What do you think of all this? Do you see the STB granting any of these concessions? NS in Dallas sure would be interesting. (NS trying something good for once holy shib.)

My goodness, never thought that I’d see two Canadian railroads fighting over 408 miles of rail across the state of Missouri. Looks like Kansas City is replacing Chicago as the North America’s rail hub.

I was just confused the whole time because UP was the Brownish Orange color and BNSF was yellow on the map, CP pls, my eyes.

I think they should be granted trackage rights....first off they let a Canadian company buy an American (USA) railroad effectively screwing them because of a law that barred the US railroads from buying it due to unfair competition...see the irony there? YES other US RR's should get rights!!

The city in Ontario across the river from Port Huron, Michigan that you keep referring to as "Serena" is actually Sarnia (SAR-NEE-UH). Please make a note of it!

IF CN gets the Springfield, IL line, they could spend the $250 million just within Springfield. Trains on that track rarely exceed 10 MPH, there is a bridge that would need to be upgraded. With 10 - 15 thousand foot trains at 10 MPH through town, that would cause problems for emergency services, and several bridges and/or underpasses would need to be built. KCS does use CN (old IC) line in Springfield, and then uses about 200 yards of Illinois & Midland (Genesee & Wyoming) to enter their yard, and sometimes goes north on I&M to interchange with UP. So there is a "connection" ... .

As someone that lives just a few blocks away from the KCS Springfield line I think it would be a great investment for CN, it would definitely help preserve competition in the Kansas City Freight Gateway that would otherwise be lost if CP is successful at acquiring KCS. Plus it would finally give CN access to the Kansas City market for new Intermodal traffic from Chicago & Eastern Canada.

they need to build rail lines all the way down to all the central american nations south of Mexico because none of those nations have rail networks and it would alleviate american ports by having central american goods arrive by train

I'm really enjoying this railway commentary series! A couple notes: it's Sarnia Ontario, not Sarina, and the music is a bit too loud/distracting. Looking forward to see this series develop!

The idea of CP traffic rights trains on the wabash between Detroit and Kansas City excites me. I live along that line and it would be nice to see some foreign trains and to bring the line back to life a little from what it used to be in the 2000s, I’m hoping it would bring 2-4 trains to the line

lol when you said "steal that traffic away from trucks." railroads are about giving it to trucks now with PSR. plus its an ecosystem. both trains and trucks are needed

I live right by the KCS line in Illinois the CN wanted to invest in as part of its intended Detroit-Kansas City corridor via Springfield, IL. I get a kick out of this news. To say the Springfield line is underused itself is an understatement. KCS currently uses the line to Jacksonville more than the line to Springfield as Jacksonville has a grain elevator with a loop that can handle 100+ car grain trains and a Reynold's plastic plant. The grain trains currently run as needed day and night and the Reynold's plant is served by a local train that runs typically Monday-Friday. Rarely would you see this local run on weekends. The Springfield line splits off the Jacksonville line at Murrayville, IL. Specifically, I live next to the Jacksonville line and while the Jacksonville line goes right by my house, I can still see the Springfield line from my house most of the year (eventually the corn grows too tall for me to see the trains during the Summer, but I can still hear them). Interestingly enough back in the days of the Gateway Western before the Santa Fe merged with Burlington Northern the Santa Fe had trackage rights over the Springfield line because of Gateway Western's connection to St. Louis which ATSF didn't have at the time. I remember seeing Santa Fe intermodal trains run down the Springfield line, mainly trailers. When the Santa Fe merged with Burlington Northern to form BNSF the former Santa Fe finally had a connection to St. Louis thanks to the former Burlington Northern, so they stopped sending trains down the Springfield line. A few years ago KCS was sending longer trains to Springfield on an almost daily basis to interchange traffic with NS, UP, CN, and a few regional lines (I remember a few years ago watching those 2 geeps dragging 100+ cars to Springfield the day after Christmas because there was apparently a backlog of traffic at Roodhouse). These days you could go days between seeing a train on the Springfield line and it's normally just a couple of cars and 2 geeps. I've even seen it with just the engines running light to Springfield. It's a sad sight, and it took such a drastic turn in just a few years. When they built the grain elevator at Jacksonville a few years back KCS went all out to upgrade the Jacksonville line with new continuous welded rail, new ties, clean ballast, and broken rail detectors (they look like signals) in order to get it up to 40mph standard (in years previous trains crawled by at around 15mph or so). They completely ignored any upgrades to the Springfield line. Today the Springfield line looks terrible. I don't remember the last time I saw a maintenance crew up there. If a train does travel over the Springfield line, it's at a snail's pace. You can get a view of the line on the route 267 overpass as it crosses the line: dirty ballast, old ties, and that rail probably meets the bare minimum requirement to even run a train on it at all. I'm quite shocked that this little run-down piece of track running between Murrayville and Springfield that barely sees trains these days and looks like it's nothing but slow orders would be so integral to CN's strategy and would have received the largest investment for upgrading. I'm equally shocked by CP's response that this same line is important to their own routing strategies and will see upwards of a 30% increase in traffic as a result of the CPKC merger. Whatever happens I'm just happy that there's a chance I could potentially see more trains go by my house. This whole thing is just neat for me because I get to watch it all unfold right by my house.

You are incorrect about the CN coming in and buying up lines like the Wisconsin Central and "making it work". On th WC, we absolutely interchanged with all of the same railroads. In FDL we had daily Chicago trains to CSX Barr Yard, UP Proviso, IC Markaham, Conrail, NS, 2 trains to the BRC, intermodal to Markham, CP, interchanges with E,J&E, WSOR, etc. Coal trains, ore trains, grain trains, sulfur trains, etc. The CN came in and cut traffic in half by rerouting, drastically increasing rates on customers they didn't want to serve and also flat out refusing service to other customers. Maintenance is not big on the CN either. The CN did nothing but run the WC in the ground. Edited for clarity.

i hope this proposal fall through

Well is about the money

the bnsf wants savanna to cliton so they can remove the need of a brige in rock island, how every the problem with this is the cp has rights over it as well as that is the best way to get to the nitro sub from the main line so i belive they put something in. if this does happen then they would need to take the IAIS interchange line witch is very steep, and cross that way after they can get trackage rights from the goverment across a goverment brige there.

Will there always be a ton of shortlines

Interesting subject matter, but I do wish you'd use your curser along the route you're talking about throughout. It would be easier to follow. And, I'm sorry, but you seem to quickly say "rayroard" half the time. Practice enunciating rail-road.

Make the CN refurbish the old Rock Island St. Louis subdivision!

Im surprised ns or bnsf didnt attempt to merge

you should separate all that silliness on your page with your logistics content and and more logistics news and analysis!