It's not surprising that the ex rails like OPB seem to understand the coal traffic problem, and to a lesser degree the same problem with oil and fracking sand business, it is exactly as you have described it: low hanging fruit "if" you have lots of excess capacity. That lack of capacity has been a real problem, especially tying up lines between the western coal and fracking belt and the eastern gateways. The RR's effectively "de-capitalized the RR industry for 50 years, so completely, that much of that once more robust RR infrastructure which was serving a low value and supposedly low return agricultural commodity base was systematically dismantled.

The recent SP "1982" story on Altamont of how Bag of Weenies used SP's stream of ROI from the RR for things like Ticor, Sprint, the Blue Whale, and the traffic base was "given away to BNSF during the failed merger, leaving the SP a "shell" by the time Phil Anschutz bought it, is an example of this diversion of capital. Too many mergers cut RR competition especially in the Midwest and west coast.

Then during the last 20 years, many of these large RR's tended to become too dependent on "captive" customers (like those who had few choices to ship coal in the utility industry and could pass those costs on to ratepayers). During that 20 year hiatus RR's continued to lose and/or dump traffic some of which went to containers, some traffic like 99.9% of the former RR perishable business was lost to trucks.

Now, due to the much cheaper price per BTU and other clear advantages (like no expensive inflexible long term rail contracts, no ash disposal, lower emissions, immediate boiler and turbine generating characteristics) gas is displacing coal. And, like the drunk at the party the RR's are now facing the hangover. Eastern RR's who had depended on captive southeastern utilities (the most monopolistic and highest priced electricity in the nation) that were caught the most off guard by their final switch to gas and have suffered the most recently. This gradual trend, which had been boing on now for nearly 25 years, has now reached a critical tipping point.

I think that many major RR's going to survive this adjustment. And may learn some valuable lessons, as the loss of this traffic sector has had significantly less impact on ROI and earnings than the percentage drop in carloads would indicate, if coal was really that "profitable".

OPB and others of us who have worked in the industry in various capacities watched this trend and lack of forward thinking for most our whole careers, with the one bright spot being the growth of an efficient intermodal capability. BNSF clearly has planned for this better than UP which is reflected in better investment and market performance by a better management. Both of the eastern mega systems have been hurt more, and thus, the current merger "bottom feeding"/"asset stripping" model seen being used by CN is a result of that.

Adapt, evolve or die, as I noted applies to RR's, and while I am not as pessimistic as OPB, the RR industry needs a new generation of management that understands that you need to feed the cow, or even breed new ones (maybe like RR's making capital investments in fluidity to improve their long term competitive position), if you want to continue milking it....?