I was at an industry meeting in the early 1990s when a senior executive proclaimed the industry was still going out of business - just not as fast as before. People forget that even after Staggers things were challenging until the early 2000's when traffic suddenly took off and managers who had spent their careers cutting this expense or selling that asset suddenly had to deal with growth. Taking a shot st Krebs for selling off a branch line when it wasn't needed for traffic snd selling eliminate the cost of upkeep and taxes suggests a lack of understanding about the recent past.
People criticized Ed Moyers too for single- tracking portions of Donner (which have yet to be replaced) and using the steel to patch the Sunset Route. But with scarce capital he did what he had to do.
Today, even with slumping traffic new locomotives are being delivered, new yards opened and additional main line capacity is being installed. And there's the slight expense known as PTC. It wasn't always that way improvements would have been completely cut. Only in the last 10 years or so has there been faith in long term growth