>>1262892>Lastly, the railroads today are not profiting in the billions. The drop in coal use has hurt them significantly, and unless they see a transportation funding shift that stops favoring roadways I don't see them lasting another century.Disagree, Anon. The railroads have turned around massively since the 70s/80s. One of the biggest problems the Class Is have is that since they cut so much excess capacity back then, they're really capacity-constrained today now that business is back up. They're doing really well at sucking up the long-haul intermodal market. The main thing the Class Is suck at is short-haul intermodal, because it eats up track capacity, requires strict schedules. and isn't as profitable as long-haul.
I think profitable short-haul intermodal is possible, but it'd require the Class Is to make a lot of investments they're not comfortable making. They'd need terminals to allow fast loading and unloading of truck cargo, more tracks to allow higher capacity, more locomotives to run fast short trains, and better brakes to allow for shorter stopping distances. All these things exist, but they'd be expensive to implement on this scale, and no-one knows for sure if they'd be able be able to beat the intercity truck companies enough to make them worth it.
If truck companies ever start getting charged something close to the actual cost of the damage they do to highways, the economic situation might change. Until then, the Class Is are content to stick with their bread and butter: long-distance freight.
