[reaganaut1]

Gosh, has anyone thought of building pipelines to transport oil? Less oil transported by rail would also mean fewer accidents that level cities such as Lac-Mégantic.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Is Buffet speculating in grain? He’d get a twofer!

[CaptainAmiigaf]

Gee whiz!!! Who’d have ever thought of transporting several millions of gallons of oil by PIPELINE? What a brilliant idea you have come up with, sir.
I understand most pipeline are UNDER the ground and there is much less chance of train wrecks. Amazing, isn’t it?
Seriously, is there anyone in charge that has a single ounce of working brains? The world wonders.

[Lockbox]

Gee no pipeline for oil or natural gas, Starve or Freeze Libs! Actions consequences! And as Ron White says, ‘you can’t fix stupid’!

[FoxInSocks]

Now, who is behind the railroads and blocking the pipeline? Follow the money . . .

[outofsalt]

I know! Build a pipeline to transport grain! /s

The trans-Alaska pipeline has been highly successful since it was completed. Planned in the early 60’s the firs oils was pumped in June 1977. We have become a country that no longer builds on success.

[DManA]

They’ve got a big one on the drawing board from ND to Superior Ws. The company is chomping at the bit to start but of course the bureaucrats are being bureaucrats.

[VanShuyten]

A backlog of 1300 cars is only about 10-20 trains of grain. Some coal trains regularly run 100 cars. The problem is loading/unloading and getting the empties back to the right place.

[factoryrat]

Should have built that pipeline. At the railroad that I work for, carloadings are through the roof, we have every locomotive we can get our hands on pulling freight, and the locomotive manufacturers (GE and Electromotive) can't build road locomotives fast enough, along with the car and tankcar builders. Covered hoppers are an especially hot commodity right now. Most of the ones I see are coming out of Canada, for their grain shipments, headed towards Portland and Vancouver, WA. for export shipments. Add to that the new initiative that the UP has launched. They're going after the line haul truckers with their new intermodal express service. Midwest to the west coast, in the same time, for a quarter of the price.

That's why I went to work for the railroad. Working for a company that has managed to stay alive for the last 150 years, and still keeps turning a profit, and paying a dividend, by sticking to “old school” business principles, is pretty hard to beat.

[CSM]

Atlas Shrugged gets less fictional every day....

[Redleg Duke]

This sounds like a chapter out of “Atlas Shrugged”!

[JRios1968]

If only there were other ways to move the oil...you know, like pipelines or other things...

[-YYZ-]

We seemed to have a similar problem in Canada’s grain belt last winter. The train companies (CN, CP) said that a lot of the backlog was due to issues caused by the unusually cold winter, but many suspected that they were also preferentially moving oil rather than grain. The Canadian government gave them their marching orders, with possible fines for encouragement, to get the grain moving. IIRC, the difficulty in moving grain was actually starting to hurt our reputation as an international supplier of grain, with some customers saying they would have to look elsewhere.

[DownInFlames]

There’s always trucking.

[Publius]

Atlas ping. In the book, it was soybeans, not oil, but the result is the same.

[griswold3]

Bulk Ag is my business. Give me a shot at it!

[dfwgator]

Gee if only there was a way to transport oil without needed a train.

[Rodamala]

They are welcome to find other means to transport their commodity. Unit CBR is hot and hazmat has good tarrifs. Shortline originators are benefitting tremendously.