Edit: one problematic impact is drastically higher traffic along the single line joining the networks that runs through Dubuque, Iowa.
Having a nationwide network absolutely lets you compete with networks that are more regional "If you want to use our western routes you have to use us in the east too."
> larger network would make things more efficient for shippers
LOL
> goods can travel coast to coast without changing trains
They already can.
I'm not a railroad expert, but here's the exact quote from the article, which cites a consultancy:
>Going from coast to coast is a greater prize. Avoiding interchanges between networks would mean faster trains and fewer delays. According to Oliver Wyman, a consultancy, the share of intermodal goods in America that travel by rail on journeys longer than 1,500 miles increases from 39% to 65% when served by a direct line. Transcontinental railways would mean fewer lengthy stops in Chicago and may make shorter routes near the Mississippi river more profitable.
Maybe Oliver Wyman is on the payroll of UP/Norfolk and this isn't true, but I'd like to see something more reputable than a HN comment of 1-3 word refutations.
Additionally, it probably still wouldn't be possible for most origins and destinations from going coast to coast without interchange because will probably have to use shortline tracks at some point, like the Chicago Belt Railway.
Nobody is talking about taking boxes out of one car and putting them on another, but it seems pretty self-evident that the entire train itself would get broken up multiple times on a cross-country trip.
There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good, and reasonable people who think it would be bad, and perhaps we can discuss pros and cons without acting like asses?
So here is a map of who owns the railways so we can ascertain who would be affected by the merger.
https://stb.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap...
I think this is bad becasue it will kill CSX as their lines will be less used for cross country deliveries.
CSX already had ana anti-trust suite against Norfolk which was rejected during this administration.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/supreme-court-wont-hear-cs...
No there aren't, unless you interpret "good" as "good for extracting monopoly prices from the people". The US economy is overly monopolized as it is even without this buyout.
More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.
So according to you, I somehow stated that disagreement with me makes somebody unreasonable, and in support of that you provided... a fictional quote. Your strawman isn't simply unreasonable, it's aggressively dishonest.
> "and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take.
Now you offer hallucinations about "mustache-twirling villains"... Do you have something, anything, reasonable to say? Like address the topic? $85 Billion with a B? Did you forget about it?
Peaceful disagreement DOES NOT make an argument reasonable. Are you going to argue about that too?
> No there aren't
You did state that disagreement makes you unreasonable.
No, I didn't, and there's no such claim in the words you so selectively quoted. Outside of that, I used the specific facts of the case to show that it's unreasonable to call the merge good.
Why is $85B automatically bad? Is it just because it's a large sum of money?
I didn't say automatically, I referred to "my words above" - that kind of money, and the profits on top of it, can only come from monopoly pricing and it's a strong sign that the business in question is operating in near monopoly conditions.
In most of the world, railroads (and other roads) are government owned because it's hard to make that kind of business competitive plus there are natsec issues to address. The privatization trend is recent.
In many parts of the world, railroads were originally private enterprises. The US is perhaps exceptional here in that they never nationalized theirs.