urbanMSP

Memphis to Nashville >:)

Maybe this belongs in the Fantasy Maps thread, but someone asked about the best route to connect Minneapolis to Sioux Falls in this thread. IMO a route to Willmar, MN goes too far north before connecting with the BNSF line through SW MN. The Twin Cities & Western railroad angles southwest and connects to a wye in Hanley Falls at the BNSF. In fact, this wye was the first one in the world. I know this because I grew up in Hanley Falls, a tiny town of just 240 people in Yellow Medicine County.

Unfortunately, TC&W hasn't done a great job of maintaining the tracks and my understanding is that they generally use the tracks from Wood Lake to Hanley Falls for car storage.

There are some issues with class 1 with the biggest imo is the companies and investors being obsessed with operating ratios since I think a lot of them still think it's a dying industry.
There was an interesting episode of a podcast called well there's your problem that went into a 3 hour discussion on this that has some interesting information
https://youtu.be/jNkYNjADoZg

It's not ripping double track I would be worried about, it would be funding mainly going to the busiest lines where a lot of short lines getting the short end of the stick for maintenance.

We see it a bit with roads, the interstate, highways, and anything for suburbanites. If some side street is more pot holes or some bridge on a dirt road needs replacing, that's an issue for state or local bodies to manage not the US DoT.

It's not ripping double track I would be worried about, it would be funding mainly going to the busiest lines where a lot of short lines getting the short end of the stick for maintenance.

We see it a bit with roads, the interstate, highways, and anything for suburbanites. If some side street is more pot holes or some bridge on a dirt road needs replacing, that's an issue for state or local bodies to manage not the US DoT.

That's already the case. Most short line freight railroads don't have the revenue to build and maintain the quality of track that Class 1 railroads do on their mainlines.

Also Amtrak has been accused of focusing most of their resources on the Northeast Corridor. Whether that's true I don't know, but I wouldn't be too surprised since that's their bread and butter.