Re: C&TS infrastructure has NOT badly deteriorated

Thanks for clarifying the situation. I've walked a number of miles of the line and - to my admittedly very inexperienced eye - thought things looked reasonably good. True, I've found a few soft spots where the ties were obviously working in the dirt, but those spots were very much the exception. And, most of the bad ties (split, rotting etc) were marked, I assumed, for replacement.
Things need to be done for sure, ties are expendable and rot no matter what you do to them, and eventually need replacement. And there is a lot of ballast that still needs to be spread. The $1.3 million won't go far enough, but it will certainly help.
Again, thanks for the very enlightening post.
Don