Read the rest here:

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=97332&ran=216591

As much as I find rail to be an essential public conveyance and they've been political animals from the day they received federal land grants, through the creation of the ICC, the days when they were run by Vanderbilts and others, more recently when they were fighting state caboose laws, I really despise the idea that some poor shmuck with two kids and a dog making $80,000 combined with spouse is being "asked" to "contribute" to "essential" "public" "infrastructure". It should seem to me that the good citizens should obtain something for this "investment", such as an appropriate number of shares of stock.

Pennsylvania does the same thing.

Its hard to believe railroads were ever built and maintained by railroads with their own money.

There have been a number of studies conducted over the past 15 years that show there is a higher rate of return when public funds are directed toward rail freight projects in comparison to roadway improvement and expansion. Likewise, the railroad industry has long advocated for equitable policy treatment in order to be able to compete with trucks and airlines that use publicly owned and maintained infrastructure. I think that Perlman and Symes would be happy with this project -- imagine if such projects had been implemented 50 years ago when some railroads and economists first suggested them.

Tom Cornillie

Around here 80k a year, to kids, a dog and a spouse is considered doing well.
Typically this is the normal size family that complains about the number of trucks on the highway and demands a sloution from our state government. Generally, they reject, tolls, more lanes, and rail (in the name of having to wait at grade crossings).

Don't get me wrong, I hate the highway spending as worse. However two wrongs don't make a right.

Of course, highway construction will likely change dramatically if pilot projects now being run ever fulfill the theoretical promise-applying"peak load pricing" by charging a variable toll to vehicles entering a road based upon how crowded they are at the point and time of entry- this might allow less public funding of highways (first because we won't be paying for capacity that's only used from 7-9AM and 5-7PM and second, proxy funding in the form of fuel taxes, the situation might be more equitable for rail as road freight carriers bear more of the real cost imposed. Its been contemplated for decades, since queing theory's been around since WW2 but the limitation has always been applying enough computing power- which of course is still tracking Moore's law.

Then again, here in PA we are still paying a "temporary" tax on telephone services, enacted something like 90 years ago, so maybe I'm dreaming.

I find it ironic that a couple of years ago when the shortlines were seeking money to help them get to 286,000 pound capacity it was NS that said the railroads should not be taking government money. They definately helped kill the proposal. I guess they meant railroads other than NS should not be getting government money.

As for the railroads not having access to government money I will go along with that when there is no tax money being spent on highways, airports, rivers, and deep water ports. I see trainloads of military vehicles moving into and out of Fort Bragg, NC so I think we are as important to the defense of the country as any other form of transportation. Until such time as the other forms of transportation are no longer being subsidized I think my profession deserves as much consideration as any of the others. The railroads have long said take away the subsidies to the other modes of transportation and we will be glad to compete head to head. Do you really expect Roadway to repay the citizens of the United States with company stock?

John Bohon

Everyone seems to forget what happened in Wilmington, DE. NS wanted to use a swing bridge, but didn't want to spend a lot of money for it. So, the state of Delaware fixed the bridge with the requirement that everytime a freight train crossed the bridge, the railroad paid a toll. NS actually agreed to this. How it is working, I don't know. But this is one way to squash the folks who say to not use their tax dollars because we never get it back. Even Conrail paid some money back to the government - I know of no road project or airport project that has done anything like this.