It seems that there is blame on both sides. PLA does what they do and they're good at it. The Train of Lights sells out each year and turns people away. The restoration of SP 9110 is nothing short of awesome.

There is obviously a huge personality clash between PLA and GGRM, to the point where the latter organization is prepared to spend big bucks on a relocation with the hope of running a "mainline" operation at some time in the future. Maybe they can pull it off, but color me skeptical. It would be a better use of funds for GGRM to bury the hatchet with PLA and spend the money fixing up the equipment, such as those butt-ugly F7s.

What happens if ACE and/or UP needs more capacity? I don't see a return to the old SP line which is slow and curvy. Expect a mix of new construction and better scheduling. What's the issue? UP traffic on the ex-WP is pretty light and ACE, if anything, needs to be speeded up which won't happen using the old SP. I just don't see much of a role for the old SP in modern operations.

As for "arrogant old farts," doesn't GGRM have those as well? Why, exactly, was founder Mike Mangiani forced out?

At least the Santa Cruz idea is apparently dead. That one had "disaster" written all over it.