Chapter 3

Rupert Falls

On our hour-long trip up the somewhat shoddy track, at a maximum of 30mph, Frank started in on his briefing of Ms. Roberts.

'Barbara, may I call you Barbara?' 'Of course, Mr. Frank. Lead on.'

'My railroad has taken over many of the tracks in this state, either by directed service or because the state had bought up many abandoned lines and was looking for someone to take them over and make them operative again. 'Directed service' is where the state or the Feds decide a rail line is too important to local commerce to lay fallow, so they tell a railroad to take them over, sort of like eminent domain. Often they provide subsidies for operation, but not always. Railroads are not like other forms of commercial transportation. We pay property tax, and maintain our lines out of our own budgets. Highways and airlines, on the contrary, get pretty good payments from the Feds or the state to pay for their right of way, upgrades, etc. Look at the FAA, and how much they spend on airports, traffic controllers and the like, to keep airplanes flying. We pay all those costs of travel navigation and maintenance of transportation corridors on our own. What we need is a better partnership with the Feds on those infrastructure costs. If we're asked to improve, for instance, passenger service in some areas, then the Feds need to step in to pay for at least a good portion of those costs. If we are forced to take over 'directed service' on a rail line that has 10mph speed restrictions because of track conditions and are required to upgrade to, say, a minimum of 25mph, which is a whole lot of bucks to do but we're expected to pay for it, do you see my point? And that gets us nowhere near the 50mph or 60mph needed to support decent freight or passenger service. Do you know it takes as much as four million dollars a mile to get railroads up to those standards from where we're being asked to start from? And we're being asked, and sometimes demanded, to do it. That's socialism, not capitalism. And railroads are a capitalism business. Have you ever read Ayn Rand, 'Atlas Shrugged?' It's a great novel about the struggle of trying to maintain a capitalist railroad network in what has become a socialist environment. Now I'm not a great fan of Rand, but I am I great fan of railroads, and I think she captured some of our biggest challenges in this book. Well worth reading. Though it's a long book. She seemed to take great pleasure in overwriting. Don't know if you'd have time in your current campaign to give it the attention due, but put it on your book list, wlll you?

Barbara paused, and then said, 'For you, Frank, and for my own edification, I will, that I promise.'

'That's all I can ask or expect of such a smart person, Barbara, and for that you have my thanks.

'Now there a number of businesses in Rupert Falls that we would like to provide rail service for, but we can't be time competitive with the current structure of the rail. We need upgrade assistance in getting these tracks up to competitive speeds with trucks. And, lest you need reminding, more trucks on the road damage the highways, which require greater and greater maintenance. Our Interstate system was mostly built in the 1950's and 1960's, and it's falling apart. The Feds built the system, but then turned over the maintenance to the states.

'These businesses need lower cost transportation to stay in business. And that means railroads. The trucking companies are driving them out of business with their surcharges, additional handling fees and the like. They know they've got these businesses by the balls, and they're squeezing hard, knowing they have no viable transportation options. We want to provide those, but we need help. Federal help, and some cooperation from the state. We need help getting the track structure upgraded. If we can get that, then my company can provide the services on a very reasonable transportation cost, because we won't be having to write up against that amortizing the track upgrade costs. You subsidize airports, roads, ports. Help us get on an even footing, and we can compete.'

Barbara, I could see, was compiling all this information in her very fertile mind and reshaping her presentation to the citizens (and press) of Rupert Falls. And then we pulled into the former station, now a deli and coffee shop, she shrugged her shoulders as she prepared to go out on the observation car and give her first 'whistlestop' speech. I, and I'm sure she was, were paused with bated breath. But she had to on with the show, even if it were opening night. Stage fright is totally understandable in these situations. But she had proven herself to be a campaign trooper, and I had all the confidence in the world in her. I hoped.