It has long been the case that the lawyer is the larval form of the politician.

PSR, by the way, is not a law. PTC is, but that's not what the committee was investigating (though committee meetings are usually more of a show, beating up on those providing testimony, than actual information gathering). It's a name given to the same old scheme: cut costs by running fewer, longer trains (so fewer workers are needed), drive away inconvenient business (especially business that needs attention by railroad workers), raise rates on what can't easily move to other modes (which helps with driving away inconvenient business, and also helps profits), and pay off the stockholders (and the Board of Directors (and the C Suite (and especially the CEO))) handsomely. It's all about cuts, not about growth.

Eventually, even railroads that use PSR find that growth is necessary to maintain the business. At that point, the begin expanding service offerings and hiring a few more workers. CP and CN are at that point now, and some parts of Wall Street find that interesting. One wonders how long UP and CSX will take to get there, and whether they will discover that they cut so much that growth is now difficult? One wonders if the railroads now being beaten up by Wall Street (or which would be if Wall Street could) for not totally adopting the PSR religion (but still doing relevant parts of it), and growing traffic as well as profits, will end up being the winners? (Naming those railroads is left as an exercise for the reader.)