Or, Amtrak might actually benefit from less slow moving coal trains on the rail network. Frailey seems to dismiss the possibility of intermodal traffic picking up at east coast ports served by CSX/NS and PANAMAX ships. I would think that CSX and NS would gladly trade an equal volume of intermodal revenue for coal revenue. The high US dollar should increase imports and create more traffic between the east coast ports and inland distribution points. As coal declines CSX and NS can concentrate on moving intermodal from the ports and spend less money on maintaining those coal routes. I'm not pessimistic about the decline of coal.
Posted by PullmanCo (Member # 1138) on :
Coal, transformed into coke, is a requirement for high quality carbon steel. In addition, our chemists will find ways to usefully extract the carbon from coal so it can be used for all the other materials we make from hydrocarbons.
Just because we don't need coal as the producer of heat for the energy cycle doesn't mean its day is over.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
I suppose somewhere there is a more "hard core" Amtrak discussion site that is saying "Yeah, get rid of that coal so we can have more trains".