OPB is right as usual. The competition would probably reopen Tennessee Pass? And, isn't this a competitive free market system? Apparently not always.........

I've done some work on rail freight retention recently, and it is shocking to see the impacts of non-competitive monopoly railroad access or service on carload movements. Where there is effective competition, especially in the midwest, the carload volumes are much higher and more stable. A plethora of short lines to consolidate significant traffic volumes also appear to enable better carload service links to many more competitive Class I carriers.

Denial of access to competition, or the need to provide timely competitive service, has been hurting rail carload traffic on the West Coast, starting after the SP-UP merger. The Coast line is an excellent example of this loss of once significant volumes of local carload traffic.

This would appear to be a whole lot better topic about railroading, than useless venting and drivel on the dubiously ephemeral impacts of GE "high altitude" locomotives on our too often pathetic state of human relations in the world?

Isn't GE one of our few remaining successful industrial export giants able to help pay for all our imported Chinese made trains from Athearn this Christmas? None of us will go a week without buying a Chinese product these days, will we? That's why there is church on Sunday, to forgive us our tresspasses? And, don't we have Topix for venting and spouting off your non-railroad frustrations with a world that ain't always nice.

We still like trains here, even those high altitude adapted GE locomotives?