another tangent - reregulation

There is some political noise to re-regulate railroads. Under ICC rules, rate protests were common, but under new STb rules it is a complicated process and I think just a few coal burning utilities have been successful after a long and painful process.

The current issue is primarily from grain farmers and the states that they have influence in as the BNSF and Soo Line (CP Rail) have been struggling to handle grain shipments. Farmers and politicians are under the impression that this is due to giving preference to oil traffic. It's actually the same old problem - farmers only want grain cars during harvest or when the market price is high, and they all want them NOW. The fact that it's dead of winter and rail velocity is only 2/3 to 1/2 and there is a bumper crop are not factors the farmers want to hear or believe. The merger mania and abandonments since deregulation have rationalized much of the rail network to the point there is little excess capacity or detour routes available.

This is also why the railroads have tried to get out of perishable traffic. Reefers are expensive and the demand for most fresh fruit and vegetable traffic is seasonal. Even worse was the livestock traffic which also required the maintenance of stockyards to rest and water the stock, so the railroads gladly gave the business to trucks.