I just read on another bulletin board that the Arizona & California Railroad has filed to abandon its Ripley District, that extends southward from Rice, through Blythe and into Ripley. Back in the 1980s, when the railroads were interested in cultivating freight business rather than running it off, the line hosted a TOFC ramp / piggy-packer at Blythe and long trains of flatcars carrying refrigerated truck trailers made their way to Cadiz where they were placed on hot intermodal trains for eastern markets. By convincing shippers to truck their produce the relatively short distance to Blythe, the ATSF was thus able to offer some effective competition to an Imperial Valley otherwise monopolized by Southern Pacific. They did the same thing at Calwa, CA and had shippers bring their trucks over from the Salinas Valley. When it comes to the transport of produce, have the railroads pretty much written off refrigerated truck trailers on flat cars as uneconomical? Or is it just too much trouble to run trains on fast schedules? About the only bright spot I see are those unit trains of jumbo refrigerated boxcars that Railex is promoting. Note that the railroads themselves can't seem to effectively promote that type of service and need an outside third party.
[www.railexusa.com]

It used to be that railroads would say, "If we could just get out of the passenger business, we could operate profitably." So Amtrak came along and took care of THAT problem. Later, they said, "If we could just abandon all of our branchlines, we could operate profitably." So the Staggers Rail Act came along and addressed THAT issue. Then they said, "If we could just lower our labor costs, we could operate profitably." So two-man crews and belt packs came along and addressed THAT issue.

Now that all of those problems have been solved, why are railroads, even shortlines like the Arizona & California, still abandoning markets and choosing not to pursue business?