“The railroads really do not like making the milk run to fill up a train before it heads south or east. “They much prefer picking up 100 cars loaded with coal in WY and bring the entire train to the port of Tacoma. Same thing with tankers full of oil. The entire train goes from ND to the refinery without stopping. This is the type of business the BNSF, UP, CN, CPRS all love.”
I wonder if that was a singularly one-way decision by the railroads, just to increase profits without a negative-cost basis for doing so, and no other reason, or if it was a combination of increased costs for the smaller load-pickups/drop offs against growing competition from the trucking industry. You’d know better than I if that is off the mark.
Maybe, just another guess, the folks needing/liking the rail option at/near their facility, needed to become the owner operators of those shorter rail haul means (or a consortium of such related companies doing it together), and maybe doing so at no greater cost per unit than the rail freight outfits had been charging. At one point in the auto industry the automakers began buying up some of their suppliers, integrating them directly into their business line - it was cheaper to require Delco to make radios for GM cars than competing with other car makers willing to bid more for Delco equipment. Maybe the lumber industry in the 1980s needed to get into the short haul rail business themselves?? Maybe I am wrong.
The abandoning of rail spurs is solely based on ROI.
If it costs $60000 to bring a spur up to railroad current standards and they only receive $2000/month revenue from delivering to that spur they may abandon it. Especially when you consider the costs of operation.
This is the same reason why entire rail lines were abandoned in places like north central Idaho. The cost to rebuild old tressels/bridges/crossings was too much in comparison to the revenue generated by that 50 miles of track.
This was the case with the Camus Prairie railroad that went from Lewiston, ID up along the Clearwater River all the way to Orifino, ID. It served several sawmills in that area. The CMPR would pick up from about 5 different mills and bring the cars down to Lewiston, ID where they would transfer to the BNSF or UP. Two of the sawmills eventually went out of business.
The person who ended up buying the railroad purchased it for the actual rail(iron) scrap value. He continued to operate it for another five years or so. Until, so many bridges needed to be rebuilt that it was abandoned. I suppose eventually it will become a rail trail.