Re: Fred Frailey discusses Empire Builder
Author: david vartanoff
Date: 08-28-2018 - 19:27
Much as I posted on his blog yesterday, I entirely reject his claim of "taking". BNSF as suiccessor in fact of GN (and all of the other RRs involved) operates by grant of charters from the states on behalf of the citizenry in order to further "the public necessity and convenience". It is their responsibility to build and maintain sufficient track capacity to service all customers. To me that means that on the 'northern transcon' they need to fully double track the route since they are attempting to move more tonnage than when NP (now truncated as MRL, and the MILW were there to share. A fully bi-directional 2 track (real) mainline and perhaps restoring the abandoned SP&S segments would give BNSF the fluidity they need. Pretending that a single scheduled premium train (in this case Amtrak) is the cause of delays is simply false.