According to most analyst's I've read, oil volumes by rail are expected to actually rise is 2015. Probably not as much as in the past four or five years, though.

The Saudi's can't keep the price this low much longer, because they simply don't have enough capacity to supply everyone in the world with $50 a barrel oil for very long.

Production of high cost/low yield crude oil, like the heavy crude and tar sands at $100+ a barrel, is what is really slowing right now. Alberta is, therefore, where things are really hurting economically.

By contrast, fracking oil is extremely light crude with very high gasoline content is being produced in the Bakken and Permian basins, in the range of $60-$75 a barrel. And, when the price goes back up to $70 or so, in the Spring, as many predict, those producers should continue to do just fine.

Next week there will be a vote on the XL pipeline to ship super heavy Alberta crude to Texas to be shipped on to Mexico, Columbia, and Venezuela for refining...... amid much political brouhaha and bluster.

But, with the production price of upwards of $100+ for these heavy crudes and tar sands, it will be interesting to see if this proposed heavy crude pipeline ever actually gets built? For after all of the political bull$#it we've heard from both sides of this, it may be good old fashioned economics which actually postpones and/or finally kills this project, not politics.

Maybe, a longer perspective, based on the vast amount of dubious nonsense we've heard and lived through over the years, has taught some of us to take some of the more sensationalistic bull$#it we so often hear, from certain "experts", like those with political science, communications, and journalism degrees, with a bigger grain of salt....?

Go out and enjoy the $2+ gas while you can, chase some trains, have fun, and relax.

EGBOK!