>Just in case someone wants to argue the point that trains having to pay their own capital costs for r.o.w., somehow tips the balance - think again.

It doesn't matter what sort of outfut has to raise the capital, a private corporation or a governmental agency. If the capital investments don't reasonably pay their way, the outfit eventually goes down the tubes. This is more or less what did in the former USSR, the most glaring example of State Capitalism which has ever existed.

Don't get me wrong, although I expect you already have, I really don't like busses, and personally I'd like to see the NWP electrify. In this day and age of "no more taxes", however, it won't come to pass.