If things are congested on the rails as is sounds and the railroads have as much money as it sounds, how hard would it be to reopen/rebuild the MILW PCE?
It probably would never happen when they can just double up some track on one of the other lines. I think that It would be sweet if MRL grew big enough and reopened the old Milwaukee line, but once again that will never happen. The cost of placing track back would be pricy but at least they would have the grading already done.
Another alternative would be to enlarge Stampede-Pass to double-stack-trains and run two single-track railroads as a double track.
UP does that in Texas. It is possible everywhere, if there are parallel ROWs with no or little local traffic.
It would be possible, but I dont think it will happen
If anything ever happens, it would be from Ellensburg to the west and the NIMBY’s will fight that tooth and nail. (Will make the Auburn/Kent debacle look like a clambake)…
Yeah, I agree. Enviromentalists will raise such a stink that it would take 100 years of litigation before a tie got put in.
Or a new entity can get what the two remaining Western US railroads got 100+ years ago and receive some type of federal incentive to build a new transcon or two. Only then could one attract the private capital. DM&E right now is the big test case for such aid.
And although MRL + DM&E seems the most logical combo potential transcon candidate, a new SoCal Midwest transcon might make more sense. KCS does now connect to the Mexican Pacific Coast, but would they (are they) looking hard at California using the same federal aid tactics as DM&E?
Hmmmmm…10 or 12 years of trying to get private financing, followed by a federal loan guarantee,with stiil no financing=a successful tactic?[:0]
Just move your freight over the Canadian Pacific Railway if you want it to move from coast to coast.
Andrew
I said “test case”, not successful tactic. The jury’s still out on the latter, which makes it the former.