Proposition 2: The business plans for the freight railroads do not include Passenger Rail.
If we are talking about the major players, I think this is a fallacy. Sure there are some railroads, probably mostly short lines, where you could say there will never be a scheduled passenger train. And you'd be right.
If I were running a major railroad, however, I would want to have a business plan in place that includes contingencies for carrying passengers. Even for carrying a lot of them. Given the current world political and economic climate, I can imagine many scenarios where Passenger Rail could become very strategically important, both economically and militarily.
So I cannot believe that the people running the major, Class One railroads, are not smarter than I am.
So the next question becomes this: Would operation of passenger services by modern freight railroads make Passenger Rail better, or worse?
Does anyone see where I'm going with this?
Next time: Proposition 3.
©2011 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com
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