either a main line or well sited branch lines throught the productive areas of the NP and GN in eastern Montana.