this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Ironically, the US by some metrics has more freight rail than anyone else.
We're just using it to carry around rocks and coal and shit, and putting literally everything else in trucks. We SHOULD be using the trains for rocks and coal and shit, don't get me wrong, but it'd be nice to put some other stuff on it.
But the class 1 railroads mostly own the actual track and right-of-way. Norfolk and all their moronic lot. They're slaves to the lines going up and pass on good, sensible business expansions that would make them lots of money just because it would lower their profit percents by some tiny margin. Everywhere else in the world, the rail and right of way is a public good even if the service on them is deregulated.
Meanwhile Cincinnati just sold the Cincinnati Southern Railway to Norfolk Southern for a short-term cash injection. Fucking idiots. Norfolk TOLD them they were undervaluing the line by offering to buy it and they sold it anyway. And now that's one more route that has 0 chance of ever having meaningful passenger service.