Questions on Network Rail and universal access

[ostlandr]

What do you folks from the UK think of the US taking over some critical rail infrastructure and creating universal access?

Here's the situation: In New York State in the USA we have a major east-west rail line, the former New York Central "Water Level Route." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Level_Route

The line is currently owned by CSX corporation. What was once a four-track high speed, high capacity line with the two center tracks super-elevated for high speed passenger trains is now a two track heavy-haul freight line. This is perfectly adequate for CSX' long haul intermodal trains. But it's shared by Amtrak passenger trains also- not very successfully. And CSX' bread and butter is unit trains- they don't like to be bothered with all that low-margin carload freight, so they're shedding as much of that business as they can, to the detriment of rail service in the state.

Given the current economic and political climate, it would be well-nigh impossible to (re)build a competing parallel route. There was one, briefly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Shore_Railroad
I figure US$200 million just for the trackwork needed to stitch it back together from existing short lines, not counting lawyers, bribes, and the inevitable environmental impact studies. And CSX is notorious as a "dog in the manger"- they don't want the carload freight business, but darned if they'll let anybody else have it. Look at a rail map of New York, and you see a pattern- certain pieces of railroads torn up, leaving stub-ended branches that can't compete with parallel CSX tracks. (Yes, this started long before CSX took over.) And there are "paper barriers" as well.

There is some talk of the State or Federal Government taking over this line, rebuilding it to its former capacity, and allowing universal access. Since a lot of you folks on this forum have some experience with this sort of thing, what do you think?

[EXTspotter]

The fact that the track is owned by different companies itself could make the whole project difficult. If it is their track, (in their opinion) why should the government tell them to rebuild bits of track themselves in order to increase competition against them and possibly hurt their business. As it stands the way the railways in the US are run will lead them to be protectionist, and getting the government to buy all the tracks would lead to uproar because it is so "socialist" and socialism sucks (what? sounds like the propoganda worked... at least on the right anyway). As it stands trying to force CSX to give access to other operators would lead to a massive legal battle, a large bill from the lawyers and possibly not even result in anything.

[Dave]

Do what the Germs have done. Better system than ours anyway.

[ostlandr]

The "bits and pieces" of the former West Shore Railroad (the competing line to CSX's Water Level Route) are owned by other companies than CSX. I was talking about a private venture to give CSX some much-needed competition.

As much as I hate to say it, taking railroad property off the tax rolls works pretty well. Instead of taxing the right-of-way, tax the income of the workers and shippers instead. There are rail-dependent businesses in some communities now that would have shut down if the government hadn't bought the rails and leased them to a private operator.

As far as taking over the line, my plan is this: CSX always complains about their property taxes on the line (and rightly so.) So the government just enters into negotiations with CSX about how much their property is actually worth. When their lawyers submit all the paperwork explaining why the line is worth so much less than the current tax assessment, the government says "Agreed!" - and hands them a check for that amount.

The fact that the track is owned by different companies itself could make the whole project difficult. If it is their track, (in their opinion) why should the government tell them to rebuild bits of track themselves in order to increase competition against them and possibly hurt their business. As it stands the way the railways in the US are run will lead them to be protectionist, and getting the government to buy all the tracks would lead to uproar because it is so "socialist" and socialism sucks (what? sounds like the propoganda worked... at least on the right anyway). As it stands trying to force CSX to give access to other operators would lead to a massive legal battle, a large bill from the lawyers and possibly not even result in anything.

[ostlandr]

Wow. . . having trouble getting my brain around this one. Sort of like General Motors over here since the bankruptcy and government takeover- technically a private for-profit company, but the government holds all the shares.
Looks like plans to sell off 25% of DB are on hold at present, unless you have some more recent news.

Do what the Germs have done. Better system than ours anyway.

[Kevo00]

For profit state owned companies are quite common in Europe.

In terms of the original problem, if wagonload traffic is so unprofitable that CSX don't want it, why should whoever rebuilds the West Shore Line want it? And does Amtrak have the resources to speed up its passenger trains once more?