As far as I'm concerned, WATCO is a joke, and the whole deal with the state done by ill-informed or hoodwinked DOT officials working under the direction of our Presently Pretending Governor is nothing but a scam, and no one ever seems to call it what it is. While there may be many good reasons for the state to get into rail ownership, none of the valid business reasons done so by other states just doesn't seem to be in play here. Usually when a state gets involved, there are specific goals, all sorts of efforts to improve the trackage, grow business, protect existing customers, and operate the line through a company that wants to grow in the shortline business. Developers, speculators, scrappers and others who would benefit from a lack of railroad usually just don't get a seat at the table.

Maybe some of this trackage ought to be torn up because it just doesn't make sense, but if so, just tear it up without taxpayer give-aways in the process.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see that WATCO ever brings anything to the table that improves, grows or improves shortline railroading. Remember when shortlines were going to save us all from the evil Class I's who just wanted to abandon everything and raise rates??? Hell, the average customer, if he knows how to work with a railroad, can get a better deal and more attention from UP or BNSF than you can from some of these shortlines.

Equipment, rail, maintanence, service, personel- by just about any measure, WATCO is a rolling wreck all the way from Kansas, Idaho to WA. when compared against places like run by G&W or Rail America (CORP excepted, of course). I don't know the details of their particular finances, but if a business isn't growing & improving, it's going out of business.